The World of Chance by William Dean Howells

Ray put his manuscript back into its covering, and took it under his / arm. He meant to make a thorough trial of the publishers, and not to be / discouraged by his failures as long as a publisher was left untried. He / knew from his experience with the magazine editors that it would be a / slow affair, and he must have patience. Some of the publishers, even if / they did not look at his story, would keep it for days or weeks with the / intention or the appearance of reading it, and if they did read it they / would of course want time for it. He expected this, and he calculated / that it might very well take his manuscript six months to go the rounds / of all the houses in New York. Yet he meant, if he could, to get it / through sooner, and he was going to use his journalistic connection to / make interest for it. He would have given everything but honor to have / it known that he had written some things for _Harper's_ and the / _Century_; he did not wish, or he said to himself and stood to it that / he did not wish, any favor shown his novel because he had written those / things. At the same time he was willing the fact that he was the / correspondent of the Midland _Echo_ should help him to a prompt / examination of his manuscript if it could; and he meant to let it be / known that he was a journalist before he let it be known that he was an / author.

He formulated some phrases introducing himself in his newspaper / character, as he walked up Broadway with his manuscript held tight under / his arm, and with that lifting and glowing of the heart which a young / man cannot help feeling if he walks up Broadway on a bright October / morning. The sun was gay on the senseless facades of the edifices, / littered with signs of the traffic within, and hung with effigies and / emblems of every conceit and color, from the cornice to the threshold, / where the show-cases crowded the passengers toward the curbstones, and / to the cellarways that overflowed the sidewalks with their wares. The / frantic struggle and jumble of these appeals to curiosity and interest / jarred themselves to an effect of kaleidoscopic harmony, just as the / multitudinous noises of the hoofs and wheels and feet and tongues broke / and bruised themselves to one roar on the ear; and the adventurer among / them found no offence in their confusion. He had his stake, too, in the / tremendous game that all were playing, some fair and some foul, and / shrieking out their bets in these strident notes; and he believed so / much he should win that he was ready to take the chances of losing. From / the stainless blue sky overhead the morning sun glared down on the / thronged and noisy street, and brought out all its details with keen / distinctness; but Ray did not feel its anarchy. The irregularity of the / buildings, high and low, as if they were parts of a wall wantonly / hacked and notched, here more and here less, was of the same moral / effect to him as the beautiful spire of Grace Church thrilling / heavenward like a hymn.

He went along, wondering if he should happen to meet either of those / young women whom he had befriended the evening before. He had heard that / you were sure to meet somebody you knew whenever you stepped out on / Broadway, and he figured meeting them, in fancy. He had decided to put / them into his story of New York life, and he tried to imagine the / character he should assign them, or rather one of them; the one who had / given the old darkey a quarter out of his dollar. He did not quite know / what to do with the child; something could be made of the child if it / were older, but a mere baby like that would be difficult to manage in / such a story as Ray meant to write. He wondered if it would do to have / her deserted by her husband, and have the hero, a young literary / adventurer, not at all like himself, fall in love with her, and then / have them both die when the husband, a worthless, drunken brute, came / back in time to prevent their marriage. Such a scheme would give scope / for great suffering; Ray imagined a scene of renunciation between the / lovers, who refused each other even a last kiss; and he felt a lump rise / in his throat. It could be made very powerful.

He evolved a character of reckless generosity for her from her / beneficence to the old negro in the ferry-boat. Under that still, almost / cold exterior, he made her conceal a nature of passionate impulse, / because the story required a nature of that sort. He did not know / whether to have the husband finally die, and the lovers marry, or / whether to have the lovers killed in an accident. It would be more / powerful to have them killed; it would be so conventional and expected / to have them happily married; but he knew the reader liked a novel that / ended well. It would be at once powerful and popular to have them elope / together. Perhaps the best thing he could do would be to have them / elope; there was a fascination in the guilty thought; he could make such / a _dénoument_ very attractive; but upon the whole he felt that he must / not, for very much the same reason that he must not himself run off with / his neighbor's wife.