SECJIKT MEMORANDUMS. 



our fingers, or parading the room with the paper-knife in our grasp, 

 now feeling its edge, now tapping the teeth with it, now carving the 

 unresisting air ! But we feel that we are not indulging in vain hopes 

 that they will arrive at last! And then whether in the snug 

 little parlour ; the pensive attic ; the soft-shadowed drawing-room ; 

 the cigar divan ; the green arbour in the country ; or the fresh, 

 breezy sands of the watering place ; we know that we shall find a 

 fund of delight in reading them, as we pick our way through the 

 pages that contain so many " striking articles !" They are written 

 under very different circumstances, and in most cases with very dif- 

 ferent feelings. I can indulge in these fond imaginations no longer ! 

 Alack the day ! I am grown bald in driving the grey goose quill 

 over unnumbered fields white acres of paper; not to pasture and 

 grow fat upon them, but to add to their fertility. I am not " a gen- 

 tle reader ;" I am a mere contributor. 



But, though I am now become old and enfeebled in my literary 

 campaign, I am just where I was when I began ! For me there is no 

 reading retirement no pension. I have not been able to save one 

 guinea. Yet in speaking of my beginning, there are sundry expla- 

 nations to be made ; and a brief account of them may be amusing to 

 many, and instructive " to those whom it may concern." When a 

 young gentleman's hand, after very long practice, has got well broken 

 in ; and he has become competent, both from natural and acquired 

 ability, to write a piquant critique ; take up a topic of the day with 

 skill, judgment and humour ; or write a good original article ; the 

 difficulty of getting his gratuitous contributions inserted in one or 

 other of the Magazines, is by no means great. The difficulty is in 

 getting paid for them. This is what I mean by a beginning. And 

 a very arduous one it is to effect ; as almost every magazine writer 

 has found. Be your article of what value it may (except some ex- 

 traordinary fresh news, or other temporary excitement), only drop 

 into the corner of your note to the editor, that " the usual terms" are 

 expected, and back comes the paper you thought so excellent, as sure 

 as a gun. Being unknown, you are nobody you can do nothing ; 

 or if you can keep it. The establishment is full already : your 

 assistance is not wanted. The regular contributors would look upon 

 you as an ogre ! here's a strange fellow, who wants to be paid ! 



Independent of the prejudice against, or the indifference to, an 

 unknown pen, with the character of whose interloping scrawl, the 

 Editorial Eye can have no acquaintance, nor his feelings any sympa- 

 thy ; the admission of an article to be paid for, from a new hand, 

 calls for a profound calculation touching the funds of the periodical 

 in question. The article in itself, it may be well worth while to pur- 

 chase ; but then they know at head-quarters, from long experience, 

 that the acquaintance will not cease there. They cannot, for this 

 time, give the tyro his bonus, and then there's an end of the matter ; 

 for having once tasted the sweets of magazine writing, they are sure 

 to receive another article next month from the dancing author, accom- 

 panied by a note as characteristic for its nonchalance as the first was 

 for its modest ice-breaking timidity. It is evident that the audacious 

 individual is bent on becoming a Regular Contributor ! He even goes 



