say, to take up for a moment, or to read on the
train, or to hold the door open on a hot day. I would never take a long
railroad ride without it, eyether. I would as soon forget my bottle of
cough-medicine.

Mr. Webster's Speller had an immense sale. Ten years ago he had sold
forty million copies. And yet it had this same defect. It was cold,
dull, disconnected, and verbose. There was only one good thing in the
book, and that was a little literary gem regarding a boy who broke in
and stole the apples of a total stranger. The story was so good that I
have often wondered whom Mr. Webster got to write it for him.

The old man, it seems, at first told the boy that he had better come
down, as there was a draught in the tree; but the young
sass-box--apple-sass-box, I presume--told him to avaunt.

At last the old man said, "Come down, honey. I am afraid the limb will
break if you don't." Then, as the boy still remained, he told him that
those were not eating-apples, that they were just common cooking-apples,
and that there were worms in them. But the boy said he didn't mind a
little thing like that. So then the old gentleman got irritated, and
called the dog, and threw turf at the boy, and at last saluted him with
pieces of turf and decayed cabbages; and after the lad had gone away the
old man pried the bull-dog's jaws open and found a mouthful of
pantaloons and a freckle.

I do not tell this, of course, in Mr. Webster's language, but I give the
main points as they recur now to my mind.

Though I have been a close student of Mr. Webster for years and have
carefully examined his style, I am free to say that his ideas about
writing a book are not the same as mine. Of course it is a great
temptation for a young author to write a book that will have a large
sale; but that should not be all. We should have a higher object than
that, and strive to interest those who read the book. It should not be
jerky and scattering in its statements.

I do not wish to do an injustice to a great man who is now no more, a
man who did so much for the world and who could spell the longest word
without hesitation, but I speak of these things just as I would expect
others to criticise my work. If one aspire to be a member of the
_literati_ of his day, he must expect to be criticised. I have been
criticised myself. When I was in public life,--as a justice of the peace
in the Rocky Mountains,--a man came in one day and criticised me so that
I did