These letters may sometimes be too long or come too often for convenience,
nor is the consoling postage-stamp always remembered. But they are of great
value as giving real glimpses of American social life, and of the present
tendencies of American women. They sometimes reveal such intellectual ardor
and imagination, such modesty, and such patience under difficulties, as to
do good to the reader, whatever they may do to the writer. They certainly
suggest a few thoughts, which may as well be expressed, once for all, in
print.

Behind almost all these letters there lies a laudable desire to achieve
success. "Would you have the goodness to tell us how success can be
obtained?" How can this be answered, my dear young lady, when you leave it
to the reader to guess what your definition of success may be? For
instance, here is Mr. Mansfield Tracy Walworth, who was murdered the other
day in New York. He was at once mentioned in the newspapers as a
"celebrated author."

Never in my life having heard of him, I looked in a "Manual of American
Literature," and there found that Mr. Walworth's novel of "Warwick" had a
sale of seventy-five thousand copies, and his "Delaplaine" of forty-five
thousand. Is it a success to have secured a sale like that for your books,
and then to die, and have your brother penmen ask, "Who was he?" Yet,
certainly, a sale of seventy-five thousand copies is not to be despised;
and I fear I know many youths and maidens who would willingly write novels
much poorer than "Warwick" for the sake of a circulation like that. I do
not think that Hawthorne, however, would have accepted these conditions;
and he certainly did not have this style of success.

Nor do I think he had any right to expect it. He had made his choice, and