but they, too, were
of no use. "Merely a repetition of the same notes in different
combinations," said the critics. "Why will people waste their time
writing unoriginal music, when they might be sweeping crossings?"

One man had written a play. I asked what the critics had said about him.
They showed me his tomb.

Then, there being no more artists or _litterateurs_ or dramatists or
musicians left for their beloved critics to criticise, the general
public of this enlightened land said to themselves, "Why should not our
critics come and criticise us? Criticism is useful to a man. Have we
not often been told so? Look how useful it has been to the artists and
writers--saved the poor fellows from wasting their time? Why shouldn't
we have some of its benefits?"

They suggested the idea to the critics, and the critics thought it an
excellent one, and said they would undertake the job with pleasure. One
must say for the critics that they never shirk work. They will sit and
criticise for eighteen hours a day, if necessary, or even, if quite
unnecessary, for the matter of that. You can't give them too much to
criticise. They will criticise everything and everybody in this world.
They will criticise everything in the next world, too, when they get
there. I expect poor old Pluto has a lively time with them all, as it
is.

So, when a man built a house, or a farm-yard hen laid an egg, the
critics were asked in to comment on it. They found that none of the
houses were original. On every floor were passages that seemed mere
copies from passages in other houses. They were all built on the same
hackneyed plan; cellars underneath, ground floor level with the street,
attic at the top. No originality anywhere!

So, likewise with the eggs. Every egg suggested reminiscences of other
eggs.

It was heartrending work.

The critics criticised all things. When a young couple fell in love,
they each, before thinking of marriage, called upon the critics for a
criticism of the other one.

Needless to say that, in the result, no marriage ever came of it.

"My dear young lady," the critics would say, after the inspection had
taken place, "I can discover nothing new whatever about the young man.
You would simply be wasting your time in marrying him."

Or, to the young man, it would be:

"Oh, dear, no! Nothing attractive about the girl at all. Who on
earth gave you that notion? Simply a lovely face and figure, angelic
disposition, beautif