he was not a bad fellow, and not likely to make a good
lawyer.

As the fates would have it (being naturally hostile to poets who defy
them), by the same coach to Stonnington came Master Johnny, in high
feather for his Christmas holidays. Now these two brothers were as
different of nature as their sisters were, or more so; and unlike the
gentler pair, each of these cherished lofty disdain for the other. Frank
looked down upon the school-boy as an unlicked cub without two
ideas; the bodily defect he endeavoured to cure by frequent outward
applications, but the mental shortcoming was beneath his efforts. Johnny
meanwhile, who was as hard as nails, no sooner recovered from a thumping
than he renewed and redoubled his loud contempt for a great lout over
six feet high, who had never drawn a sword or pulled a trigger. And now
for the winter this book would be a perpetual snowball for him to pelt
his big brother with, and yet (like a critic) be scarcely fair object
for a hiding. In season out of season, upstairs down-stairs, even in
the breakfast and the dinner chambers, this young imp poked clumsy
splinters--worse than thorns, because so dull--into the tender poetic
side; and people, who laugh at the less wit the better, laughed very
kindly, to please the boy, without asking whether they vexed the man.
And the worst of it was that the author too must laugh.

All this might be looked down at by a soul well hoisted upon the
guy-ropes of contempt; and now and then a very solid drubbing given
handsomely (upon other grounds) to the chief tormentor solaced the mind
of unacknowledged merit. But as the most vindictive measure to the man
who has written an abusive letter is to vouchsafe him no reply, so to
the poet who rebukes the age the bitterest answer it can give is none.
Frank Darling could retaliate upon his brother Johnny, and did so
whenever he could lay hold of him alone; but the stedfast silence of his
sister Faith (to whom one of his loftiest odes was addressed), and of
his lively father, irked him far more than a thousand low parodies.
Dolly alone was some comfort to him, some little vindication of true
insight; and he was surprised to find how quickly her intelligence
(which until now he had despised) had strengthened, deepened, and
enlarged itself. Still he wanted some one older, bigger, more capable of
shutting up the mouth, and nodding (instead of showing such a lot of red
tongue and white teeth), before he could be ha