brilliant talkers are sufficiently aware of the advantage of seeming in earnest."
"He struck me as an instance of the usual effect produced by society—with its Janus face of success and disappointment, of flattery and of falsehood—on a young and clever man. He sets out with believing too much—he ends with believing too little. Human nature was at first an imagination, and after wards a theory—both equally false. Ridicule may be the test of truth, but it is not its result."
"Nevertheless, sarcasm is the royal road to the bar. Is there any thing now-a-days to which a man may not sneer his way? But, for Pity and Miss Arundel's sake, let us return to his poetry. It is that rare thing 'a happy marriage,' between persiflage and sentiment. He tells an ancient legend to perfection. It is a minstrel in masquerade—the romance of the olden time couched with modern taste—and his wit keen with present allusions. But, really, it is scarcely worth while to be witty, when we remember how stupid people are. One would often think that a joke was as hard to be taken as an affront. The elder brother of this very gentleman had been spending some days at a house in the country: on the
