But nobody bought it, and it died an early death.
Times have altered, I am a fogey; but the ideas of honour and
decency which fogies hold now were held by young men in the sixties
of our century. I know very well that these ideas are obsolete. I
am not preaching to the world, nor hoping to convert society, but to
YOU, and purely in your own private, spiritual interest. If you
enter on this path of tattle, mendacity, and malice, and if, with
your cleverness and light hand, you are successful, society will not
turn its back on you. You will be feared in many quarters, and
welcomed in others. Of your paragraphs people will say that "it is
a shame, of course, but it is very amusing." There are so many
shames in the world, shames not at all amusing, that you may see no
harm in adding to the number. "If I don't do it," you may argue,
"some one else will." Undoubtedly; but WHY SHOULD YOU DO IT?
You are not a starving scribbler; if you determine to write, you can
write well, though not so easily, on many topics. You have not that
last sad excuse of hunger, which drives poor women to the streets,
and makes unhappy men act as public blabs and spies. If YOU take to
this metier, it must be because you like it, which means that you
enjoy being a listener to and reporter of talk that was never meant
for any ears except those in which it was uttered. It means that
the hospitable board is not sacred for YOU; it means that, with you,
friendship, honour, all that makes human life better than a low
smoking-room, are only valuable for what their betrayal will bring.
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