There was an old man who had devoted a great many years to a close
study of engraved gems. He embodied the result of his elaborate
researches in a learned volume. I never had a gem of any kind in my
life; at the time of which I write I did not have a job. A friend of
mine, who was a professional reviewer, and at whose house I was
stopping, brought home one day this book on engraved gems, and told me
he had got it for me to review. "But," I said, "I don't know anything
about engraved gems, and" (you see I was very inexperienced) "I can
write only about things that particularly interest me." "You are a
devil of a journalist," was my friend's reply; "you'd better get to
work on this right away. You studied art, didn't you? I told the
editor you knew all about art. And he has to have the article by
Thursday."

He instructed me in certain elementary principles of the art of
successful reviewing; such, for example, as getting your information
out of the book itself; and he cautioned me against employing too many
quotation marks, as the editor did not like that.

My review, of a couple of columns, cut a bit here and there by the
literary editor, appeared in a prominent New York paper. Speaking
quite impartially, simply as now a trained judge of these things, I
will say that it was a very fair review: it "gave the book," as the
term is. I discovered that I had something of a talent for this work;
and so it was that I entered a profession which I have followed, with
divers vicissitudes, for a number of years.

I became good friends with that literary editor, and began to
contribute regularly week by week to his paper. He liked my style, and