small importance in the first one you publish. At all events, keep up
your spirits till the result is ascertained; and, my word for it, there
is more honor and emolument in store for you, from your writings, than
you imagine. The bane of your life has been self-distrust. This has kept
you back for many years; which, if you had improved by publishing, would
long ago have given you what you must now wait a short time for. It may
be for the best, but I doubt it.

"I have been trying to think what you are so miserable for. Although you
have not much property, you have good health and powers of writing,
which have made, and can still make, you independent.

"Suppose you get but $300 per annum for your writings. You can, with
economy, live upon that, though it would be a tight squeeze. You have no
family dependent upon you, and why should you 'borrow trouble'?

"This is taking the worst view of your case that it can possibly bear.
It seems to me that you never look at the bright side with any hope or
confidence. It is not the philosophy to make one happy.

"I expect, next summer, to be full of money, a part of which shall be
heartily at your service, if it comes."

Before the new volume went to press Hawthorne had made a connection,
apparently on the editor's initiative, with S. Gaylord Clark's
"Knickerbocker Magazine," and contributed to it, in the January number,
"The Fountain of Youth," now known as "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment"; and
in the opening months of the year he was engaged in preparing his usual
group of articles for the next "Token." Goodrich had also offered to him
a new "Peter Parley" book, on the manners and customs of all nations,