While jewelly Tom was idling away time which yet could hardly be called precious, his little brown wife, as I have said, sat at home--such home as a lodging can be for a wife whose husband finds his interest mainly outside of it--inquired after by nobody, thought of by nobody, hardly even taken up by her own poor, weary self; now trying in vain after interest in the feeble trash she was reading; now getting into the story for the last half of a chapter, to find herself, when the scene changed at the next, as far out and away and lost as ever; now dropping the book on her knee, to sit musing--if, indeed, such poor mental vagaries as hers can be called even musing!--ignorant what was the matter with her, hardly knowing that anything was the matter, and yet pining morally, spiritually, and psychically; now wondering when Tom would be home; now trying to congratulate herself on his being such a favorite, and thinking what an honor it was to a poor country girl like her to be the wife of a man so much courted by the best society--for she never doubted that the people to whose houses Tom went desired his company from admiration of his writings. She had not an idea that never a soul of them or of their guests cared a straw about what he wrote--except, indeed, here and there, a young lady in her first season, who thought it a grand thing to know an author, as poor Letty thought it a grand thing to be the wife of one. Hail to the coming time when, those who write books outnumbering those who do not, a man will be thought no more of because he can write than because he can sit a horse or brew beer! In that happy time the true writer will be neither an atom the more regarded nor disregarded; he will only be less troubled with birthday books, requests for autographs, and such-like irritating attentions. From that time, also, it may be, the number of writers will begin to diminish; for then, it is to be hoped, men will begin to see that it is better to do the inferior thing well than the superior thing after a middling fashion. The man who would not rather be a good shoemaker than a middling author would be no honor to the shoemakers, and can hardly be any to the authors. I have the comfort that in this all authors will agree with me, for which of us is now able to see himself _middling_? Honorable above all honor that authorship can give is he who can.