f idleness, or the sting of poverty,
for the solemn throes of power.

What can one do for them, whom no one but themselves can help? What
can one say to them, when anything one says is sure to give pain, or
dishearten courage?

Write, if you _must_; not otherwise. Do not write, if you can earn
a fair living at teaching or dressmaking, at electricity or
hod-carrying. Make shoes, weed cabbages, survey land, keep house, make
ice-cream, sell cake, climb a telephone pole. Nay, be a lightning-rod
peddler or a book agent, before you set your heart upon it that you
shall write for a living. Do anything honest, but do not write, unless
God calls you, and publishers want you, and people read you, and
editors claim you. Respect the market laws. Lean on nobody. Trust
the common sense of an experienced publisher to know whether your
manuscript is worth something or nothing. Do not depend on influence.
Editors do not care a drop of ink for influence. What they want is
good material, and the fresher it is, the better. An editor will pass
by an old writer, any day, for an unknown and gifted new one, with
power to say a good thing in a fresh way. Make your calling and
election sure. Do not flirt with your pen. Emerson's phrase was,
"toiling terribly." Nothing less will hint at the grinding drudgery of
a life spent in living "by your brains."

Inspiration is all very well; but "genius is the infinite capacity for
taking pains."

Living? It is more likely to be dying by your pen; despairing by your
pen; burying hope and heart and youth and courage in your ink-stand.

Unless you are prepared to work like a slave at his galley, for the
toss-up chance of a freedom which may be denied him when his work is
done, do not write. There are some pleasant things about this way of
spending a lifetime, but there are no easy ones.

There are privileges in it, but there are heart-ache, mortification,
discouragement, and an eternal doubt.

Had one not better have made bread or picture-frames, run a motor, or
invented a bicycle tire?

Time alone--perhaps one might say, eternity--can answer.

* * * * *

[Footnote 5: "A sin once committed, always _deserves_ punishment;
and, as long as strict _Justice_ is administered, the sin _must_ be
punished. Unless there be an Atonement, strict Justice _must_ be
administered; that is, Sin must be punished forever; but, on the
ground of the Atonement, _Grace_ may be administere