was made when I was seven years old. There was a new theatre, and a prize
of a hundred dollars was offered for an ode to be recited at the
opening,--or perhaps it was only at the opening of the season. Our school
was hard by the theatre, and as we boys were generally short of
spending-money, we conceived the idea of competing for this prize. You can
see that a hundred dollars would have gone a good way in barley-candy and
blood-alleys,--which last are things unknown, perhaps, to Young America
to-day. So we resolutely addressed ourselves to writing for the ode. I was
soon snagged, and found the difficulties greater than I had thought. I
consulted one who has through life been Nestor and Mentor to me,--(Second
class in Greek,--Wilkins, who was Nestor?--Right; go up. Third class in
French,--Miss Clara, who was Mentor?--Right; sit down),--and he replied by
this remark, which I beg you to ponder inwardly, and always act upon:--

"Edward," said he, "whenever I am going to write anything, I find it best
to think first what I am going to say."

In the instruction thus conveyed is a lesson which nine writers out of ten
have never learned. Even the people who write leading articles for the
newspapers do not, half the time, know what they are going to say when
they begin. And I have heard many a sermon which was evidently written by
a man who, when he began, only knew what his first "head" was to be. The
sermon was a sort of riddle to himself, when he started, and he was
curious as to how it would come out. I remember a very worthy gentleman
who sometimes spoke to the Sunday school when I was a boy. He would begin
without the slightest idea of what he was going to say, but he was sure
that the end of the first sentence would help him to the second. This is
an example.

"My dear young friends, I do not know that I have anything to say to you,