o it is now: the phrase of 'light literature' as applied to
fiction having once been invented, has stuck, with a vengeance, to those
who profess it.

Yet to 'make the thing that is not as the thing that is' is not (though
it may seem to be the same thing) so easy as lying.

Among a host of letters received in connection with an article published
in the _Nineteenth Century_, entitled 'The Literary Calling and its
Future,' and which testify in a remarkable manner to the pressing need
(therein alluded to) of some remunerative vocation among the so-called
educated classes, there are many which are obviously written under the
impression that Dogberry's view of writing coming 'by nature' is
especially true of the writing of fiction. Because I ventured to hint
that the study of Greek was not essential to the calling of a
story-teller, or of a contributor to the periodicals, or even of a
journalist, these gentlemen seem to jump to the conclusion that the less
they know of anything the better. Nay, some of them, discarding all
theories (in the fashion that Mr. Carlyle's heroes are wont to discard
all formulas), proceed to the practical with quite an indecent rapidity;
they treat my modest hints for their instruction as so much verbiage,
and myself as a mere convenient channel for the publication of their
lucubrations. 'You talk of a genuine literary talent being always
appreciated by editors,' they write (if not in so many words by
implication); 'well, here is an admirable specimen of it (enclosed), and
if your remarks are worth a farthing you will get it published for us,
somewhere or another, _instanter_, and hand us over the cheque for it.
Nor are even these the most unreasonable of my correspondents; for a
few, with many acknowledgments for my kindness in having provided a
lucrative profession for them, announce their intention of throwing up
their present less congenial callings, and coming up to London (one very
literally from the Land's End) to live upon it, or, that failing (as
there is considerable reason to expect it will), upon _me_.

With some of these correspondents, however, it is impossible
(independent of their needs) not to feel an earnest sympathy; they have
evidently not only aspirations, but considerable mental gifts, though
these have unhappily been cultivated to such little purpose for the
object they have in view that they might almost as well have been left
untilled. In spite of what I ventured to urge