though, when all hands were lost. It was a Danish ship that
came running down one stormy night, and run ashore there before
she could make the light. We saw her flash her flare-up lights,
and made ready to help her, but before we could get up she went to
pieces, and what is most singular, never since has a body been seen
from the wreck. Ah, sir, it's a bad spot. Often between Saturday
and Monday you'll see three fine ships all stranded together on this
beach. When there's a big wreck like the _Northfleet_ over there,
everybody talks about it, and all the world knows full particulars.
But there's many and many a shipwreck here the newspapers never
notice, and hundreds of ships get on, and with luck get off, without
a word being said anywhere."

"There's mother signallin' the heggs and bakin is done," said
Peggotty, looking back at the cabin, where a white apron waved out
of one of the port-holes that served for window.

So we turned and left this haunted spot, where, with the ebbing
tide, twenty-three wrecks, one after the other, thrust forth a
rugged rib or a jagged spar to remind the passer-by of a tragedy.

CHAPTER VI.

TO THOSE ABOUT TO BECOME JOURNALISTS.

AN OPEN LETTER.

My dear young friends,__
I suppose no one not prominently engaged in journalism knows how
widely spread is the human conviction that, failing all else, any
one can "write for the papers," making a lucrative living on easy
terms, amid agreeable circumstances. I have often wondered how
Dickens, familiar as he was with this frailty, did not make use of
it in the closing epoch of Micawber's life before he quitted
England. Knowing what he did, as letters coming to light at this
day testify, it would seem to be the most natural thing in the
world that finally, nothing else having turned up, it should occur
to Dickens that Mr. Micawber would join the Press--probably as
editor, certainly on the editorial staff, possibly as dramatic
critic, a position which involves a free run of the theatres and a
more than nodding acquaintance with the dramatic stars of the day.

Perhaps Dickens avoided this episode because it was too literally
near the truth in the life of the person who, all unconsciously,
stood as the lay figure of David Copperfield's incomparable friend.
It is, I believe, not generally known that Charles Dickens's father
did in his last desolate days become a member of the Press. When
Dickens was made editor of the Daily News, he thoug