What does a man more than his simple duty in coming out for the truth? and if we exhaust our epithets of laudation at this stage of the business, what shall we do if the man turns out to be a real reformer, and does _more_ than his duty? Beside, is it any sacrifice to be in the right? Has not being an abolitionist (as Emerson says of hell) its “infinite satisfactions” as well as those _infiniti guai_ that Dante tells us of? To my mind “All other pleasures are not worth its pains.” In the next place (turn back a page or two and you will find that I have laid down a “firstly”), if I have any vocation, it is the making of verse. When I take my pen for that, the world opens itself ungrudgingly before me, everything seems clear and easy as it seems sinking to the bottom would be as one leans over the edge of his boat in one of those dear coves at Fresh Pond. But, when I do prose, it is _invitâ Minerva_. I feel as if I were wasting time and keeping back my message. My true place is to serve the cause as a poet. Then my heart leaps on before me into the conflict. I write to you frankly as becomes one who is to be your fellow-worker. I wish you to understand clearly my capabilities that you may not attribute that to lukewarmness or indolence which is truly but an obedience to my Demon. Thirdly (I believe it is thirdly), I have always been a very Quaker in following the Light and writing only when the Spirit moved. This is a tower of strength which one must march out of in working for a weekly newspaper, and every man owes it to himself, so long as he does the duty which he sees, to remain here impregnably intrenched. Now, it seems to me that we contributors should write just enough to allow you this privilege of only writing when the wind sits fair. Having stated the poetical _cons_, I will now state the plain _pros_ of the matter. I will help you as much as I can and ought. I had rather give the cause one good poem than a thousand indifferent prose articles. I mean to send all the poems I write (on whatever subject) first to the _Standard_, except such arrows as I may deem it better to shoot from the ambushment of the _Courier_, because the old Enemy offers me a fairer mark from that quarter. I will endeavor also to be of service to you in your literary selections.