Why am I no longer ambitious?  Once I was, but ’twas when I was young and foolish.  Then methought “It were an easy leap to pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon;” but now I am old and fat, and there is something in fat which chokes or destroys ambition.  It would appear that it is requisite for the body to be active and springing as the mind; and if it is not, it weighs the latter down to its own gravity.  Who ever heard of a fat man being ambitious?  Caesar was a spare man; Buonaparte was thin as long as he climbed the ladder; Nelson was a shadow.  The Duke of Wellington has not sufficient fat in his composition to grease his own Wellington-boots.  In short, I think my hypothesis to be fairly borne out, that fat and ambition are incompatible.

It is very melancholy to be forced to acknowledge this, for I am convinced that it may be of serious injury to my works.  An author with a genteel figure will always be more read than one who is corpulent.  All his etherealness departs.  Some young ladies may have fancied me an elegant young man, like Lytton Bulwer, full of fun and humour, concealing all my profound knowledge under the mask of levity, and have therefore read my books with as much delight as has been afforded by “Pelham.”  But the truth must be told.  I am a grave, heavy man, with my finger continually laid along my temple, seldom speaking unless spoken to—­and when ladies talk, I never open my mouth; the consequence is, that sometimes, when there is a succession of company, I do not speak for a week.  Moreover, I am married, with five small children; and now all I look forward to, and all I covet, is to live in peace, and die in my bed.

I wonder why I did not commence authorship before!  How true it is that a man never knows what he can do until he tries!  The fact is, I never thought that I could make a novel; and I was thirty years old before I stumbled on the fact.  What a pity!

Writing a book reminds me very much of making a passage across the Atlantic.  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.