the wise man--to refrain from reading the
lucubration of the former, but he cannot avoid the latter: which brings
me to the main subject of this paper--the Critic on the Hearth. One can
be deaf to the voice of the public hireling, but it is impossible to
shut one's ears to the private communications of one's friends and
family--all meant for our good, no doubt, but which are nevertheless
insufferable.

In Miss Martineau's Autobiography there is a passage expressing her
surprise that whereas in all other cases there is a certain modest
reticence in respect to other people's business when it is of a special
kind, the profession of literature is made an exception. As there is no
one but imagines that he can poke a fire and drive a gig, so everyone
believes he can write a book, or at all events (like that blasphemous
person in connection with the Creation) that he can give a wrinkle or
two to the author.

I wonder what a parson would say, if a man who never goes to church
save when his babies are christened, or by accident to get out of a
shower, should volunteer his advice about sermon-making? or an artist,
to whom the man without arms, who is wheeled about in the streets for
coppers, should recommend a greater delicacy of touch? Indeed, metaphor
fails me, and I gasp for mere breath when I think of the astounding
impudence of some people. If I possessed a tithe of it, I should surely
have made my fortune by this time, and be in the enjoyment of the
greatest prosperity. It must be remembered, too, that the opinion of
the Critics on the Hearth is always volunteered (indeed, one would as
soon think of asking for it as for a loan from the Sultan of Turkey),
and in nine cases out of ten it is unfavourable. One has no objection
to their praise, nor to any amount of it; what is so abhorrent is their
advice, and still more their disapproval. It is like throwing 'half a
brick' at you, which, utterly valueless in itself, still hurts you when
it hits you. And the worst of it is that, apart from their rubbishy
opinions, one likes these people; they are one's friends and relatives,
and to cut one's moorings from them altogether would be to sail over
the sea of life without a port to touch at.

The early life of the author is especially embittered by the utterances
of these good folks. As a prophet is of no honour in his own country,
so it is with the young aspirant for literary fame with his folks at
home. They not only disbelieve i