A GOOD-BY TO WINTER 213 



chewing the end of one's pencil and wait- 

 ing for inspiration. Down it went : " There 

 are four seasons in the year spring, sum- 

 mer, autumn or fall, and winter." We never 

 omitted to say " autumn or fall ; " the syn- 

 onymy helped out the page, and gave us 

 the more time in which to consider what we 

 should say next. That is the great difficulty 

 in authorship. On that shoal many a good 

 ship has struck. A man who always has 

 something to say next is bound to get on 

 as a " space writer," if as nothing else. 



Our opening remark was not strictly ori- 

 ginal, but we did not mind. It was true, 

 if it was n't new ; and without being told, 

 I think we had discovered by intuition, 

 I suppose what older heads seem to have 

 learned by rule, that it is good rhetoric, so 

 to speak, to begin with a quotation. I was 

 pleased, the other day, to see a brilliant essay- 

 ist commending it as an excellent and be- 

 coming practice to leapfrog into one's subject 

 over the back of some famous predecessor. 

 Such was our custom, for better or worse, 

 till a certain master (I am tempted to name 

 him, but forbear) announced just before the 



