and, for three mortal hours, the conflict raged
until, with a sudden coup de main, Will
upset Habit, and gained so decided a victory,
that the conquered absolutely gave indications
of servile obedience. It was, however,
rescued from that disgrace by making a
feeble digression on the sagacity of cats
generally; and, of my own in particular, who
was at that moment sitting on the table,
calmly stealing the milk from the jug by
putting its paw down the narrow neck of the
vessel, and licking off the fluid with which it
had saturated its coat. Will, with a
tremendous frown, brought the desultory
wanderer back to its allegiance, and to work I
set, drew forth a dozen clean sheets, flourished
my pen, and began to think about writing.

I thought of this and that; rejected this,
and refused that; when, just as I had hit
upon the most divine idea, the stupid servant
entered with a letter, and forthwith the little
notion dissolved into thin air. I opened the
epistle, and found it was an invitation to dinner;
but it mentioned a haunch of mutton, so
my mind, with a wild lurch and a tremendous
bound, shot clean into the middle of
Goldsmith's Haunch of Venison. Vainly Will tried
to keep it back—away flew Mind. Burke,
Reynolds, Garrick, Johnson, Langton, all
came out in a great mass, so mixed up
with Fleet Street taverns, debating-clubs,
fops and hoops, that I found it utterly impossible
to write a line for the next half-hour.
At length, with a sharp pull, I brought
myself back to the nineteenth century, and, by
way of commencement, I put the figure One
on the blank paper. Figures are to me a
very interesting study. I do not mean the
contemplation of the total of an unpaid bill,
or the acquirement of any rule of arithmetic;
but the different methods of writing
figures. The man of business never makes
with his pen such a misshapen five, that it
can be mistaken for an eight or a six. On
the other hand, some artists and literary
men make fives that may be taken for sixes,
eights, or anything else. Indeed, I can generally
judge from the distinctness or indistinctness
of a man's figures, whether he be a
man of business or not. There, you see,
I cannot even page an article without my
wretched mind cutting off, like mad, into a
special little theory of its own; and my
paper lies before me, a dull, white blank.

Again I resolve to write; I know the
danger of delays, and remember that the wise
Bacon quaintly says, "Occasion turneth a
bald noddle after she hath her locks in front,
and no hold taken." This exactly describes
my case. I have the offer to write, and, if I
neglect it, the occasion is gone. Once more
I settle myself sternly to work. I begin to
imagine that I have at last seized upon a
subject! We have the histories of every
manufacture; why not, then, the history of the
manufacture of an article itself? Let me
begin; let me revel in the goodly work.

I do begin; but, before the first sentence is
finished, Mind has slipped off to the consideration
of the hieroglyphic inscriptions of
Egypt, and becomes confused in the company
of hawk-headed gods, cow-faced Venuses, and
papyrus columns, from which we may, perhaps,
have derived our newspaper columns. I
have no sooner taken leave of Thoth the god
of letters, than, with a skip, I am burrowing
amidst the ruins of Persepolis, and puzzling
over the cuneiform characters of Assyria;
and, in two seconds, Mind has stuck itself
hard and fast amidst the illuminated missals
of the middle ages, and leads me into an
uncontrollable fit of laughter, by picturing
myself following out Mr. Ruskin's idea of
true happiness, by devoting the remainder of
my days to the task of illuminating missals.

I rise from my chair in a rage, disgusted at
my own folly, and resolved to make another
effort; but Mind, with the greatest nonchalance
and utter indifference to its own
misconduct, at once plunges from the manual
labour of writing, to the mechanical labour
of printing; and forthwith I have before
me Gutemberg, Faust, and Schœffer, with
all their clumsy machinery, working
manfully in the good cause. With the speed
of lightning, I am in England, settled in
Westminster Abbey with William Caxton—
which naturally enough brings Richard the
Third on the scene, and he as naturally
suggests Shakspeare, and then I am utterly
lost. With book in hand, and pen laid down,
I read and read until I stumble on a passage
in Richard the Second, which seems to me
peculiarly applicable to my dilemma:

                                      If thou would'st,
    There should you find one heinous article.

Would that I could find one article, even
though it should be heinous! but, do what I
will I cannot; or, if I do discover one, it is
gone again before I have had time to note its
form or discover its fashion. I am the
wretched slave of my discursive mind.

Let me make one more effort. All things
perform their allotted work. Why should
I be an exception to the golden rule?
Cannot I learn a lesson from the insect
in the fields and the bird in the air? Shall
I be worse than the productive earth? Shame
on me! I will take my staff in my hand,
and go forth into the country, a humble
reverential student of nature; and, in the pleasant
silence of some leafy wood, I will learn
from the weed beneath my feet and the waving
wind-brushed foliage above my head, to work
patiently and perseveringly. But, until I can
master my mind, my history of an article
must remain unwritten.