crotchets; that the unvarnished truth does not answer; that plain
facts will not digest? Do you not know that the squeak of the real pig
is no more relished now than it was in days of yore? Were I to give the
catastrophe of your life and conversation, the public would sweep off in
shrieking hysterics, and there would be a wild cry for sal-volatile and
burnt feathers. "Impossible!" would be pronounced here; "untrue!" would
be responded there; "inartistic!" would be solemnly decided. Note well.
Whenever you present the actual, simple truth, it is, somehow, always
denounced as a lie--they disown it, cast it off, throw it on the parish;
whereas the product of your own imagination, the mere figment, the sheer
fiction, is adopted, petted, termed pretty, proper, sweetly natural--the
little, spurious wretch gets all the comfits, the honest, lawful
bantling all the cuffs. Such is the way of the world, Peter; and as you
are the legitimate urchin, rude, unwashed, and naughty, you must stand
down.

Make way for Mr. Sweeting.

Here he comes, with his lady on his arm--the most splendid and the
weightiest woman in Yorkshire--Mrs. Sweeting, formerly Miss Dora Sykes.
They were married under the happiest auspices, Mr. Sweeting having been
just inducted to a comfortable living, and Mr. Sykes being in
circumstances to give Dora a handsome portion. They lived long and
happily together, beloved by their parishioners and by a numerous circle
of friends.

There! I think the varnish has been put on very nicely.

Advance, Mr. Donne.

This gentleman turned out admirably--far better than either you or I
could possibly have expected, reader. He, too, married a most sensible,
quiet, lady-like little woman. The match was the making of him. He
became an exemplary domestic character, and a truly active parish priest
(as a pastor he, to his dying day, conscientiously refused to act). The
outside of the cup and platter he burnished up with the best
polishing-powder; the furniture of the altar and temple he looked after
with the zeal of an upholsterer, the care of a cabinet-maker. His little
school, his little church, his little parsonage, all owed their erection
to him; and they did him credit. Each was a model in its way. If
uniformity and taste in architecture had been the same thing as
consistency and earnestness in religion, what a shepherd of a Christian
flock Mr. Donne would have made! There was one art in the mastery of
which nothing mortal