The fact is, I had been duped by Mr. H------, who is a gentleman of literary proclivities, and has, it is whispered, become somewhat demented in brooding over the Great American Novel--not yet hatched, He had actually tried the effect of one of his chapters on me! My hero, as I subsequently learned, is a commonplace young person, who had some connection, I know not what, with the building of that graceful granite bridge which spans the crooked silver lake in the Public Garden. When I think of the readiness with which Mr. H------ built up his airy fabric on my credulity, I feel half inclined to laugh, though I am deeply mortified at having been the unresisting victim of his Black Art. End of Project Gutenberg's A Struggle For Life, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich