journalist, these gentlemen seem to jump to the conclusion that the less
they know of anything the better. Nay, some of them, discarding all
theories (in the fashion that Mr. Carlyle's heroes are wont to discard
all formulas), proceed to the practical with quite an indecent rapidity;
they treat my modest hints for their instruction as so much verbiage,
and myself as a mere convenient channel for the publication of their
lucubrations. 'You talk of a genuine literary talent being always
appreciated by editors,' they write (if not in so many words by
implication); 'well, here is an admirable specimen of it (enclosed), and
if your remarks are worth a farthing you will get it published for us,
somewhere or another, _instanter_, and hand us over the cheque for it.
Nor are even these the most unreasonable of my correspondents; for a
few, with many acknowledgments for my kindness in having provided a
lucrative profession for them, announce their intention of throwing up
their present less congenial callings, and coming up to London (one very
literally from the Land's End) to live upon it, or, that failing (as
there is considerable reason to expect it will), upon _me_.

With some of these correspondents, however, it is impossible
(independent of their needs) not to feel an earnest sympathy; they have
evidently not only aspirations, but considerable mental gifts, though
these have unhappily been cultivated to such little purpose for the
object they have in view that they might almost as well have been left
untilled. In spite of what I ventured to urge respecting the advantage
of knowing 'science, history, politics, English literature, and the art
of composition,' they 'don't see why' they shouldn't get on without
them. Especially with those who aspire to write fiction (which, by its
intrinsic attractiveness no less than by the promise it affords of
golden grain, tempts the majority), it is quite pitiful to note how they
cling to that notion of 'the corn-sieve,' and cannot be persuaded that