his little circumstance, owing
to the fact that I never _worked_ harder in my life at anything than
I did upon those little books; for I had, madly enough, contracted to
supply four within a year.

We had no vacations in those days; I knew nothing of hills or shore;
but "spoke straight on" through the terrible Andover weather. Our July
and August thermometers used to stand up hard at over ninety degrees,
day and night, for nearly a week at a time. The large white mansion
was as comfortable as ceiled walls and back plaster could be in that
furnace; but my own small room, on the sunny side of the house, was
heated seven times hotter than endurance. Sometimes I got over an open
register in a lower room, and wrote in the faint puffs of damp air
that played with my misery. Sometimes I sat in the cellar itself; but
it was rather dark, and one cherished a consciousness of mice. In the
orchard, or the grove, one's brains fricasseed quickly; in fact, all
out-of-doors was a scene of bottomless torment worthy of a theology
older and severer than Andover's.

When the last chapter of the last book was done, it occurred to me to
wonder whether I might ever be able to afford to get for a week or two
where the thermometer went below ninety degrees in summer. But
this was a wild and baseless dream, whose irrationality I quickly
recognized. For such books as those into which I had been coining a
year of my young strength and heart, I received the sum of one hundred
dollars apiece. The "Gypsy" publisher was more munificent. He offered
one hundred and fifty; a price which I accepted with incredible
gratitude.

I mention these figures distinctly, with the cold-blooded view of
dimming the rosy dreams of those young ladies and gentlemen with whom,
if I may judge by their letters, our country seems to be brimming
over.

"Will you read my poem?" "Won't you criticize my manuscript?" "I would
like to forward my novel for your perusal." "I have sent you the copy
of a rejected article of mine, on which I venture to ask--," etc.,
etc. "I have been told that all I need is Influence." "My friends
think my book shows genius; but I have no Influence." "Will it trouble
you too much to get this published for me?"

"Your Influence--" and so on, and so on, run the piteous appeals
which every successful author receives from the great unknown world of
discouraged and perplexed young people who are mistaking the stir of
youth or vanity, or the _ennui_ o