Alas, alas! my friend,--my young friend, for your hair is not yet
whitened,--I am afraid you are too nearly right. No doubt,--no doubt.
Teacups are not coffee-cups. They do not hold so much. Their pallid
infusion is but a feeble stimulant compared with the black decoction
served at the morning board. And so, perhaps, if wisdom like yours were
compatible with years like mine, I should drop my pen and make no further
attempts upon your patience.

But suppose that a writer who has reached and passed the natural limit of
serviceable years feels that he has some things which he would like to
say, and which may have an interest for a limited class of readers,--is
he not right in trying his powers and calmly taking the risk of failure?
Does it not seem rather lazy and cowardly, because he cannot "beat his
record," or even come up to the level of what he has done in his prime,
to shrink from exerting his talent, such as it is, now that he has
outlived the period of his greatest vigor? A singer who is no longer
equal to the trials of opera on the stage may yet please at a chamber
concert or in the drawing-room. There is one gratification an old author
can afford a certain class of critics: that, namely, of comparing him as
he is with what he was. It is a pleasure to mediocrity to have its
superiors brought within range, so to speak; and if the ablest of them
will only live long enough, and keep on writing, there is no pop-gun that
cannot reach him. But I fear that this is an unamiable reflection, and I
am at this time in a very amiable mood.

I confess that there is something agreeable to me in renewing my
relations with the reading public. Were it but a single appearance, it
would give me a pleasant glimpse of the time when I was known as a
frequent literary visitor. Many of my readers--if I can lure any from
the pages of younger writers will prove to be the children, or the