"It has occurred to me to turn my passion for hunting, and 'my crowding experiences' (gathered in fifteen or sixteen years of life in the merriest Virginia country society) of hunting, fishing, country races, character and want of character, woods, mountains, fields, waters, and the devil knows what, into a rambling book. Years ago I used to devour the 'Spirit of the Times.' Indeed, much of my passion for sports of all kinds grew out of reading the 'Spirit.' Like Albert Pike's poet, in 'Fantasms,' I 'Had not known the bent of my own mind, Until the mighty spell of 'Porter' woke Its hidden passions.' Only Albert Pike, says 'Coleridge' and 'Powers' for 'Porter' and 'passions.' Then, I have a half-written novel in my MS. piles, with poems, tales, sketches, histories, commenced, or arranged in my mind ready to be put in writing, _to order_. In a word, I am cocked and primed for authorship. My life here invites me urgently to literary employments. My house, servants, &c. &c.,--all that a country gentleman, really wants of the goods of life,--are in sure possession to me and mine. I want honors, and some little more money. Be good enough, my dear sir, to let me know how I am to go about acquiring them." We wrote with frankness what we thought as true, of possible pecuniary advantages from the course he proposed, and were answered: "What you say about the returns in money for an author's labors is dispiriting enough,--and I at once give over an earnest purpose, which I had formed, of writing _books_. Thank God, I am not dependent on the booksellers, but have a moderate and sure support for my family, apart from the crowding hopes and fears which dependence on them, would no doubt generate. But I must add (or forego some gratifications) two or three hundred dollars per annum to my ordinary means. I might easily make this by my profession, which I have deserted and neglected, but it would be as bad as the tread-mill to me; I detest the law. On the other hand, I love the fever-fits of composition. The music of rhythm, coming from God knows where, like the airy melody in the Tempest, tingles pleasantly in my veins and fingers; I like to build the verse cautiously, but with the excitement of a rapid writer, which I rein in and check; and then, we both know how glorious it is to make the gallant dash, and round off the stanza with the sonorous couplet, or with some rhyme as natural to its place as a leaf on a tree, but separated from its mate that peeps down to it over the inky ends of many intervening lines.... That unepistolary sentence has considerably fatigued me. I was saying, or about to say, that I would be obliged to you for information as to the profitableness of writing for periodicals."