Page:In the dozy hours, and other papers.djvu/157

 Rh forced to acknowledge that, if such were not my conviction, I had, to say the least, been unfortunate in my manner of putting things. I had used the two names indiscriminately and as if I thought one man every whit as worthy of illustrating my text as the other. Such moments ought to be salutary, they are so eminently cheerless. A disagreeable lesson, disagreeably imparted, is apt to be taken to heart with very beneficial results. If it is wasted, the fault does not lie with the surly truth-teller, whose thankless task has been performed with most ungracious efficacy. "Truth," says Saville, "has become such a ruining virtue, that mankind seems to be agreed to commend and avoid it."

As for the real and exasperating fault of much modern writing, its flippant and irrelevant cleverness, the critic and the reviewer stand equally guilty of the charge. Mr. Goldwin Smith observes that the province of criticism appears to be now limited to the saying of fine things; and there are moments when we feel that this unkind and forcible statement is very nearly true. The fatal and irresistible impulse to emit sparks—like the cat in the