listic and the Idealistic
academicians--I think the first thing to decide is what you want Kenelm
to be hereafter. When I order a pair of shoes, I decide beforehand what
kind of shoes they are to be,--court pumps or strong walking shoes;
and I don't ask the shoemaker to give me a preliminary lecture upon the
different purposes of locomotion to which leather can be applied. If,
Sir Peter, you want Kenelm to scribble lackadaisical poems, listen to
Parson John; if you want to fill his head with pastoral rubbish about
innocent love, which may end in marrying the miller's daughter, listen
to Parson John; if you want him to enter life a soft-headed greenhorn,
who will sign any bill carrying 50 per cent to which a young scamp asks
him to be security, listen to Parson John; in fine, if you wish a clever
lad to become either a pigeon or a ring-dove, a credulous booby or a
sentimental milksop, Parson John is the best adviser you can have."

"But I don't want my son to ripen into either of those imbecile
developments of species."

"Then don't listen to Parson John; and there's an end of the
discussion."

"No, there is not. I have not heard your advice what to do if John's
advice is not to be taken."

Mr. Mivers hesitated. He seemed puzzled.

"The fact is," said the Parson, "that Mivers got up 'The Londoner'
upon a principle that regulates his own mind,--find fault with the way
everything is done, but never commit yourself by saying how anything can
be done better."

"That is true," said Mivers, candidly. "The destructive order of mind is
seldom allied to the constructive. I and 'The Londoner' are destructive
by nature and by policy. We can reduce a building into rubbish, but we
don't profess to turn rubbish into a building. We are critics, and, as
you say, not such fools as to commit ourselves to the proposition of
amendments that can be criticised by others. Nevertheless, for your
sake, Cousin Peter, and on the condition that if I give my advice you
will never say that I gave it, and if you take it that you will never
reproach me if it turns out, as most advice does, very ill,--I will
depart from my custom and hazard my opinion."

"I accept the conditions."

"Well then, with every new generation there springs up a new order of
ideas. The earlier the age at which a man seizes the ideas that will
influence his own generation, the more he has a start in the race with
his contemporaries. If Kenelm comprehends at sixteen tho