SECRET MEMORANDUMS. 149 



down this with safety, satisfaction, and success, does not require much 

 more consideration than whether the pilot will see the chart from the 

 same point of view, and what good things he can appreciate, and 

 what he cannot. 



It may now be asked, by those who are anxious to shine in pe- 

 riodical literature, " and pray, Mr. Ellworthy, how in the world did 

 you manage to become a contributor to all the magazines ? You 

 must have played your cards after some very extraordinary fashion ?" 

 The question is easily answered ; though to act upon the reply will 

 be found laborious enough, to say the least of it. I gained my 

 footing don't talk of shining by inexhaustible perseverance ; and 

 I kept my position, and thence gradually edged my papers into the 

 various magazines, journals, &c. by tact, the result of long practice, 

 and the experience derived from innumerable failures. If then, 

 oh, devoted youth ! thou would'st aspire to become a contributor to the 

 periodical literature of thy country, listen to a brief account of my 

 early efforts towards the same end. 



I shall begin, my dear deluded sir, by exhorting you very seriously 

 to choose any other profession instead ; nay, or any trade. My ex- 

 hortation shall not be fatiguing to you, nor can you complain of its 

 lengthiness, inasmuch as it is now concluded. Since no one yet 

 that I ever knew, cared a straw about receiving advice, or profited by 

 it when volunteered, sdfc confess that the above warning was merely 

 introduced to ease my own conscience, and not with any vain mo- 

 ralizing notion that it would in the least deter you from following 

 your inclination, and indulging in all the usual fallacies of sanguine 

 humanity. 



After the rejection of innumerable gratuitous articles of all kinds 

 during several years, I at length got the knack of doing what was 

 " wanted," and beheld myself in print ! It was a day of exquisite 

 exultation and triumph after so many failures. I could not eat my 

 dinner, but walked about with a secret sense of dignity, like a great 

 man mcog., wondering whether the folks I passed who were reading 

 in the park, had any idea that I was a Contributor ? I paraded in 

 front of the Office continually in the course of the week, and pur- 

 chased three numbers of the magazine, so that the editor might dis- 

 cover the circulation had increased in consequence of my article. 



The summit of bliss is, however, an evanescent pinnacle ; and all 

 the time and indefatigable efforts employed to reach it cannot make 

 it endure beyond a very brief period. Some half-a-dozen papers 

 subsequently appeared I and the charm of being in print was at an 

 end. I now thought of being paid. Little did I think that this 

 consummation was so far removed from the position I had then 

 gained, and that the attempt was in fact the commencement of a fresh 

 campaign. The transition from a gratuitous contributor to one who 

 received his eight or ten guineas per sheet, seemed only in the natural 

 course of things, just as one step follows another. I saw no wide 

 gap yawning between, down which an author was liable to fall ; no 

 conflicting interests ; no estimate of funds ; no calculation of the ex- 

 tent of circulation ; no establishment quite full. It never struck me 

 there could be any difficulty in the matter. If an article was worth 



