I wonder what kind of a thing Washington Irving's first composition was. There must have been a first one; and, without doubt, it was a clumsy affair enough. If I were going to write his history, I would find those who knew him when he was a mere child, and I would pump from them as many anecdotes about his little scribblings as I possibly could, and I would print them, lots of them. I hardly think I could do the reader of his biography a better service. I wonder what his first experience was with the editors. These editors, by the way, are often very troublesome to the young sprig of genius. Placed, as they are, at the door of the temple of fame, they often seem to the unfledged author the most disobliging, iron-hearted men in the world. He could walk right into the temple, and make himself perfectly at home there, if they would only open the door. So he fancies; and he wonders why the barbarians don't see the genius sticking out, when he comes along with his nicely-written verses, and why they don't just give him, at once, a ticket of admission to the honors of the world. "These editors are slow to perceive merit," he says to himself. Your old friend Uncle Frank once set himself up for a genius. Don't laugh--pray, don't laugh. I was young then, and as green as a juvenile gosling. Age has branded into me a great many truths, which, somehow or other, were very slow in finding their way to my young mind. The notion that I am a genius does not haunt me now, and a great many years have passed since such a vision flitted across my imagination. But I will tell you how I was cooled off, once on a time, when I got into a raging fever of authorship, and was burning up with a desire to make an impression on the world. I had written some verses--written them with great care, and with ever so many additions, subtractions, and divisions. They were perfect, at last--that is, I could not make them any more perfect--and off they were posted to the editor of the village newspaper. I declare I don't remember what they were about. But I dare say, they were "Lines" to somebody, or "Stanzas" to something; and I remember they were signed "Theodore Thinker," in a very large, and as I then thought, a very fair hand. "Well, did the editor print them, Uncle Frank?" Hold on, my dear fellow. You are quite too fast. As I said, when the lines to somebody or something were sent to the editor, I was in a perfect fever. I could hardly wait for Wednesday to come, the day on which the paper was to be issued--the paper which was to be the medium of the first acquaintance of my muse with "a discerning public." "Well, how did you feel when the lines were printed?"