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OPTIMISM THE LESSON OF AGES.

SECTION I.

SOME QUESTION OF THE AUTHOR'S ABILITY.

A fancy overtakes us at times to question our presumption in writing a book. Wherein are we better than another, that we should attempt to doctor another? We look over the matter-of-fact world and find it impossible to make a show, unless we have something to exhibit: yet here are we who can fiddle little, and fife less —who cannot turn somersets, as we could once when we were less fit to write a book—who cannot commit by the page like an actor, nor play chess with a third-rate,—in short who cannot prove our ability by any standard feat whatsoever, proposing to indoctrinate many who can do all these things into the deepest mysteries of life! It is indeed a question, Why should we write a book?—We have but one encouragement without our own conceit, which is, that few, if any, of the accepted wits of the

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