foundation stones--all--mingling--fell!

NOTES.--Herculaneum and Pompeii were cities of Italy, which were destroyed
by an eruption of Vesuvius in the year 79 A. D., being entirely buried
under ashes and lava. During the last century they have been dug out to a
considerable extent, and many of the streets, buildings, and utensils have
been found in a state of perfect preservation.

CXVI. HOW MEN REASON. (405)

My friend, the Professor, whom I have mentioned to you once or twice, told
me yesterday that somebody had been abusing him in some of the journals of
his calling. I told him that I did n't doubt he deserved it; that I hoped
he did deserve a little abuse occasionally, and would for a number of
years to come; that nobody could do anything to make his neighbors wiser
or better without being liable to abuse for it; especially that people
hated to have their little mistakes made fun of, and perhaps he had been
doing something of the kind. The Professor smiled.

Now, said I, hear what I am going to say. It will not take many years to
bring you to the period of life when men, at least the majority of writing
and talking men, do nothing but praise. Men, like peaches and pears, grow
sweet a little while before they begin to decay. I don't know what it
is,--whether a spontaneous change, mental or bodily, or whether it is
through experience of the thanklessness of critical honesty,--but it is a
fact, that most writers, except sour and unsuccessful ones, get tired of
finding fault at about the time when they are beginning to grow old.

As a general thing, I would not give a great deal for the fair words of a
critic, if he is himself an author, over fifty years of age. At thirty, we
are all trying to cut our names in big letters upon the walls of this
tenement of life; twenty years later, we have carved it, or shut up our
jackknives. Then we are ready to help others, and care less to hinder any,
because nobody's elbows are in our way. So I am glad you have a little
life left; you will be saccharine enough in a few years.

Some of the softening effects of advancing age have struck me very much in
what I have heard or seen here and elsewhere. I just now spoke of the
sweetening process that authors undergo. Do you know that in the gradual
passage from maturity to helplessness the harshest characters sometimes
have a period in which they are gentle and placid as young children? I
have heard it said, but I can not be spon