My Life

My Life by Josiah Flynt, author of “Tramping with Tramps,” “The World of Graft,” etc., with an Introduction by Arthur Symons; Illustrated

CONTENTS
Illustration: From a photograph taken in 1894
Illustration: Signature
Dedication
Introduction
Foreword
Chapter 1. Earliest Reminiscences
Chapter 2. Youthful Days at Evanston
Illustration: The Boy--Josiah Flynt--at the Age of Thirteen
Chapter 3. Rest Cottage
Chapter 4. Early College Days
Chapter 5. My First Imprisonment
Chapter 6. In a Reform School
Chapter 7. Early Tramping Experiences
Illustration: Oliver Atherton Willard. Josiah Flynt’s Father.
Chapter 8. My Voyage to Europe
Chapter 9. Unter Den Linden
Chapter 10. Berlin University
Chapter 11. Wanderings in Germany
Illustration: Madam Willard. Josiah Flynt’s Grandmother
Chapter 12. A Visit to London
Chapter 13. The Bloomsbury Guards
Chapter 14. Some London Acquaintances
Chapter 15. Two Tramping Experiences
Chapter 16. Switzerland and Italy
Chapter 17. A Visit to Tolstoy
Chapter 18. Some Anecdotes of Tolstoy
Chapter 19. I Meet General Kuropatkin
Illustration: Frances E. Willard. Maternal Aunt of Josiah Flynt
Chapter 20. In St. Petersburg
Chapter 21. I Return to America
Chapter 22. New York Again
Chapter 23. Railroad Experiences
Chapter 24. Trying to Live by My Pen
Chapter 25. With the Powers that Prey
Illustration: From photograph taken in St. Petersburg, Josiah Flynt, in His “Garb of the Road,” while Tramping in Russia
Illustration: Signature
FOOTNOTES:
Chapter 26. Honor Among Thieves So Called
FOOTNOTES:


Foreword

This book explains itself in most ways, I hope, and a prefatory portico almost seems superfluous. In general, such addenda are distasteful to me; they look like an apology for what the author has to offer later on. No portico would be attached to the edifice I have now constructed were it not that there are two points I want to make clear and have failed to do so sufficiently to my satisfaction in the narrative proper.

First, it is fair to state at the outset that an autobiography coming from a man under forty is, to say the least, an unconventional performance which requires some explanation. I believe it was no less a genius than Goethe, however, who hazarded the remark that what a man is going to do that’s worth while he does before thirty. Goethe’s own life gives the lie to the statement, but there is a kernel of truth in its suggestiveness. In my case there happens to be much more than a mere kernel of truth in the remark. What I am going to do as a passionate explorer of Die Ferne--the ever-disappearing Beyond--has been done for all time, so far as the Under World is concerned. The game is over and the dealer retires. My dead Self I herewith put aside, and begin afresh with a new world. The old Self died hard. I can hear its bones rattling yet. But there came a time when it had to go, and now that I know that it is really and truly gone, that to-morrow morning, for instance, to find peace and contentment for the day it will not be necessary for me to take up my staff and go nervously through the same antics and searchings as of old, a sweet satisfaction steals over me and I am glad to be alive. This book puts a finish for the present, at any rate, on all that I have heretofore written about the Under World, and sums up what I won and lost during my wanderings.

The second point to be cleared up I will put interrogatively--Was it worth while, after living the life, finishing with it, and passing on to pastures new and green, to tell the story? Benvenuto Cellini, that cheerful romancer, declares that a man, on reaching forty, if he has done anything of value and importance, is justified in putting his exploits down in writing, that he is morally bound to do so indeed if he would hold up his head among his fellows. For nearly forty years I chased the Beyond--that misty and slippery sorceress, ever beckoning onward to the wanderer, yet never satisfying, never showing herself in her true deceitful colors, until after long years of acquaintance. The chase is made by many travelers of the Upper World, hypnotized as I was, but by me perforce in that strange Under World from which so many explorers never return. This, it seems to me, is worth telling about. I have made the story as simple and direct as possible. May he who reads it, if perchance the sorceress is tempting him, too, hold fast to a better ideal, although his life be narrow and his task to fulfill a tiresome routine.