I felt that God had at last heard not only my prayers, but also those of her, who, I knew, was praying for me at home; and that, if He had not appeared to grant my former petitions, the answer to them had been withheld for the all-wise purpose of making me look to Him more earnestly than I might have done, if prosperity had rewarded my first effort! Before, I had trusted entirely to myself, never thinking of appealing to His aid.
Now, I assure you, I could have struggled on to the death--even had Fortune still gone against me even in America; but, the fickle goddess alike altered her expression _there_, as circumstances improved for me _here_, so that, I was not called upon to exercise any further endurance in adversity.
My temporal troubles ended as my more serious difficulties disappeared-- all being in due accordance with the old adage which tells us that "it never rains but it pours." One morning, soon after hearing from England, as I was conning over the advertisement columns of the _New York Herald_, I chanced on a notice which immediately caught my eye.

An "editor" was wanted, without delay, at the office of one of the other leading-journals of the city, where applications were requested from all desirous of taking the "situation vacant." Who could this have reference to, but me?
I thought so, at all events, and "exploited" the supposition.
I did not allow the grass to grow under my feet, I can assure you.
I hurried off instanter to the address mentioned; and, although newspaper men of the New World, unlike ours, are uncommonly early birds, getting up matutinally betimes so as to catch the typical worm--in which respect they resemble the entire business population of Transatlantica-- I found, on my arrival, that I was the first candidate who had appeared on the scene.
It was a good omen, for your "live Yankee" likes "smartness;" consequently, I was sanguine of success.
You may, peradventure, be "surprised to hear" of my thinking myself fit for such a post, having had such a slight acquaintance with literature at home?
That did not dissuade me, however, in the least.
I have so great a confidence in myself, that I would really take the command of the Channel fleet to-morrow if it were offered to me--as Earl Russell proposed to do, when he was simple "Lord John;" and, as a civilian First Lord of the Admirality has since done, although he possessed so little nautical knowledge that he might not have been able to tell you the difference between a cathead and a capstan bar, or, how to distinguish a "dinghy" from the "second cutter." I suppose he thought, like Mr Toots, that, "it didn't matter!" Conceit, you say?
Not at all .-- Only self-reliance, one of the most available qualities for getting on in the world; for, if a man does not believe in himself, how on earth can he expect other people to believe in him?
"Guess" I posed you there!--to use one of my patent Americanisms.
Besides, an American "editor," if you please, is of a very different stamp to an English one.

The "learned lexicographer"-- and pedantic old bore, by the way--Doctor Johnson, defined the individual in question to be "one who prepares or revises any literary work for publication;" and, we generally associate the name with the supreme head of a journalistic staff--he who is addressed indignantly as "sir" by those weak-minded persons who write letters to newspapers, and who signs himself familiarly "Ed." But, at the other side of the Atlantic, the term bears a much wider application, extending to all "connected with the press"-- from the "head cook and bottle-washer," down, nearly, to that bottle imp, the printer's "devil." Political writers; correspondents, "special" and "local;" reviewers; reporters; stenographers, or "gallery" men; dramatic and musical critics; "paragraphists"-- the new name for fire and murder manifolders, and other "flimsy" compilers; and, penny-a-liners:--each and all, are, severally and collectively, "editors," beneath the star-spangled banner of equality and freedom.
Hence, there was not so much effrontery after all in my applying for the position, eh?
The proprietor of the paper whom I now canvassed did not think so, at least; and _he_ was the party chiefly concerned in the affair besides myself; so, I should like to know what _you've_ got to do with it?
He was a "Down-easter," a class of American I had already learnt specially to dislike--the ideal and real, "Yankee" of the States; but, he spoke to the point, as most of them do, without any waste of words or travelling round the subject--more than can be said for some "Britishers" I know! He was leaning over the counter of the advertisement office as I entered, settling some calculation of greenbacks with the cashier, and "guessed," ere I had opened my mouth to explain my presence, that I had come about that "vacancy up-stairs." "Been in the newspapering line before ?" was his next interrogatory--a very pertinent one; for, Transatlantic journalists, as a rule, manage to try every trade and calling previously to sinking down to "literature"-- similarly to some of those bookseller's "hacks" over here who mortgage themselves to flash publishers when all other means of livelihood have failed them.
When I answered "Yes" to this question, he did not wait to hear anything further.
"Go up-stairs and try your hand," said he--"we'll soon see what you'll amount to, I reckon.

We don't want any references here.

We take a man as we find him.