Mr. Aiken's first step was to take an intimate friend or two into his confidence. But his intimate friend or two had a quality in common with the Pickwickian bottle or two. An intimate friend or six would be nearer the mark--or even twelve. He did not tell his story separately to each; there was no need. If the mention of a private affair within the hearing of cat or mouse leads to its being shouted at once from the top of the house--and that was the experience of Maud's young man who went to the Crimea--how much more public will your confidences become if you make them to a tenant of a Studio that is one of a congeries. Pimlico Studios was a congeries, built to accommodate the Artists of a great age of Art, now pending, as though to meet the needs of locusts. For there can be no doubt that such an age is at hand, if we are to judge by the workshop accommodation that appears to be anticipating it. An ingenious friend of the author--you must have noticed how many authors have ingenious friends?--has been able to determine by a system of averages of a most convincing nature, that the cubic area of the Studios in Chelsea and Kensington alone exceeds that of the Lunatic Asylums of the Metropolis by nearly seven and a quarter per cent. This gentleman's researches on the subject are consequent upon his singular conviction that the output of the Fine Arts, broadly speaking, is small in proportion to the amount of energy and capital devoted to them. We have reasoned with him in vain on the subject, pointing out that the Fine Arts have nothing in common with the economics of Manufacture, least of all in any proportions between the labour expended and the results attained. Were it otherwise, the estimation of a painter's merit would rise or fall with his colourman's bill and the rent of his studio. This gentleman--although he is a friend of the author--has no Soul. If he had, the spectacle of the life-struggle which is often the lot of Genius would appeal to him, and cause him to suspend his opinion. It is always, we understand, desirable to suspend one's opinion.