the same creaking gibbet that he has prepared for the
object of his fear or envy."

"Seldom indeed is it that injustice fails to be seen through, or that
the policy of interested condemnation escapes undetected. They first
produce the excitements, then furnish the triumphs, of genius."

"There is a charm in writing for the pure and intelligent young worth
all the plaudits of sinister or hypocritical wisdom. At a certain age,
and while the writings that please have a gloss of novelty about
them, hiding the blemishes that may afterward be discovered as
their characteristics,--_then_ it is that the young convert their
approbation into enthusiasm. An author benefits in a wide and
most pleasing range of public opinion by this natural and common
disposition in the young; and the only cloud thrown athwart the rays
of pleasure thus saluting his spirit is flung from the thought that
they who are thus moved by the movings of his own mind may come in
a few years to look upon his pages with hearts less ardent in their
sympathies, and with altered eyes, which have acquired additional
keenness by looking longer upon the world."

"The competent American _litterateur_ has a glorious career
before him. So much is there in your magnificent country, hitherto
undescribed and unexpressed, in scenery, manners, morals, that all
may be wells from which he may be the first to drink. Yet it cannot be
expected--for it has passed to a proverb that escape from persecution
and detraction can never and nowhere be the lot of literature--that
there will not be many instances, even in America, where every attempt
on the part of gifted writers (and young writers especially, who are
commonly regarded with eyes of invidious jaundice by the elders,
whose waning reputations they may through industry either supplant or
explode) will be rendered an uneasy struggle, and sometimes almost a
curse, by the envy of those who deny approval while blind to success,
and the affected disdain of those who exaggerate demerit. Yet
these obstacles warm the spirit of honest ambition, and enhance its
inevitable conquests."

"It is a sight of gratification and pride to behold a laborer in the
vineyard of letters escaping from the envy, the jealousy, the rivalry,
the leaven of all uncharitableness, with which literary intercourse
is so often polluted. The writers of England have been tardy in
their justice, not only to the progress, circumstances and customs
of America, but