racular sentence from one of my most popular papers. After a while
my replies degenerated to "Sincerely, Your Friend, Dionysius Green," and
finally, (daily blessings come at last to be disregarded,) no
application was favored, which did not enclose a postage-stamp. When
some school-boy requested an autograph, "accompanied with a sentiment,"
and forwarded slips of paper on behalf of "two other boys," I sometimes
lost my patience, and left the letters unanswered for a month at a
time. There was a man in Tennessee, just before the war, who had a
printed circular, with a blank for the author's name; and I know of one
author who replied to him with a printed note, and a printed address on
the envelope, not a word of manuscript about it!

Next in frequency are the applications for private literary
contributions,--such as epithalamia, obituaries, addresses for lovers,
and the like. One mourning father wished me to write an article about
the death of his little girl, aged four months, assuring me that "her
intellect was the astonishment of all who knew her." A young lady wished
for something that would "overwhelm with remorse the heart of a
gentleman who had broken off an engagement without any cause." A young
gentleman, about to graduate, offered five dollars for an oration on
"The Past and Probable Future History of the Human Race," long enough to
occupy twenty minutes in speaking, and "to be made very fine and
flowery." (I had a mind to punish this youth by complying with his
request, to the very letter!) It is difficult to say what people won't
write about, when they write to a Distinguished Character.

There is a third class of correspondents, whose requests used to
astonish me profoundly, until I surmised that their object was to
procure an autograph in a roundabout way. One wants to know who is the
publisher of your book; one, whether you can give the post-office
address of Gordon Cumming or Thomas Carlyle; one, which is the best
Latin Grammar; one, whether you know the author of that exquisite poem,
"The Isle of Tears"; and one, perhaps, whether Fanny Forrester was the
grandmother of Fanny Fern. And when you consider that what letters I get
are not a tithe of what older and more widely known authors receive, you
may form some idea of the immense number of persons engaged in this sort
of correspondence.

But I have not yet come to the worst. So long as you live at home,
whether it's in the city or country, (the city wo