nance, and ponderous or
lamentable voice, you make your appearance with a smile and a joke,
punch the reader playfully in the ribs, and say, as it were, "Ha! ha!
I've a good thing to tell you!" Although I have many imitators, some of
whom have attained an excellence in the art which may be considered
classic, yet I may fairly claim to have originated this branch of
literature, and, while it retains its present unbounded popularity, my
name cannot wholly perish.

Nevertheless, greatness has its drawbacks. I appeal to all distinguished
authors, from Tupper to Weenie Willows, to confirm the truth of this
assertion. I have sometimes, especially of late, doubted seriously
whether it is a good thing to be distinguished. Alas! my dear young
gentleman and lady, whose albums would be so dismally incomplete without
my autograph ("accompanied with a sentiment"), would that you could
taste the bitter with the sweet,--the honey and aloes of an American
author's life! At first, it is exceedingly pleasant. You are like a
newly-hatched chicken, or a pup at the end of his nine-days' blindness.
You are petted, and stroked, and called sweet names, and fed with
dainties, and carried in the arms of the gentlemen, and cuddled in the
laps of the ladies. But when you get to be a big dog or a full-grown
game-cock, take care! If people would but fancy that you still wore your
down or silken skin, they might continue to be delighted with every
gambol of your fancy. But they suspect pin-feathers and bristles,
whether the latter grow or not; and, after doing their best to spoil
you, they suddenly demand the utmost propriety of behavior. However, let
me not anticipate. I can still call myself, without the charge of
self-flattery, a Distinguished Character; at least I am told so, every
day, each person who makes the remark supposing that it is an entirely
original and most acceptable compliment. While this distinction lasts,
(for I find that I lose it in proportion as I gain in sound knowledge
and independent common-sense,) I should like to describe, for the
contemplation of future ages, some of the penalties attached to
popularity at present.

I was weak enough, I admit, to be immensely delighted with the first
which I experienced,--not foreseeing whitherward they led. The timid,
enthusiastic notes of girls of fifteen, with the words "sweet" and
"exquisite," duly underscored, the letters of aspiring boys, enclosing
specimens of their composition,