"No."
"Why?"
"'Tis beneath you; besides, the stamp of malignancy is so strong upon it, that, except to the utterly ignorant, it is harmless; and even these, when they witness your play themselves, as sometime or another they will, will remember the libel, to the cost of its author and to your advantage. I see you have been almost as hardly treated by this gentleman," continued he, glancing over the paper which Theodore had taken up when he entered the room. "Are you acquainted with any of the gentlemen of the press?"
"No; and is it not therefore strange that I should have enemies among them!"
"Not at all."
"Why?"
"Because you have succeeded. Look over the rest of the journals," continued his friend; "you may find salve, perhaps, for these scratches."
Theodore did so; and in one or two instances salve, indeed, he found; but upon the whole he was in little danger of being spoiled through the praises of the press. "Why," exclaimed Theodore, "why do not letters enlarge the soul, while they expand the mind? Why do they not make men generous and honest? Why is not every literary man an illustration of Juvenal's axiom?"
"Teach a dog what you may," rejoined his friend, "can you alter his nature, so that the brute shall not predominate?"
"No," replied Theodore.