AN AUTHOR'S FIRST BOOK.
No man is a competent judge of what he himself does. An author, on the eve of his first publication, and while his book is going through the press, is in a predicament like that of a man mounted on a fence, with an ugly bull in the field that he is obliged to cross. The apprehended silence of the journals concerning his merits—for no notice is the worst notice—constitutes one of the "horns of his dilemma"; while their possibly invidious comments upon his want of them constitute another and equally formidable "horn." Between these, and the uncertainty as to whether he will not in a little time be cut by one-half of his acquaintances and only indulgently tolerated by the other half, his experience is apt to be very peculiar, and certainly not altogether agreeable. Never, therefore, envy an author his feelings on such an occasion, on the score of their superior enjoyment, but rather let him be visited with your softest pity and tenderest commiseration.