execute the Printing and Binding, and to procure the Paper for the Work,
free of all expense to the Author. If this request should be denied us,
we must infallibly turn our arms against our own writings, which, as
they will not stand the test of criticism, we feel very unwilling to do.
We do not wish that the proposed work should be too perfect; the Author
will please to make a few blunders for us to exercise our Talents upon."

In these quotations one sees very clearly the increased maturity (though
it be only by a year or two) of the lad, since the engrossing of his
records at Raymond. We get in these his entire mood, catch gleams of a
steady fire of ambition under the light, self-possessed air of assumed
indifference, and see how easily already his humor began to play, with
that clear and sweet ripeness that warms some of his more famous pages,
like late sunshine striking through clusters of mellow and translucent
grapes. Yet our grasp of his mental situation at this point would not be
complete, without recognition of the graver emotions that sometimes
throbbed beneath the surface. The doubt, the hesitancy that sometimes
must have weighed upon his lonely, self-reliant spirit with weary
movelessness, and all the pain of awakening ambition and departing
boyhood, seem to find a symbol in this stanza from the fourth
"Spectator":--

"Days of my youth, ye fleet away,
As fades the bright sun's cheering ray,
And scarce my infant hours are gone,
Ere manhood's troubled step comes on.
My infant hours return no more,
And all their happiness is o'er;
The stormy sea of life appears,
A scene of tumult and of tears."