"Well," said Bolton, quietly, "did you never see a woman who thought she was handsome, when she was not? Did you never see a man who thought he was witty, when he was only scurrilous and impudent? Did you never see people who flattered themselves they were frank, because they were obtuse and impertinent? And cannot you imagine that a man may think himself a philanthropist, when he is only a worshiper of the golden calf? That same calf," he continued, stroking his cat till she purred aloud, "has the largest Church of any on earth."
"Well," said I, "at any rate I'll hand it in."
"You can do so," he replied, "and that will be the last you will hear of it. You see, I've been this way before you, and I have learned to save myself time and trouble on these subjects."
The result was precisely as Bolton predicted.
"We must be a little careful, my young friend," said Mr. Goldstick, "how we handle specific matters of this kind; they have extended relations that a young man cannot be expected to appreciate, and I would advise you to confine yourself to abstract moral principles; keep up a high moral standard, sir, and things will come right of themselves. Now, sir, if you could expose the corruptions in England it would have an admirable moral effect, and our general line of policy now is down on England."
A day or two after, however, I fell into serious disgrace. A part of my duties consisted in reviewing the current literature of the day; Bolton, Jim, and I, took that department among us, and I soon learned to sympathize with the tea-tasters, who are said to ruin their digestion by an incessant tasting of the different qualities of tea. The enormous quantity and variety of magazines and books that I had to "sample" in a few days brought me into such a state of mental dyspepsia, that I began to wish every book in the Red Sea. I really was brought to consider the usual pleas and tone of book notices in America to be evidence of a high degree of Christian forbearance. In looking over my share, however, I fell upon a novel of the modern, hot, sensuous school, in which glowing coloring and a sort of religious sentimentalism were thrown around actions and principles which tended directly to the dissolution of society. Here was exactly the opportunity to stem that tide of corruption against which Mr. Goldstick so solemnly had warned me. I made the analysis of the book a text for exposing the whole class of principles and practices it inculcated, and uttering my warning against corrupt literature; I sent it to the paper, and in it went. A day or two after Mr. Goldstick came into the office in great disorder, with an open letter in his hand.
"What's all this?" he said; "here's Sillery and Peacham, blowing us up for being down on their books, and threatening to take away their advertising from us."
Nobody seemed to know anything about it, till finally the matter was traced back to me.
"It was a corrupt book, Mr. Goldstick," said I, with firmness, "and the very object you stated to me was to establish a just moral criticism."
"Go to thunder! young man," said Mr. Goldstick, in a tone I had never heard before. "Have you no discrimination? are you going to blow us up? The Great Democracy, sir, is a great moral engine, and the advertising of this publishing house gives thousands of dollars yearly towards its support. It's an understood thing that Sillery and Peacham's books are to be treated handsomely."