"The editor of the 'John Bull' reads 'Gore House.' He is an Englishman, and pledged to his British blood, while he makes his living out of America, to abuse, underrate, and vilify, her government, institutions, and literature, therefore he says, curtly:
"'We have received "Gore House"—they of course who wish for literature, especially female literature, will look the other side of the Atlantic." He then takes one of the most glowing passages in 'Gore House,' and transposing the words slightly, passes it off for editorial in his own columns.
"The editor of 'The Timbrel' reads Gore House. He has a female relative, Miss Clementina Clemates, whose mission she thinks is to be an authoress. In furtherance of this design of hers, he thinks it policy to decry all other rival books. So he says:
"'We have read "Gore House." We ought to say we have tried to read it. The fact is, the only lady book recently published that we can heartily recommend to our readers is "Sketches of the Fireside, by Clementine Clemates."'
"The editor of the 'Dinsmore Republican' reads the book. He is of the Don Quixote order, goes off like an old pistol half primed, whenever the right chord is struck. Gore House takes him captive at once. He wishes there were a tournament, or some such arrangement, by which he could manifest his devotion to and admiration of the authoress. He throws down the book, unties his neckcloth, which seems to be strangling him, loosens his waistband button to give his breathing apparatus more play, throws up the window, runs his fingers through his hair, till each one seems as charged with electricity as a lightning-rod, and then seizing his goose-quill, piles on the commendatory adjectives till your modesty exclaims, in smothering agony, 'Save me from my friends, and I will take care of my enemies.'"
"But tell me," said Rose, "is there no bright side to this subject you can depict me?"
"Oh, yes," said Gertrude, "there are editors who can read a book and deal fairly and conscientiously by it and its author, who neither underrate nor overrate from fear or favor, who find fault, not as an escape-valve for their own petulance or indigestion, but gently, kindly, as a wise parent would rebuke his child—editors on whose faith you can rely, whose book reviews are, and can be, depended upon, who feel themselves accountable to other than a human tribunal for their discharge of so important a public trust."
"Well," said Rose, in despair, "if I might be Sappho herself I could not run such a gauntlet of criticism as you have described."
"Far happier to be Cornelia with her jewels," said Gertrude, snatching up the beautiful Charley (I take it Cornelia had a glorious husband). "Fame is a great unrest to a true woman's heart. The fret, and tumult, and din of battle are not for her. The vulgar sneer for which there is no preventive, save the unrecognized one of honor; the impertinent tone of familiarity, supposed to be acceptable by those to whom a woman's heart is yet a sealed book; what are tears to oppose to such bludgeon weapons? No, the fret and din of battle are not for her; but if, at the call of trumpet-tongued necessity, she buckle on the armor, let her fight with what good courage her God may give her, valuing far above the laurel crown, when won, the loving hearts for which she toils—which beat glad welcome home."