New-York tribune., 1902-01-02

would leak out, the benefits would be rejected.
the misunderstanding would be embttered.
This reminds me of anecdote which is not
given in Mr. Graham Balfours biography. AS
a little delicate. lonely boy in Edinburgh, Mr..
Stevenson read a book called "Ministering Chill
dren." have faint recollection Of this work
concerning a small Lord and Lady Bountifui
Children, we know, like to play at" the events
and characters they have read about and the
boy wanted to play at being ministering child.
He scanned his whole horizon" for somebody
TO play with, and thought he had found his
playmate From the window he observed street
boys Gn Scots "keelies'O enjoying themselves.
But one child was out Of the sports, little lame
fellow, the son OF baker. Here chance!
AFTER some misgivings Louis hardened his heart,
put on his cap, walked out-a refined little fig
ure-approached the object of his sympathy and
said. Will you let play with you?" Go to
hell! said the democratic offspring of the baker.
This lesson against doing good by stealth 10 per-
sons of unknown hostile disposition was, it
seems, thrown away. Such endeavors apt
to he misconStrued
A notable instance in other times is that OF
Byron and Leigh Hunt Byron did good TO"
Leigh Hunt in a way-in what l venture to
think was an intolerable way. Consequently We
have Leigh Hunts book on Byron, which few
people have read. 1t is worse in places than
can be shown within the limits of permissible
quotation. All this deplorable matter arose out
of ignorance of the world The two men placed
themselves in impossible situation of intl-
macy, and Leigh Hunt, unable to keep his own
counsel. inflicted an irreparable wound on his
own fame People speak, and not unnaturally,
as IL the genus 1rritabile, men who write, were
sinners in this respect above all other men The
history or literary QuarrelS nils volumes. we
nave Hume and Rousseau. Hume had honestly
done his best for Rousseau, whom the fat friend
ly Scot did not in the least understand. The
results were inauspicious, and Hume had
great deal of trouble which he was quite unable
to bear. But Rousseau at the time was nearly
mad, a mere mass of self-COnsciousneSs, senSi-
tiveness and Authorizations He spurned and
snapped, like sick beast, at the hands that
helped him. Then we have Voltaire who verify
believe quarrelled for the fun of the thing
These quarres not too serious. and I
doubt IL they carried much real enmity They
were to Voltaire gentle and joyous passages OF
arms" In Voltaire's later letters TO Frederick
the Great, after the rupture. one seems to see
two tiger cats more than half in play. They
stretch out pattes usually mufied. but each
knows that the claws there, and sharp
The animals are aware of each others gifts
which they rather respect and admire, though
each knows where the others weak place lies
and gives 1t a scratch now and then. Pope's
animosties were much more heartfelt and fero-
cious, but he was so little: and so weak and so
ailing that "scorn is allowed as part of his de-
feet The Elizabethans fought with pens as
work and the days pleasure. Like Captain
Shandon q think it was Shandon), they found
1t such easy writing"
1t is easy writing-that is the curse of it-and
that is why penmen have an i'll name for quar-
rellers. and for saying things that most people
leave. If not unspOken. at least unwritten. The
spoken word flies away; comparatively few hear
of it, and we can always beleXe, mostly with
justice. that it has been misrepo But,
the Latin grammar says, "Litera scripita
manet' C'Tbe written word endures'O. We
know about the squabbles OF Theocritus and
eternally pilloried; so are the enemies of Catul-
lus and the Ounces Of Pope That. then is the
cause of the Ill repute of men of letters. Other
men fall of all ill qualities-soders. actors.
doctors, painters, musicians; men of business
are of like naughty passions with ourselves.
But rule they only say things. The pen is
not eternally in their hands, with its tempta-
tions and opportuniteS-the easnesS of the
writing-and with the permanence of It's malice.
We do not know how the poets before Homer
quarrelled, the poets that never pen and
ink" But Homer, or somebody else, had quar-
rel with Margites, and there the proof of II
stands. though without Margites his reply.
Thus the writing man, though worse than
his neighbors, has far greater temptations, and
If he falls his undignified attitude lis fixed and
frozen permanence." The moral for the
young author is not 10 be too intimate, not 10
play the ministerng child out OF season. not TO
do anything with the angry essay chapter.
but commit II to Vulcan"