Letter from Mr. Willis.
[The contribution to our volume which was promised by Mr. Willis has been interrupted by the state of his health; but the letter which he writes to Mr. Clark, explanatory of his delay, at the same time that it is expressive of his kind wishes, is of a tone and quality so suited to the general reader that we will venture to place it in the vacant niche.]
Idlewild, October 8, 1854
My Dear Clark:
I regret exceedingly to say that I must be the delinquent among your troop of friends. The time is up, and I have no "article" to send you. My long and tedious illness would be an excuse if I could explain to your public why I can go on writing as freely as ever for myself, and yet be too much of an invalid to write for a friend. But so it is. The mind of an ailing editor will go on with its weakly iteration when, for the production of any thing in an unaccustomed form, it will not come to the scratch. I assure you I have tried—for two patient days I have subjected my "promise of an article" to conscientious incubation. In vain—the ugly customer will not chip shell. I rejoice that the "Turkey extra" which your Prospectus offers to subscribers does not depend upon my hatching.
But who wrote that same Prospectus? And what does he mean by your labors being "ill-requited"? Come, come, my dear fellow! The forty leading authors of the country rushing up with pick-axe and shovel to stop the first break in your mill-dam, and yet no complaint as to the popularity of your grists! What fortune that was ever made in trade would buy the equivalent of this honor? How are you an object of sympathy, I should like to know? Money (beyond victuals and clothes) is no necessity to you! Other people want it to put them on the first round of the ladder you are thus proved to be at the top of. The Fates have regulated these things ever since
