terly on the
critical work we started with. And thus we see that as each flea "has
smaller fleas that on him prey," even the critic himself cannot escape
the common lot of being bitten. Whether all this is a blessing or a
curse, like that one which made Pharaoh and all his household run to
their toilet-tables, is a question about which opinions might differ.
The physiologists of the time of Moses--if there were vivisectors other
than priests in those days--would probably have considered that other
plague, of the frogs, as a fortunate opportunity for science, as this
poor little beast has been the souffre-douleur of experimenters and
schoolboys from time immemorial.

But there is a form of criticism to which none will object. It is
impossible to come before a public so alive with sensibilities as this
we live in, with the smallest evidence of a sympathetic disposition,
without making friends in a very unexpected way. Everywhere there are
minds tossing on the unquiet waves of doubt. If you confess to the same
perplexities and uncertainties that torture them, they are grateful for
your companionship. If you have groped your way out of the wilderness
in which you were once wandering with them, they will follow your
footsteps, it may be, and bless you as their deliverer. So, all at once,
a writer finds he has a parish of devout listeners, scattered, it is
true, beyond the reach of any summons but that of a trumpet like the
archangel's, to whom his slight discourse may be of more value than the
exhortations they hear from the pulpit, if these last do not happen to
suit their special needs. Young men with more ambition and intelligence
than force of character, who have missed their first steps in life and
are stumbling irresolute amidst vague aims and changing purposes, hold
out their hands, imploring to be led into, or at least pointed towards,
some path where they can find a firm foothold. Young women born into a
chilling atmosphere of circumstance which keeps all the buds of their
nature unopened and always striving to get to a ray of sunshine, if
one finds its way to their neighborhood, tell their stories, sometimes
simply and touchingly, sometimes in a more or less affected and
rhetorical way, but still stories of defeated and disappointed instincts
which ought to make any moderately impressible person feel very tenderly
toward them.

In speaking privately to these young persons, many of whom have literary
aspirations,