ercame me, and I electrified the worthy priest by bursting into a
guffaw. Looking back on the scene, I can see far more pathos than humor
in it; but at the time, the scene was to me irresistibly ludicrous. And
oh! the paltry excuse that I raked up. 'Nervousness,' I think. No
matter, I had 'spoiled the whole party and broke up the ball!' 'Tis
always the way.

* * * * *

--SOMEBODY HAS SAID THAT TO BE A SUCCESSFUL AUTHOR, IT IS ONLY
NECESSARY TO FEEL WHAT YOU WRITE. This I deny, for many reasons
which I might but will not cite, contenting myself with saying that to
write what one feels, though much more gratifying and in a moral sense
far more commendable than to conceal or falsify sentiments, is
dangerous, and has been known to cause a writer to feel not only more
than he wrote or could write, but more than he had any expectation or
desire of feeling in such connection. Thus, whenever under an assumed
but transparent title, I introduce my friend Scroggs into a little
sketch of my production, I never express in that performance my actual
estimate of Scroggs, physically or mentally. Nor in my glowing
description of the incidents of a trip to Catskill Mountain House, do I
confine myself to the expression of what I felt in viewing the many and
varied scenes of rural beauty that presented themselves during the
progress of that undertaking. Do you suppose that I would run the risk
of conveying to Claribella, who was my only companion in that
expedition, that I never was more bored in my life, and that my
conversation was the result of operating with a constantly working
though invisible pump at the well of common-places and platitudes, which
a gentleman accumulates for such emergencies in the course of his social
experience? Heaven preserve my hair, should I venture on such a step.

'But you digress,' some impatient reader suggests.

Digress! That is an impossibility in an article without a topic. But
even if I plead guilty, my impatient critic; did you ever take a walk in
the country, and if so, did you choose those broad roads that lead to
churches and the village stores and the 'Academy,' or did you plunge, by
some little modest path, into the recesses of a grove, careless whither
your steps carried you, so content you were to yield to the enchanting
guidance of accident? And what though, in following your bent, you were
compelled to climb an occasional fence or cross a chance puddle, the