I myself printed nothing--saving some
poetical indiscretions--until I was twenty-seven, and this was only
a criticism on Dr. Isaac Barrow--not a subject, you see, that made
great demands upon me. Two years later an article on Lord Bacon,
for which I had been indirectly preparing more than two years, and
directly at least one; and even then I would say little respecting
his philosophy, and confined myself chiefly to a portraiture of his
character as a man. At thirty-two years of age I sent to press an
essay similar in character to those I write now--and am at present
a little ashamed of it. I am now thirty-nine years old, and all
that I have ever put in print would not make more than one hundred
and thirty or one hundred and forty pages in the "Atlantic."
Upon reflection, however, I will say two hundred pages, including
pamphlet publications. I would have it less rather than more. But
for this illness it would have been even less, for this has led me
to postpone larger enterprises, which would have gone to press much
later, and prepare shorter articles for the "Atlantic." Yet my
literary interest began at a very early age.
In writing essays such as it seems to me you have a genius for,
I require:--
1. That one should get the range--the largest /range/--of the laws
he sets forth.
Pages:
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180