Many years later, after I had written articles and books, I received a
letter from the gentleman who had charge of the Fine Arts Hall. He
proved to be the Professor of English Literature in the University of
Wisconsin at this Fair time, and long afterward he sent me clippings
of reports of his lectures. He had a lecture on me, discussing style,
etcetera, and telling how well he remembered my arrival at the Hall in
my shirt-sleeves with those mechanical wonders on my shoulder, and so
forth, and so forth. These inventions, though of little importance,
opened all doors for me and made marks that have lasted many years,
simply, I suppose, because they were original and promising.
I was looking around in the mean time to find out where I should go to
seek my fortune. An inventor at the Fair, by the name of Wiard, was
exhibiting an iceboat he had invented to run on the upper Mississippi
from Prairie du Chien to St. Paul during the winter months, explaining
how useful it would be thus to make a highway of the river while it
was closed to ordinary navigation by ice.
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