They tell me not to be frightened about
it,--to begin as dull as I like, and that I shall warm up, by-and-by, as
old _Dutchman_ used to, who could hardly put one leg before the other
when he started, but, after a while, got so limbered and straightened
out by his work, that he dropped down into the forties, and, I think
they say, into the thirties. _L'appetit vient en mangeant_, one of them
said who talks French,--which, you know, means, that eating makes one
hungry. I remember, when I sat down to that last book of mine, which you
may perhaps have read, although I had the facts of the story, of course,
all in my head, it seemed to me that I should never have the patience
to tell them all; and yet, before I was through, I got so full of the
scenes and characters I was talking about, that I had to bolt my door
and lay in an extra bandanna, before I could trust myself to put my
recollections and thoughts on paper. You don't expect a locomotive is
going to start off with a train of thirty or forty thousand passengers,
without straining a little,--do you? That isn't the way; but this is.
_Puff!_ The wheels begin to turn, but very slowly.
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