a boys' literary circle, and meeting their hearty approval, were
subsequently published in The Riverside Magazine, a handsome and popular
juvenile of that period; and, much later, were issued by Hurd & Houghton
in a very pretty volume. In regard to these, he wrote long afterward as
follows:

"I was very young when I determined to write some fairy tales because my
mind was full of them. I set to work, and in course of time produced
several which were printed. These were constructed according to my own
ideas. I caused the fanciful creatures who inhabited the world of
fairy-land to act, as far as possible for them to do so, as if they were
inhabitants of the real world. I did not dispense with monsters and
enchanters, or talking beasts and birds, but I obliged these creatures
to infuse into their extraordinary actions a certain leaven of common
sense."

It was about this time, while very young, that he and his brother
became ambitious to write stories, poems, and essays for the world at
large. They sent their effusions to various periodicals, with the result
common to ambitious youths: all were returned. They decided at last that
editors did not know a good thing when they saw it, and hit upon a
brilliant scheme to prove their own judgment. One of them selected an
extract from Paradise Regained (as being not so well known as Paradise
Lost), and sent it to an editor, with the boy's own name appended,
expecting to have it returned with some of the usual disparaging
remarks, which they would greatly enjoy. But they were disappointed. The
editor printed it in his paper, thereby proving that he did know a good
thing if he did not know his Milton. Mr. Stockton was fond of telling
this story, and it may have given rise to a report, extensively
circulated, that he tried to gain admittance to periodicals for many