130 THE MAIDEN EFFORT. 



think that newspapers contained other matters of inter- 

 est besides those which I had been in the habit of 

 exploring them for, and I eagerly perused all I could 

 obtain for a further account of the demise of : the 

 result of my enquiries suggested the verses alluded to. 

 On the day of publication I felt great anxiety for the 

 fate of my composition, I am sure no one awaited the 

 issue of the paper with an interest at all equal to mine ; 

 how my heart swelled and throbbed within me, in my 

 way to the office, it never seemed half so animated be- 

 fore, and shot the blood up towards my head with so 

 much impetuosity that, notwithstanding my suspense, 

 I experienced a feeling almost amounting to suffocation. 

 Witn what a trembling hand and agitated movement 

 did I develope the numerous folds of " the Chronicle " 

 to read my doom, but, alas ! I was crest-fallen indeed 

 to find no verses whatever in the little nook usually 

 devoted to the muses. Well thought I, they may be 

 in some other part of the paper, so I inspected the re- 

 maining pages carefully, column by column, still 

 no verses, no, not even a word about them in the 

 " Notices to Correspondents. " With an ardor toler- 

 ably cooled I strolled homewards, my way from the 

 town led through pleasant fields and scenery in which 

 I used to take great delight ; but their interest was lost 

 to me now ; I thought of nothing but my ill luck, and 

 revolved over and over again the fate of my elegy, a 

 thousand reasons occurred to me to account for its 

 being inadmissable, but I immediately hit upon an 

 equal number to prove that it ought to have been in- 

 serted. I was disappointed most of all at not re- 

 ceiving some notice among the acknowledgments to 

 other correspondents ; and cogitating thus arrived home, 

 having two things to congratulate myself upon viz. 

 that I still had a chance in the ensuing week, and that 

 if wholly rejected I should not be subject to any irony 

 or imputation of failure thereupon, as no one had been 

 made privy to my attempt ; indeed, at that time, there 

 \vas but one person who knew I had ever experimented 

 in versification, and though I confided to him two or 



