nd decency which fogies hold now were held by young
men in the sixties of our century. I know very well that these ideas are
obsolete. I am not preaching to the world, nor hoping to convert
society, but to _you_, and purely in your own private, spiritual
interest. If you enter on this path of tattle, mendacity, and malice,
and if, with your cleverness and light hand, you are successful, society
will not turn its back on you. You will be feared in many quarters, and
welcomed in others. Of your paragraphs people will say that "it is a
shame, of course, but it is very amusing." There are so many shames in
the world, shames not at all amusing, that you may see no harm in adding
to the number. "If I don't do it," you may argue, "some one else will."
Undoubtedly; but _why should you do it_?

You are not a starving scribbler; if you determine to write, you can
write well, though not so easily, on many topics. You have not that last
sad excuse of hunger, which drives poor women to the streets, and makes
unhappy men act as public blabs and spies. If _you_ take to this
_metier_, it must be because you like it, which means that you enjoy
being a listener to and reporter of talk that was never meant for any
ears except those in which it was uttered. It means that the hospitable
board is not sacred for _you_; it means that, with you, friendship,
honour, all that makes human life better than a low smoking-room, are
only valuable for what their betrayal will bring. It means that not even
the welfare of your country will prevent you from running to the Press
with any secret which you may have been entrusted with, or which you may
have surprised. It means, this peculiar kind of profession, that all
things open and excellent, and conspicuous to all men, are with you of no
account. Art, literature, politics, are to cease to interest you. You
are to scheme to surprise gossip about the private lives, dress, and talk
of artists, men of letters, politicians. Your professional work will
sink below the level of servants' gossip in a public-house parlour. If
you happen to meet a man of known name, you will watch him, will listen
to him, will try to sneak into his confidence, and you will blab, for
money, about him, and your blab will inevitably be mendacious. In short,
like the most pitiable outcasts of womankind, and, without their excuse,
you will live by selling your honour. You will not suffer much, nor
suffer long. Your co