music,
it does not appear that any one among them ever lifted up _a dissentient
voice_. They knew what was due to authors in those days. Now every stock
and stone turns into a serpent, and has a voice.

"That the terms 'Courteous Reader' and 'Candid Auditors,' as having
given rise to a false notion in those to whom they were applied, as
if they conferred upon them some right, _which they cannot have,_ of
exercising their judgments, ought to be utterly banished and exploded.

"These are our distinguishing tenets. To keep up the memory of the cause
in which we suffered, as the ancients sacrificed a goat, a supposed
unhealthy animal, to Aesculapius, on our feast-nights we cut up a goose,
an animal typical of _the popular voice_, to the deities of Candor and
Patient Hearing. A zealous member of the society once proposed that we
should revive the obsolete luxury of viper-broth; but the stomachs of
some of the company rising at the proposition, we lost the benefit of
that highly salutary and _antidotal dish_.

"The privilege of admission to our club is strictly limited to such as
have been fairly _damned_. A piece that has met with ever so little
applause, that has but languished its night or two, and then gone out,
will never entitle its author to a seat among us. An exception to our
usual readiness in conferring this privilege is in the case of a writer
who, having been once condemned, writes again, and becomes candidate for
a second martyrdom. Simple damnation we hold to be a merit, but to be
twice-damned we adjudge infamous. Such a one we utterly reject, and
blackball without a hearing:--

"_The common damned shun his society._

"Hoping that your publication of our Regulations may be a means of
inviting some more members into our society, I conclude this long
letter.

"I am, Sir, yours, SEMEL-DAMNATUS."

* * * * *

DARK WAYS.

"Tortured with winter's storms, and tossed with a tumultuous sea."

When God's curse forsook my country, it fell on me. I had been young
and heroic; I had fought well; what portion of the clock-work of Fate
had been allotted me I had utterly performed. Twelve years ago I became
a man and strove for my country's freedom; now she has attained her
heights without me, and I--what am I? A shapeless hulk, that stays in
the shadow, and that hates the world and the people of the world, and
verily the God above the world!

"Fight!" whispered Father Anselm