outrageous slant of country dandies and
the insolent obliquity indulged in by a few unpleasantly conspicuous
city-youth, who prove that "it takes three generations to make a
gentleman."

2. A movement towards the acquisition of a pair of pantaloons with a
stripe running down the leg; also of a slender canary-colored cane, to
be carried as formerly in the time when Mr. Van Buren was
President.--[_A mild veto from the schoolmistress was interposed._]

3. A manifest increase of that _monstraridigitativeness_,--if you will
permit the term,--which is so remarkable in literary men, that, if
public opinion allowed it, some of them would like to wear a smart
uniform, with an author's button, so that they might be known and hailed
everywhere.

4. An undeniable aggravation of the natural tendency to caress and
cosset such products of the writer's literary industry as have met with
special favor. This is shown by a willingness to repeat any given
stanza, a line of which is referred to, and a readiness to listen to
even exaggerated eulogy with a twinkling stillness of feature and
inclination of the titillated ear to the operator, such as the Mexican
Peccary is said to show when its dorsal surface is gently and
continuously irritated with the pointed extremity of a reed or of a
magnolia-branch. What other people think well of, we certainly have a
right to like, ourselves.

All this self-exaltation, which some folks make so much scandal of, is
the most natural thing in the world when one gets an over-dose of fair
words. The more I reflect upon it, the more I am convinced that it is
well for a man to think too highly of himself while he is in the working
state. Sydney Smith could discover no relation between Modesty and
Merit, excepting that they both began with an M. Considered simply as a
machine out of which work is to be got, the wheels of intellect run best
when they are kept well oiled by the public and the publisher.

Therefore, my friends, if any of you have uttered words of kindness, of
flattery, of extreme over-praise, even, let me thank you for it.
Criticism with praise in it is azotized food; it makes muscle; to expect
a man to write without it is like giving nothing but hay to a roadster
and expecting to get ten miles an hour out of him. A young fellow cannot
be asked to go on making love forever, if he does not get a smile now
and then to keep hope alive. The truth is, Bridget would have whisked
off the table-clot