It is an art which no one teaches; there is no professor who, in a dozen lessons, even pretends to show the aspirant how to write a book or an article.

If you would be a watchmaker, you must learn; or a lawyer, a cook, or even a housemaid.

Before you can clean a horse you must go into the stable, and begin at the beginning.
Even the cab-driving tiro must sit for awhile on the box, and learn something of the streets, before he can ply for a fare.

But the literary beginner rushes at once at the top rung of his ladder;--as though a youth, having made up his mind to be a clergyman, should demand, without preliminary steps, to be appointed Bishop of London.

That he should be able to read and write is presumed, and that only.