e is a copy of Nathan's book. Dauriat has just given it to me. The
second edition is coming out to-morrow; read the book again, and knock
off an article demolishing it. Felicien Vernou cannot endure Nathan,
for he thinks that Nathan's success will injure his own forthcoming
book. It is a craze with these little minds to fancy that there is not
room for two successes under the sun; so he will see that your article
finds a place in the big paper for which he writes."

"But what is there to be said against the book; it is good work!"
cried Lucien.

"Oh, I say! you must learn your trade," said Lousteau, laughing.
"Given that the book was a masterpiece, under the stroke of your pen
it must turn to dull trash, dangerous and unwholesome stuff."

"But how?"

"You turn all the good points into bad ones."

"I am incapable of such a juggler's feat."

"My dear boy, a journalist is a juggler; a man must make up his mind
to the drawbacks of the calling. Look here! I am not a bad fellow;
this is the way _I_ should set to work myself. Attention! You might
begin by praising the book, and amuse yourself a while by saying what
you really think. 'Good,' says the reader, 'this critic is not
jealous; he will be impartial, no doubt,' and from that point your
public will think that your criticism is a piece of conscientious
work. Then, when you have won your reader's confidence, you will
regret that you must blame the tendency and influence of such work
upon French literature. 'Does not France,' you will say, 'sway the
whole intellectual world? French writers have kept Europe in the path
of analysis and philosophical criticism from age to age by their
powerful style and the original turn given by them to ideas.' Here,
for the benefit of the philistine, insert a panegyric on Voltaire,
Rousseau, Diderot, Montesquieu, and Buffon. Hold forth upon the
inexorable French language; show how it spreads a varnish, as it were,
over thought. Let fall a few aphorisms, such as--'A great writer in
France is invariably a great man; he writes in a language which
compels him to think; it is otherwise in other countries'--and so on,
and so on. Then, to prove your case, draw a comparison between
Rabener, the German satirical moralist, and La Bruyere. Nothing gives
a critic such an air as an apparent familiarity with foreign
literature. Kant is Cousin's pedestal.

"Once on that ground you bring out a word which sums up the French men
of genius of the eigh