time I could rely with a very comfortable certainty. My
productions created no enthusiasm in the reading public; they
gave me no great reputation or very valuable pecuniary return;
but they were always accepted, and my receipts from them, at the
time to which I have referred, were as regular and reliable as a
salary, and quite sufficient to give me more than a comfortable
support.

It was at this time I married. I had been engaged for more
than a year, but had not been willing to assume the support of
a wife until I felt that my pecuniary position was so assured
that I could do so with full satisfaction to my own conscience.
There was now no doubt in regard to this position, either in my
mind or in that of my wife. I worked with great steadiness and
regularity, I knew exactly where to place the productions of my
pen, and could calculate, with a fair degree of accuracy, the
sums I should receive for them. We were by no means rich, but we
had enough, and were thoroughly satisfied and content.

Those of my readers who are married will have no difficulty
in remembering the peculiar ecstasy of the first weeks of their
wedded life. It is then that the flowers of this world bloom
brightest; that its sun is the most genial; that its clouds are
the scarcest; that its fruit is the most delicious; that the air
is the most balmy; that its cigars are of the highest flavor;
that the warmth and radiance of early matrimonial felicity so
rarefy the intellectual atmosphere that the soul mounts higher,
and enjoys a wider prospect, than ever before.

These experiences were mine. The plain claret of my mind was