tleman, and first
writer of the age; or a dull, foolish, wicked, pert, shallow,
ignorant, insolent, traitorous, black-hearted outcast, and disgrace
to civilization.

What do I think determines the set of phrases a man gets?--Well, I
should say a set of influences something like these:---1st.
Relationships, political, religious, social, domestic. 2d.
Oyster, in the form of suppers given to gentlemen connected with
criticism. I believe in the school, the college, and the clergy;
but my sovereign logic, for regulating public opinion--which means
commonly the opinion of half a dozen of the critical gentry--is the
following MAJOR PROPOSITION. Oysters au naturel. Minor
proposition. The same "scalloped." Conclusion. That--(here
insert entertainer's name) is clever, witty, wise, brilliant,--and
the rest.

--No, it isn't exactly bribery. One man has oysters, and another
epithets. It is an exchange of hospitalities; one gives a "spread"
on linen, and the other on paper,--that is all. Don't you think
you and I should be apt to do just so, if we were in the critical
line? I am sure I couldn't resist the softening influences of
hospitality. I don't like to dine out, you know,--I dine so well
at our own table, [our landlady looked radiant,] and the company is
so pleasant [a rustling movement of satisfaction among the
boarders]; but if I did partake of a man's salt, with such
additions as that article of food requires to make it palatable, I
could never abuse him, and if I had to speak of him, I suppose I
should hang my set of jingling epithets round him like a string of
sleigh-bells. Good feeling helps society to make liars of most of
us,--not absolute liars, but such careless handlers of truth that
its sharp corners get terribly rounded. I love truth as chiefest
among the virtues; I trust it runs in my blood; but I would never
be a critic, because I know I could not always tell it. I might
write a criticism of a book that happened to please me; that is
another matter.

--Listen, Benjamin Franklin! This is for you, and such others of
tender age as you may tell it to.

When we are as yet small children, long before the time when those
two grown ladies offer us the choice of Hercules, there comes up to
us a youthful angel, holding in his right hand cubes like dice, and
in his left spheres like marbles. The cubes are of stainless
ivory, and on each is written in letters of gold--TRUTH. The
spheres are veined an