hand. As to the question sometimes put, who the writer is, that
is of no consequence. But as to what he is, I think, intelligent
readers of his essays, you will gradually and easily see that.

It is a great thing to write leisurely, and with a general feeling
of kindliness and satisfaction with everybody; but there is a
further reason why one should set to work at once. I feel I must
write now, before my subject loses its interest; and before the
multitude of thoughts, such as they are, which have been clustering
round it since it presented itself this afternoon in that walk
through the woods, have faded away. It is an unhappy thing, but it
is the fact with many men, that if you do not seize your fancies
when they come to you, and preserve them upon the written page, you
lose them altogether. They go away, and never come back. A little
while ago I pulled out a drawer in this table whereon I write; and
I took out of it a sheet of paper, on which there are written down
various subjects for essays. Several are marked with a large cross;
these are the essays which are beyond the reach of fate: they are
written and printed. Several others have no cross; these are the
subjects of essays which are yet to be written. But upon four of
those subjects I look at once with interest and sorrow. I remember
when I wrote down their names, what a vast amount, as I fancied,
I had to say about them: and all experience failed to make me feel
that unless those thoughts were seized and chronicled at once,
they would go away and never come back again. How rich the subjects
appeared to me, I well remember! Now they are lifeless, stupid
things, of which it is impossible to make anything. Before, they
were like a hive, buzzing with millions of bees. Now they are like
the empty hive, when the life and stir and bustle of the bees are
gone. O friendly reader, what a loss it was to you, that the writer