SHAM ADMIRATION IN LITERATURE. 59 



to laugh, you know," she added, hastily and apologetically, " hundreds 

 of times." 



" I don't clouht it," I replied ; " this is not such a free country as 

 your father supposes." 



"But ami right?" 



"I say nothing about 'right,'" I answered, "except that every- 

 body has a right to his own opinion. For my part, however, I 

 think the ' Mad Dog ' better than ' John Gilpin ' only because it is 

 shorter." 



Whether I was wrong or right in the matter is of no consequence 

 even to myself ; the affection and gratitude of that young creature 

 would more than repay me for a much greater mistake, if mistake it 

 is. She protests that I have emancipated her from slavery. She has 

 since talked to me about all sorts of authors, from Sir Philip Sidney 

 to Washington Irving, in a way that would make some people's blood 

 run cold ; but it has no such effect upon me quite the reverse. Of 

 Irving she naively remarks that his strokes of humor seem to her to 

 owe much of their success to the rarity of their occurrence : the 

 flashes of fun are spread over pages of dullness, which enhance them, 

 just as a dark night is propitious to fireworks, or the atmosphere of 

 the House of Commons, or a court of law, to a joke. She is often in 

 error, no doubt, but how bright and wholesome such talk is as com- 

 pared with the platitudes and commonplaces which one hears on all 

 sides in connection with literature ! 



As a rule, I suppose, even people in society (" the drawing-rooms 

 and the clubs ") are not absolutely base, and yet one would really think 

 so, to judge by the fear that is entertained by them of being natural. 

 " I vow to Heaven," says the prince of letter- writers, " that I think 

 the Parrots of Society are more intolerable and mischievous than its 

 Birds of Prey. If ever I destroy myself, it will be in the bitterness 

 of having those infernal and damnable 'good old times' extolled." 

 One is almost tempted to say the same when one hears their praises 

 come from certain mouths of the good old books. It is not every 

 one, of course, who has an opinion of his own upon any subject, far 

 less on that of literature, but every one can abstain from expressing 

 .an opinion that is not his own. If one has no voice, what possible 

 compensation can there be in becoming an echo ? No one, I conclude, 

 would wish to see literature discoursed about in the same pinchbeck 

 and affected style as are painting and music ; * yet that is what will 

 happen if this prolific weed of sham admiration is permitted to attain 

 its full growth. Nineteenth Century. 



* The slang of art-talk has reached the " young men " in the furniture-warehouses. 

 A friend of mine was recommended a sideboard the other day as not being a Chippen- 

 dale, but " having a Chippendale feeling in it." 



