“Now. I like the spirit," said Paletto, “but,
pray, be sensible. 'Where Macdonald sits',
there is the head of the table. - Stand firm in
your own shoes, and graduate your bows by
those you get.”
“I suppose 1 am thin-skinned."
“As long as you are, you will chafe. Culti
vate a hide like a rhinoceros’, and So
ciety will let fly its pin pointed arrows in
vain. You have a great deal to leant, niv
dear boy.”
“But other special classes are not so treated
—literary men, for instance."
“Don’t be too sure of that. An author who
has attained position is feted, because the
: fashionable circles must have their lions,
i But to stand permanently like other-men, he
i must have money or family, or else olvy the
world’s ten commandments, of which the
first is, ‘Thou shalt not wear a slouched
1 hat,’ —and the rest are like unto it. No the
literary men have their heart-burnings, 1
suspect. They forget, as you do, that their
| very profession, the direction of their
| thoughts,their mode of life,cut them off from
| sympathy and fellowship. What has a
writer who dreams of rivalling Emerson or
: Dickens to do with costly and absorb
ing private theatricals, with suppers at Del
-1 monico’s, with any of the thousand modes of
killing time agreeably! And how shall you
| become the new Claud, if you give your
j thoughts to the style of your clothes, and to
the inanities that make up the staple of cou
| versa tion!"
“But because lam precluded from devot
ing my time to society, that is no reason why
I should bear the patronizing ah a—"
“Don’t lie potronized—that’s all. If a man
gives you such a look as you have described,
cut him dead the next time you meet him.
