voluminous of his writings, which
he asks you to read over, think over, and pray over, and send back an
answer informing him whether fame and fortune are awaiting him as the
possessor of the wonderful gifts his writings manifest, and whether
you advise him to leave all,--the shop he sweeps out every morning, the
ledger he posts, the mortar in which he pounds, the bench at which he
urges the reluctant plane,--and follow his genius whithersoever it may
lead him. The next correspondent wants you to mark out a whole course
of life for him, and the means of judgment he gives you are about as
adequate as the brick which the simpleton of old carried round as an
advertisement of the house he had to sell. My advice to all the young
men that write to me depends somewhat on the handwriting and spelling.
If these are of a certain character, and they have reached a mature age,
I recommend some honest manual calling, such as they have very probably
been bred to, and which will, at least, give them a chance of becoming
President of the United States by and by, if that is any object to them.
What would you have done with the young person who called on me a good
many years ago, so many that he has probably forgotten his literary
effort,--and read as specimens of his literary workmanship lines like
those which I will favor you with presently? He was an able-bodied,
grown-up young person, whose ingenuousness interested me; and I am sure
if I thought he would ever be pained to see his maiden effort in print,
I would deny myself the pleasure of submitting it to the reader. The
following is an exact transcript of the lines he showed me, and which I
took down on the spot:

"Are you in the vein for cider?
Are you in the tune for pork?
Hist! for Betty's cleared the larder
And turned the pork to soap."

Do not judge too hastily this sincere effort of a maiden muse. Here was
a sense of rhythm, and an effort in the direction of rhyme; here was an
honest transcript of an occurrence of daily life, told with a certain
idealizing expression, recognizing the existence of impulses, mysterious
instincts, impelling us even in the selection of our bodily sustenance.
But I had to tell him that it wanted dignity of incident and grace of
narrative, that there was no atmosphere to it, nothing of the light that
never was and so forth. I did not say this in these very words, but I
gave him to understand, without being too hard upon him, that