ession of what might be called a fair literary
practice. My articles, grave, gay, practical, or fanciful, had come
to be considered with a favor by the editors of the various
periodicals for which I wrote, on which I found in time I could rely
with a very comfortable certainty. My productions created no
enthusiasm in the reading public; they gave me no great reputation
or very valuable pecuniary return; but they were always accepted,
and my receipts from them, at the time to which I have referred,
were as regular and reliable as a salary, and quite sufficient to
give me more than a comfortable support.

It was at this time I married. I had been engaged for more than a
year, but had not been willing to assume the support of a wife until
I felt that my pecuniary position was so assured that I could do so
with full satisfaction to my own conscience. There was now no doubt
in regard to this position, either in my mind or in that of my wife.
I worked with great steadiness and regularity; I knew exactly where
to place the productions of my pen, and could calculate, with a fair
degree of accuracy, the sums I should receive for them. We were by
no means rich; but we had enough, and were thoroughly satisfied and
content.

Those of my readers who are married will have no difficulty in
remembering the peculiar ecstasy of the first weeks of their wedded
life. It is then that the flowers of this world bloom brightest;
that its sun is the most genial; that its clouds are the scarcest;
that its fruit is the most delicious; that the air is the most
balmy; that its cigars are of the highest flavor; that the warmth
and radiance of early matrimonial felicity so rarefies the
intellectual atmosphere that the soul mounts higher, and enjoys a
wider prospect, than ever before.

These experiences were mine. The plain claret of my mind was changed
to sparkling champagne, and at the very height of its effervescence
I wrote a story. The happy thought that then struck me for a tale
was of a very peculiar character; and it interested me so much that
I went to work at it with great delight and enthusiasm, and finished
it in a comparatively short time. The title of the story was "His
Wife's Deceased Sister"; and when I read it to Hypatia she was
delighted with it, and at times was so affected by its pathos that
her uncontrollable emotion caused a sympathetic dimness in my eyes,
which prevented my seeing the words I had written. When the reading
w