The critics criticised all things. When a young couple fell in love, they each, before thinking of marriage, called upon the critics for a criticism of the other one.
Needless to say that, in the result, no marriage ever came of it.
"My dear young lady," the critics would say, after the inspection had taken place, "I can discover nothing new whatever about the young man. You would simply be wasting your time in marrying him."
Or, to the young man, it would be:
"Oh, dear, no! Nothing attractive about the girl at all. Who on earth gave you that notion? Simply a lovely face and figure, angelic disposition, beautiful mind, stanch heart, noble character. Why, there must have been nearly a dozen such girls born into the world since its creation. You would be only wasting your time loving her."
They criticised the birds for their hackneyed style of singing, and the flowers for their hackneyed scents and colors. They complained of the weather that it lacked originality—(true, they had not lived out an English spring)—and found fault with the Sun because of the sameness of his methods.
They criticised the babies. When a fresh infant was published in a house, the critics would call in a body to pass their judgment upon it, and the young mother would bring it down for them to sample.
"Did you ever see a child anything like that in this world before?" she would say, holding it out to them. "Isn't it a wonderful baby? You never saw a child with legs like that, I know. Nurse says he's the most extraordinary baby she ever attended. Bless him!"
But the critics did not think anything of it.
"Tut, tut," they would reply, "there is nothing extraordinary about that child—no originality whatever. Why, it's exactly like every other baby—bald head, red face, big mouth, and stumpy nose. Why, that's only a weak imitation of the baby next door. It's a plagiarism, that's what that child is. You've been wasting your time, madam. If you can't do anything more original than that, we should advise you to give up the business altogether."