shall have regular employment for two or three hours in the day; I shall improve my faculties, and possibly become a more profound and consistent thinker; and I shall attain facility in the art of composition. It is possible my letters, when collected together, may make a book: a book, in modern times, is often productive both of profit and of fame; mine may prove what others have proved before it; and should the result be otherwise, it will be no great matter. I shall not be left worse than I am, either in pocket or reputation. Thus, it appears that I am sure to obtain some advantages, and cannot incur any risks-a dilemma in which I am excessively fond of being placed. As to your part of the affair-the reading of the letters-I hope it will not prove intolerably burdensome, since I shall regularly transmit them to you as they are written. A manuscript volume of letters might alarm you into a nervous fever, but a single sheet may prove only gentle soporific. By this arrangement, I Il at the same time serve my own purposes. riting a book, the object to be attained is too distant for a man of indolent habits, ing under no strong feeling, no very sanguine hopes of success: it is a great object, indeed, but he appears to make no progress towards it, and he is apt to give way to indifference or despondency. By breaking my work into letters, to be regularly transmitted to a friend, I shall have a succession of objects -of less importance, to be sure-but objects within my reach, or towards which my advances will be sufficiently perceptible. This method, by the way, of accomplishing an important end by means of a succession of subordinate objects, which allure us forward by their proximity, and by the ease with which they promise to be attained, may be made a powerful instrument of good. Why is it that a boy makes a progress more rapidly, and with less mental oppression, in certain kinds of knowledge (languages, for instance), than a man of mature age? It is partly because the boy is led on by a series of objects near at hand; he is influenced, not by the distant prospect of mastering the language, but by the immediate desire of avoiding the castigation consequent on neglect, or of surpassing some rival stripling of the same class; he has every day a fresh object, or a continually renewed prospect which you know too well for me to describe. I resolved to take that night to mature the plan of my first letter, and to begin the labour of composition the following morning. Next morning, accordingly, I commenced in good earnest; that is, I arranged my writing-desk, selected a proper sheet of paper, and pointed a fine clear quill. My constitutional indolence would proceed no farther: a sort of apathy stole over me: not an idea would distil from the end of my pen. I sat gazing at the fire, waiting for the inspiration necessary for my purpose: a thousand reveries flitted through my head, but it was all in vain, they refused to take a material shape: not a word would come; and at last, under the pretext that a book would suggest some ideas suitable to my design, I took up "Ivanhoe," which was fresh from my booksellers', and which I had destined for the entertainment of the afternoon. As I laid my hand on the first volume, all the consequences of what I was doing rushed on my mind: I clearly foresaw, that if I persisted, I should not be able to write a syllable the whole day, and in the manful resolution to adhere to my first purpose, As I laid I quitted my hold. I had no sooner done so, than my dislike of exertion returned: the prospect of sitting with pen in hand for several hours, without being able to wring out a single sentence, glared upon my imagination: Ivanhoe looked uncommonly fascinating the paper seemed good, the type clear: the eulogium pronounced upon it the preceding evening by a lady, who exclaimed in surprise, "What! not read Ivanhoe?" rose upon my recollection, and rung in my ear: with a desperate resolution I seized the book, and plunged into all its fascination. There was an end at once to letterwriting; and since that time, various circumstances, joined to the unpleasant remembrance of my former failure, have prevented me from resuming the pen, till the present moment. Having, to use the common phrase, broken the ice, I begin to relish my project. I seem to myself to enjoy the gentle exercise of the faculties which it demands: "Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute," said a French lady (I may be mistaken in the sex), and I really think I shall find it so. Already, a number of advantages figure before my imagination: videlicet, what with composing, blotting out, and copying, I |