e be
wealthy and willing to pay for that kind of delight, is not, in all
instances, called on to write, though there are, it is said, who, their
spirits to cheer, slip in a new title-page three times a year, and in
this way snuff up an imaginary savor of that sweetest of dishes, the
popular favor,--much as if a starved painter should fall to and treat
the Ugolino inside to a picture of meat.

You remember (if not, pray turn, backward and look) that, in writing the
preface which ushered my book, I treated you, excellent Public, not
merely with a cool disregard, but downright cavalierly. Now I would not
take back the least thing I then said, though I thereby could butter
both sides of my bread, for I never could see that an author owed aught
to the people he solaced, diverted, or taught; and, as for mere fame, I
have long ago learned that the persons by whom it is finally earned are
those with whom _your_ verdict weighed not a pin, unsustained by the
higher court sitting within.

But I wander from what I intended to say,--that you have, namely, shown
such a liberal way of thinking, and so much aesthetic perception of
anonymous worth in the handsome reception you gave to my book, spite of
some private piques (having bought the first thousand in barely two
weeks), that I think, past a doubt, if you measured the phiz of yours
most devotedly, Wonderful Quiz, you would find that its vertical section
was shorter, by an inch and two tenths, or 'twixt that and a quarter.

You have watched a child playing--in those wondrous years when belief is
not bound to the eyes and the ears, and the vision divine is so clear
and unmarred, that each baker of pies in the dirt is a bard? Give a
knife and a shingle, he fits out a fleet, and, on that little mud-puddle
over the street, his fancy, in purest good faith, will make sail round
the globe with a puff of his breath for a gale, will visit, in barely
ten minutes, all climes, and do the Columbus-feat hundreds of times. Or,
suppose the young poet fresh stored with delights from that Bible of
childhood, the Arabian Nights, he will turn to a crony and cry, 'Jack,
let's play that I am a Genius!' Jacky straightway makes Aladdin's lamp
out of a stone, and, for hours, they enjoy each his own supernatural
powers. This is all very pretty and pleasant, but then suppose our two
urchins, have grown into men, and both have turned authors,--one says to
his brother, 'Let's play we're the American somethin