At one moment, when the ideas flow, you have the wind aft, and away you scud, with a flowing sheet, and a rapidity which delights you: at other times, when your spirit flags, and you gnaw your pen (I have lately used iron pens, for I'm a devil of a crib-biter), it is like unto a foul wind, tack and tack, requiring a long time to get on a short distance.

But still you do go, although but slowly; and in both cases we must take the foul wind with the fair.

If a ship were to furl her sails until the wind was again favourable, her voyage would be protracted to an indefinite time; and if an author were to wait until he again felt in a humour, it would take a life to write a novel.
Whenever the wind is foul, which it now most certainly is, for I am writing anything but "Newton Forster," and which will account for this rambling, stupid chapter, made up of odds and ends, strung together like what we call "skewer pieces" on board of a man-of-war; when the wind is foul, as I said before, I have, however, a way of going a-head by getting up the steam, which I am now about to resort to--and the fuel is brandy.

All on this side of the world are asleep, except gamblers, house-breakers, the new police, and authors.

My wife is in the arms of Morpheus--an allegorical _crim.
con._, which we husbands are obliged to wink at; and I am making love to the brandy-bottle, that I may stimulate my ideas, as unwilling to be roused from their dark cells of the brain as the spirit summoned by Lochiel, who implored at each response, "Leave, oh! leave me to repose." Now I'll invoke them, conjure them up, like little imps, to do my bidding:-- By this glass which now I drain, By this spirit, which shall cheer you, As its fumes mount to my brain, From thy torpid slumbers rear you.
By this head, so tired with thinking, By this hand, no longer trembling, By these lips, so fond of drinking, Let me feel that you're assembling.
By the bottle placed before me, (Food for you, ere morrow's sun), By this second glass, I pour me, Come, you _little beggars_, come..