[ 4 ] C H A P. II. IT is with LOVE as with CUCK- OLDOM --       -- But now I am talking of begin- ning a book, and have long had a thing upon my mind to be imparted to the reader, which if not imparted now, can never be imparted to him as long as I live (whereas the COMPARISON may be imparted to him any hour in the day) --   I'll just mention it, and begin in good earnest.   The thing is this.   That of all the several ways of begin- ning a book which are now in practice              4              throughout [ 5 ] throughout the known world  I am con- fident my own way of doing it is the best  --  I'm sure it is the most religious   -- for I begin with writing the first sentence  --  and trusting to Almighty God for the second.   'Twould cure an author for ever of the fuss and folly of opening his street- door, and calling in his neighbours and friends, and kinsfolk, with the devil and all his imps, with their hammers and engines, &c. only to observe how one sentence of mine follows another, and how the plan follows the whole.   I wish you saw me half starting out of my chair, with what confidence, as I grasp the elbow of it, I look up --                B 3              catching [ 6 ] catching the idea, even sometimes before it halfway reaches me --     I believe in my conscience I intercept many a thought which heaven intended for another man.   Pope and his Portrait * are fools to me   -- no martyr is ever so full of faith or fire   -- I wish I could say of good works too   -- but I have no       Zeal or Anger   -- or       Anger or Zeal   -- And till gods and men agree together to call it by the same name   -- the errant- est TARTUFFE, in science -- in politics -- or in religion, shall never kindle a spark within me, or have a worse word, or a more unkind greeting,                           than        * Vid. Pope's Portrait. [ 7 ] than what he will read in the next chapter.