CRITICS.
“Bilious wretches, who abuse you because you write better than they.”
Slander and detraction! Even I, Fanny, know better than that. I never knew an editor to nib his pen with a knife as sharp as his temper, and write a scathing criticism on a book, because the authoress had declined contributing to his paper. I never knew a man who had fitted himself to a promiscuous coat, cut out in merry mood by taper fingers, to seize his porcupine quill, under the agony of too tight a self-inflicted fit, to annihilate the offender. I never saw the bottled-up hatred of years, concentrated in a single venomous paragraph. I never heard of an unsuccessful masculine author, whose books were drugs in the literary market, speak with a sneer of successful literary feminity, and insinuate that it was by accident, not genius, that they hit the popular favor!
By the memory of “seventy-six,” No! Do you suppose a man’s opinions are in the market—to be bought and sold to the highest bidder? Do you suppose he would laud a vapid book, because the fashionable authoress once laved his toadying temples with the baptism of upper-tendom? or, do you suppose he’d lash a poor, but self-reliant wretch, who had presumed to climb to the topmost round of Fame’s ladder, without his royal permission or assistance, and in despite of his repeated attempts to discourage her? No—no—bless your simple soul; a man never stoops to a meanness. There never was a criticism yet, born of envy, or malice, or repulsed love, or disappointed ambition. No—no. Thank the gods, I have a more exalted opinion of masculinity.
FORGETFUL HUSBANDS.
“There is a man out west, so forgetful, that his wife has to put a wafer on the end of her nose, that he may distinguish her from the other ladies; but this does not prevent him from making occasional mistakes.”
Take the wafer off your nose, my dear, and put it on your lips! Keep silence and let Mr. Johnson go on “making his mistakes;”—you cannot stop him, if you try; and if he has made up his mind to be near-sighted, all the guide-boards that you can set up, will only drive him home the longest way round!
So trot your babies, smooth your ringlets, digest your dinner, and—agree to differ! Don’t call Mr. Johnson “my dear,” or he will have good reason to think you are going to quarrel with him! Look as pretty as a poppet; put on the dress he used to like—and help him to his favorite bit at table, with your accustomed grace; taking care not (?) to touch him, accidentally, with your little fat hand, when you are passing it. Ten to one he is on the marrow bones of his soul to you, in less than a week, though tortures couldn’t wring a confession out of him. Then, if he’s worth the trouble, you are to take advantage of his silent penitence, and go every step of the way to meet him, for he will not approximate to you, the width of a straw! If he has not frittered away all your love for him, this is easily done, my dear, and for one whole day after it, he will feel grateful to you for sparing him the humiliation (?) of making an acknowledgment. How many times, my dear “Barkis,” you will be “willing” to go through all this, depends upon several little circumstances in your history with which I am unacquainted.