You will be revenged on me, in that
case, some day; you will lie in wait for me with a dirty bludgeon,
and steal on me out of a sewer. If you do, permit me to assure you
that I don't care. But if you are already in a rage, if you are
about tearing up this epistle, and are starting to assault me
personally, or at least to answer me furiously, then there is every
hope for you and for your future. I therefore venture to state my
reasons for supposing that you are inclined to begin a course which
your father, if he were alive, would deplore, as all honourable men
in their hearts must deplore it. When you were at the University
(let me congratulate you on your degree) you edited, or helped to
edit, The Bull-dog. It was not a very brilliant nor a very witty,
but it was an extremely "racy" periodical. It spoke of all men and
dons by their nicknames. It was full of second-hand slang. It
contained many personal anecdotes, to the detriment of many people.
It printed garbled and spiteful versions of private conversations on
private affairs. It did not even spare to make comments on ladies,
and on the details of domestic life in the town and in the
University. The copies which you sent me I glanced at with extreme
disgust.
In my time, more than a score of years ago, a similar periodical,
but a much more clever periodical, was put forth by members of the
University. It contained a novel which, even now, would be worth
several ill-gotten guineas to the makers of the chronique
scandaleuse.
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