HALF HOURS. 63 



tribe elsewhere alluded to, I mean no pun, which I detest, when I 

 say that a passionate love of letters made me eagerly acquaint my- 

 self with the initials of every thing that came in my way ; but I 

 never could chain myself down to study ; so that I can solemnly and 

 conscientiously affirm my progress in drawing upon the wisdom of 

 others has not been such as can reasonably endanger my claims to 

 originality in any one department of literature, now that I have come 

 to the resolution of setting up for myself. But under the delusion 

 that study was necessary, and half hours insufficient for the maturing 

 of wisdom, I should probably never have arrived at this resolution if 

 it had been my lot to live in any other than the present " talented " 

 era, in which I am mightily encouraged by example, seeing it to 

 be morally impossible for much time or deep study to have been ex- 

 pended by many of our most popular writers, whose leaves outnum- 

 ber Valambrosas, and that every body capable of handling a pen 

 and who is not? takes to writing (as Madame de Sevigne says her 

 daughter's country neighbours loved virtue) as naturally as horses 

 trot. It may perhaps be hinted, when writers thus abound, that my 

 lucubrations, so long delayed, could the better be spared ; but as it 

 was long ago agreed that no man was fit to depart this life who had 

 not either performed some action worthy of being recorded, or 

 written something deserving of being read, I hope I may be par- 

 doned for presuming upon numerical authority, that between the 

 horns of this dilemma the latter alternative has been concluded 

 upon to be the easiest, and the best suited to the exigencies of this 

 our day. It is quite evident, however, that nothing can be done 

 where nothing is attempted. That man had a just respect for hu- 

 man nature, and I dare say no undue appreciation of his own powers, 

 whose only doubt concerning his capability of playing upon the 

 violin arose from his never having tried it. 



The reproach I have so many years laboured under of doing 

 every thing by halves will be appropriately and gloriously atoned if, 

 before I go hence, I can succeed in rearing a beacon for other ge- 

 niuses the persons most apt to soar into miscalculations respecting 

 the uses of times and things present, by calling their attention to 

 this homely adage, that " half resolves, half measures, and half per- 

 formances invariably mark the man who makes light of half hours." 



