his; it is perfectly true. But I
do not go in for pointing out my friends' faults to them, unless they
ask me to do so: and the remark in question was just one of those
hasty, unconsidered, sweeping little judgments that one does pass in
conversation about the action of a friend. One cannot--at least I
cannot--so order my conversation that if a casual criticism is repeated
without qualification to the person who is the subject of it, he may
not be pained by it. The repetition of it in all its nakedness makes it
seem deliberate, when it is not deliberate at all. I say in my reply
frankly that I admire, esteem, and love my friend, but that I do not
therefore admire his faults. I add that I do not myself mind my friends
criticising me, so long as they do not do it to my face. But I am aware
that, for all my frankness, I cut a poor figure in the matter. I
foresee a tiresome, useless correspondence, and a certain inevitable
coldness. Then, too, I must write a disagreeable letter to the man who
has repeated my criticism; and he will reply, quite fairly, that I
ought not to have said it if I did not mean it, and if I was not
prepared to stand by it. And he will be annoyed too, because he will
not see that he has done anything that he ought not to have done. I
shall say that I shall have for the future to be careful what I say to
him, and he will reply that he quite approves of my decision, and that
it is a pity I have not always acted on the same principle; and he will
have a detestable species of justice on his side.

Then there are other things as well. There is some troublesome legal
business, arising out of a quarrel between two relations of mine on a
question of some property. Whatever I decide, someone will be vexed. I
do not want to take any part in the matter at all, and the only reason
I do it is because I have been appealed to, and there does not seem to
be anyone else who will do it. This will entail a quantity of
correspondence and some visits to town, because of the passion that
people have for interviews, and because lawyers love delay, since it is
a profitable source of income to them. In this case the parties in the
dispute are women, and one cannot treat their requests with the same
bluntness that one treats the requests of men. "I should feel so much
more happy," one of them says, "if you could just run up and discuss
the matter with me; it is so much more satisfactory than a letter,"
This will be troublesome