Roundabout Papers

the kind fellow had the precaution to write “No thorn” upon the envelope, so that, ere I broke the seal, my mind might be reli

l with anguish. When the bailiffs are after a man, they adopt all sorts of disguises, pop out on him from all conceivable corners, and tap his miserable shoulders. His wife is taken ill; his sweetheart, who remarked his brilliant, too brilliant appearance at the Hyde Park review, will meet him at Cremorne, or where you will. The old frie

nd, which I open without the least suspicion, and what do I find? A few lines from my friend Johnson, it is true, but they are written on a page covered with feminine handwriting. “Dear Mr. Johnson,” says the writer, “I have just been perusing with delight a most charming tale by the Archbishop of Cambray. It is called ‘Telemachus;’ and I think it would be admirably suited to the Cornhill Magazine. As you know the Editor, will you have the great kindness, dear Mr. Johnson, to communicate

word of unkindness. I write him back gently, that I fear “Telemachus” won’t suit us. He can send the letter on to his fair correspondent. But however soft the answer, I question whether the wrath will

e for the opinion of that hobnailed lout of a Paris? Do you suppose that I, the Goddess of Wisdom, can’t make allowances for mortal ignorance, and am so base as to bear malice against a poor creature who knows no better? You little know the goddess nature when you dare to insinuate that our divine minds are actuated by motives so base. A love of justice influences US. We are above mean revenge. We are too magnanimous to be angry at the award of such a judge in favor of such a crea

ors: and I wish her nothing but well, and when Macmahon (or shall it be Mulligan?) Roi d’Irlande ascends his throne, I hope she may be appointed professor of English to the princesses of the royal house. Nuper — in former days — I too have militated; sometimes, as I now think, unjustly; but always, I vow, without personal rancor. Which of us has not idle words to recall, flippant jokes to regret? Have you never committed an imprudence? Have you never had a dispute, and found out that you were wrong? So much the worse for you. Woe be to the man qui croit toujours avoir raison. His anger is not a brief madness, but a permanent mania

in their hands. One dear little lady, whom I knew, and who sat opposite, gave a pretty blush, and popped her paper under the tablecloth. I told her I had had my whipping already in my own private room, and begged her to continue her reading. I may have undergone agonies, you see, but every man who has been bred at an English public school comes away from a private interview with Dr. Birch with a calm, even a smiling face. And this is not impossible, when you are prepared. You screw your courage up — you go through the business. You come back and take your seat on the form, showing not the least symptom of uneasiness or of previous unpleasantries. But to be caught suddenly up, and whipped in the bosom of your family — to sit down to breakfast, and cast your innocent eye on a paper, and find, before you are aware, that the Saturday Monitor or Bl

sher should be criticised for his dinners, and for the conversation which did NOT take place there — is this tolerable press practice, legitimate joking, or honorable warfare? I have not the honor to know my next-door neighbor, but I make no doubt that he receives his friends at dinner; I see his wife and children pass constantly; I even know the carriages of some

rs of my friend and publisher, which are described as “tremendously heavy,” of the conversation (which does not take place), and of the guests assembled at the table. I am informed that the proprietor of the Cornhill, and the host on these occasions, is “a very good man, but totally unread;” and that on my asking him whether Dr. Johnson was dining behind the screen, he said, “God bless my soul, my dear sir, there’s no person by the name of Johnson here, nor any one behind the screen,” and that a roar of laughter cut him short. I am informed by the same New York correspondent that I

e contribution which bears “marks of his hand?” Suppose he never said to any literary gentleman, “I recognized YOUR HOOF” in any periodical whatever? Suppose the 40,000 subscribers, which the writer to New York “considered to be about the mark,” should be between 90,000 and 100,000 (and as he will have figures, there they are)? Suppose this back-door gossip should be utterly blundering and untrue, would any one wonder? Ah! if we had only enjoyed

lings, as surely as my Lord Chief Justice on the Bench. The dignity of letters, the honor of the literary calling, the slights put by haughty and unthinking people upon literary men — don’t we hear outcries upon these subjects raised daily? As dear Sam Johnson sits behind the screen, too proud to show his threadbare coat and patches among the more prosperous brethren of his trade, there is no want of dignity in HIM, in that homely image of