to have lost much of its former
glow, and my pen much of its power; I, however, toiled on, but at
midnight had only added seven pages to my history of Joseph Sell.

On the fourth day the sun shone brightly--I arose, and, having
breakfasted as usual, I fell to work. My brain was this day wonderfully
prolific, and my pen never before or since glided so rapidly over the
paper; towards night I began to feel strangely about the back part of my
head, and my whole system was extraordinarily affected. I likewise
occasionally saw double--a tempter now seemed to be at work within me.

"You had better leave off now for a short space," said the tempter, "and
go out and drink a pint of beer; you have still one shilling left--if you
go on at this rate, you will go mad--go out and spend sixpence, you can
afford it, more than half your work is done." I was about to obey the
suggestion of the tempter, when the idea struck me that, if I did not
complete the work whilst the fit was on me, I should never complete it;
so I held on. I am almost afraid to state how many pages I wrote that
day of the "Life of Joseph Sell."

From this time I proceeded in a somewhat more leisurely manner; but, as I
drew nearer and nearer to the completion of my task, dreadful fears and
despondencies came over me--It will be too late, thought I; by the time I
have finished the work, the bookseller will have been supplied with a
tale or a novel. Is it probable that, in a town like this, where talent
is so abundant--hungry talent too, a bookseller can advertise for a tale
or a novel, without being supplied with half a dozen in twenty-four
hours? I may as well fling down my pen--I am writing to no purpose. And
these thoughts came over my mind so often, that at last, in utter
despair, I flung down the pen. Whereupon the tempter within me
said--"And, now you have flung down the pen, you may as well fling
yourself out of the window; what remains for you to do?" Why to take it
up again, thought I to myself, for I did not like the latter suggestion
at all--and then forthwith I resumed the pen, and wrote with greater
vigour than before, from about six o'clock in the evening until I could
hardly see, when I rested for a while, when the tempter within me again
said, or appeared to say--"All you have been writing is stuff, it will
never do--a drug--a mere drug;" and methought these last words were
uttered in the gruff tones of the big publisher. "A thing merely to