Jack London
I was born in San Francisco in 1876. At fifteen I was a man amongmen, and if I had a spare nickel I spent it on beer instead ofcandy, because I thought it was more manly to buy beer. Now, whenmy years are nearly doubled, I am out on a hunt for the boyhoodwhich I never had, and I am less serious than at any other time ofmy life. Guess I'll find that boyhood! Almost the first things Irealized were responsibilities. I have no recollection of beingtaught to read or write--I could do both at the age of five--but Iknow that my first school was in Alameda before I went out on aranch with my folks and as a ranch boy worked hard from my eighthyear.The second school were I tried to pick up a little learning was anirregular hit or miss affair at San Mateo. Each class sat in aseparate desk, but there were days when we did not sit at all, forthe master used to get drunk very often, and then one of the elderboys would thrash him. To even things up, the master would thenthrash the younger lads, so you can think what sort of school itwas. There was no one belonging to me, or associated with me in anyway, who had literary tastes or ideas, the nearest I can make to itis that my great-grandfather was a circuit writer, a Welshman, knownas "Priest" Jones in the backwoods, where his enthusiasm led him toscatter the Gospel.One of my earliest and strongest impressions was of the ignorance ofother people. I had read and absorbed Washington Irving's"Alhambra" before I was nine, but could never understand how it wasthat the other ranchers knew nothing about it. Later I concludedthat this ignorance was peculiar to the country, and felt that thosewho lived in cities would not be so dense. One day a man from thecity came to the ranch. He wore shiny shoes and a cloth coat, and Ifelt that here was a good chance for me to exchange thoughts with anenlightened mind. From the bricks of an old fallen chimney I hadbuilt an Alhambra of my own; towers, terraces, and all werecomplete, and chalk inscriptions marked the different sections.Here I led the city man and questioned him about "The Alhambra," buthe was as ignorant as the man on the ranch, and then I consoledmyself with the thought that there were only two clever people inthe world--Washington Irving and myself.My other reading-matter at that time consisted mainly of dimenovels, borrowed from the hired men, and newspapers in which theservants gloated over the adventures of poor but virtuous shop-girls.Through reading such stuff my mind was necessarily ridiculouslyconventional, but being very lonely I read everything that came myway, and was greatly impressed by Ouida's story "Signa," which Idevoured regularly for a couple of years. I never knew the finishuntil I grew up, for the closing chapters were missing from my copy,so I kept on dreaming with the hero, and, like him, unable to seeNemesis, at the end. My work on the ranch at one time was to watchthe bees, and as I sat under a tree from sunrise till late in theafternoon, waiting for the swarming, I had plenty of time to readand dream. Livermore Valley was very flat, and even the hillsaround were then to me devoid of interest, and the only incident tobreak in on my visions was when I gave the alarm of swarming, andthe ranch folks rushed out with pots, pans, and buckets of water. Ithink the opening line of "Signa" was "It was only a little lad,"yet he had dreams of becoming a great musician, and having allEurope at his feet. Well, I was only a little lad, too, but whycould not I become what "Signa" dreamed of being?Life on a Californian ranch was then to me the dullest possibleexistence, and every day I thought of going out beyond the sky-lineto see the world. Even then there were whispers, promptings; mymind inclined to things beautiful, although my environment wasunbeautiful. The hills and valleys around were eyesores and achingpits, and I never loved them till I left them.Before I was eleven I left the ranch and came to Oakland, where Ispent so much of my time in the Free Public Library, eagerly readingeverything that came to hand, that I developed the first stages ofSt. Vitus' dance from lack of exercise. Disillusions quicklyfollowed, as I learned more of the world. At this time I made myliving as a newsboy, selling papers in the streets; and from then onuntil I was sixteen I had a thousand and one different occupations--work and school, school and work--and so it ran.* * *Then the adventure-lust was strong within me, and I left home. Ididn't run, I just left--went out in the bay, and joined the oysterpirates. The days of the oyster pirates are now past, and if I hadgot my dues for piracy, I would have been given five hundred yearsin prison. Later, I shipped as a sailor on a schooner, and alsotook a turn at salmon fishing. Oddly enough, my next occupation wason a fish-patrol, where I was entrusted with the arrest of anyviolators of the fishing laws. Numbers of lawless Chinese, Greeks,and Italians were at that time engaged in illegal fishing, and manya patrolman paid his life for his interference. My only weapon onduty was a steel table-fork, but I felt fearless and a man when Iclimbed over the side of a boat to arrest some marauder.Subsequently I shipped before the mast and sailed for the Japanesecoast on a seal-hunting expedition, later going to Behring Sea.After sealing for seven months I came back to California and tookodd jobs at coal shovelling and longshoring and also in a jutefactory, where I worked from six in the morning until seven atnight. I had planned to join the same lot for another sealing tripthe following year, but somehow I missed them. They sailed away onthe Mary Thomas, which was lost with all hands.In my fitful school-days I had written the usual compositions, whichhad been praised in the usual way, and while working in the jutemills I still made an occasional try. The factory occupied thirteenhours of my day, and being young and husky, I wanted a little timefor myself, so there was little left for composition. The SanFrancisco Call offered a prize for a descriptive article. My motherurged me to try for it, and I did, taking for my subject "Typhoonoff the Coast of Japan." Very tired and sleepy, knowing I had to beup at half-past five, I began the article at midnight and workedstraight on until I had written two thousand words, the limit of thearticle, but with my idea only half worked out. The next night,under the same conditions, I continued, adding another two thousandwords before I finished, and then the third night I spent in cuttingout the excess, so as to bring the article within the conditions ofthe contest. The first prize came to me, and the second and thirdwent to students of the Stanford and Berkeley Universities.My success in the San Francisco Call competition seriously turned mythoughts to writing, but my blood was still too hot for a settledroutine, so I practically deferred literature, beyond writing alittle gush for the Call, which that journal promptly rejected.I tramped all through the United States, from California to Boston,and up and down, returning to the Pacific coast by way of Canada,where I got into jail and served a term for vagrancy, and the wholetramping experience made me become a Socialist. Previously I hadbeen impressed by the dignity of labour, and, without having readCarlyle or Kipling, I had formulated a gospel of work which puttheirs in the shade. Work was everything. It was sanctificationand salvation. The pride I took in a hard day's work well donewould be inconceivable to you. I was as faithful a wage-slave asever a capitalist exploited. In short, my joyous individualism wasdominated by the orthodox bourgeois ethics. I had fought my wayfrom the open west, where men bucked big and the job hunted the man,to the congested labour centres of the eastern states, where menwere small potatoes and hunted the job for all they were worth, andI found myself looking upon life from a new and totally differentangle. I saw the workers in the shambles at the bottom of theSocial Pit. I swore I would never again do a hard day's work withmy body except where absolutely compelled to, and I have been busyever since running away from hard bodily labour.In my nineteenth year I returned to Oakland and started at the HighSchool, which ran the usual school magazine. This publication was aweekly--no, I guess a monthly--one, and I wrote stories for it, verylittle imaginary, just recitals of my sea and tramping experiences.I remained there a year, doing janitor work as a means oflivelihood, and leaving eventually because the strain was more thanI could bear. At this time my socialistic utterances had attractedconsiderable attention, and I was known as the "Boy Socialist," adistinction that brought about my arrest for street-talking. Afterleaving the High School, in three months cramming by myself, I tookthe three years' work for that time and entered the University ofCalifornia. I hated to give up the hope of a University educationand worked in a laundry and with my pen to help me keep on. Thiswas the only time I worked because I loved it, but the task was toomuch, and when half-way through my Freshman year I had to quit.I worked away ironing shirts and other things in the laundry, andwrote in all my spare time. I tried to keep on at both, but oftenfell asleep with the pen in my hand. Then I left the laundry andwrote all the time, and lived and dreamed again. After threemonths' trial I gave up writing, having decided that I was afailure, and left for the Klondike to prospect for gold. At the endof the year, owing to the outbreak of scurvy, I was compelled tocome out, and on the homeward journey of 1,900 miles in an open boatmade the only notes of the trip. It was in the Klondike I foundmyself. There nobody talks. Everybody thinks. You get your trueperspective. I got mine.While I was in the Klondike my father died, and the burden of thefamily fell on my shoulders. Times were bad in California, and Icould get no work. While trying for it I wrote "Down the River,"which was rejected. During the wait for this rejection I wrote atwenty-thousand word serial for a news company, which was alsorejected. Pending each rejection I still kept on writing freshstuff. I did not know what an editor looked like. I did not know asoul who had ever published anything. Finally a story was acceptedby a Californian magazine, for which I received five dollars. Soonafterwards "The Black Cat" offered me forty dollars for a story.Then things took a turn, and I shall probably not have to shovelcoal for a living for some time to come, although I have done it,and could do it again.My first book was published in 1900. I could have made a good dealat newspaper work; but I had sufficient sense to refuse to be aslave to that man-killing machine, for such I held a newspaper to beto a young man in his forming period. Not until I was well on myfeet as a magazine-writer did I do much work for newspapers. I am abeliever in regular work, and never wait for an inspiration.Temperamentally I am not only careless and irregular, butmelancholy; still I have fought both down. The discipline I had asa sailor had full effect on me. Perhaps my old sea days are alsoresponsible for the regularity and limitations of my sleep. Fiveand a half hours is the precise average I allow myself, and nocircumstance has yet arisen in my life that could keep me awake whenthe time comes to "turn in."I am very fond of sport, and delight in boxing, fencing, swimming,riding, yachting, and even kite-flying. Although primarily of thecity, I like to be near it rather than in it. The country, though,is the best, the only natural life. In my grown-up years thewriters who have influenced me most are Karl Marx in a particular,and Spencer in a general, way. In the days of my barren boyhood, ifI had had a chance, I would have gone in for music; now, in what aremore genuinely the days of my youth, if I had a million or two Iwould devote myself to writing poetry and pamphlets. I think thebest work I have done is in the "League of the Old Men," and partsof "The Kempton-Wace Letters." Other people don't like the former.They prefer brighter and more cheerful things. Perhaps I shall feellike that, too, when the days of my youth are behind me.
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