e the most," said old Fuller, "by those books on which
the booksellers have lost." If this be true of learning, it is quite as
true of genius and originality. A book may be immediately popular and also
immortal, but the chances are the other way. It is more often the case that
a great writer gradually creates the taste by which he is enjoyed.
Wordsworth in England and Emerson in America were striking instances of
this; and authors of far less fame have yet the same choice which they had.
You can take the standard which the book market offers, and train yourself
for that. This will, in the present age, be sure to educate certain
qualities in you,--directness, vividness, animation, dash,--even if it
leaves other qualities untrained. Or you can make a standard of your own,
and aim at that, taking your chance of seeing the public agree with you.
Very likely you may fail; perhaps you may be wrong in your fancy, after
all, and the public may be right: if you fail, you may find it hard to
bear; but, on the other hand, you may have the inward "glory and joy" which
nothing but fidelity to an ideal standard can give. All this applies to all
forms of work, but it applies conspicuously to literature.

Instead, therefore, of offering to young writers the usual comforting
assurance, that, if they produce anything of real merit, it will be sure to
succeed, I should caution them first to make their own definition of
success, and then act accordingly. Hawthorne succeeded in his way, and Mr.
M.T. Walworth in his way; and each of these would have been very
unreasonable if he had expected to succeed in both ways. There is always an
opening for careful and conscientious literary work; and by such work many
persons obtain a modest support. There are also some great prizes to be
won; but these are commonly, though not always, won by work of a more
temporary and sensational kind. Make your choice; and, when you have got
precisely what you asked for, do not complain because you have missed what
you would not take.

THE CAREER OF LETTERS

A young girl of some talent once told me that she had devoted herself to
"the career of letters." I found, on inquiry, that she had obtained a
situation as writer of society gossip for a New York newspaper. I can
hardly imagine any life that leads more directly away from any really
literary career, or any life about which it is harder to give counsel. The
work of a newspaper correspondent, especially i