immediately overlying it another essay in the same line———
To the Latter-day Reviewer
These Pearls.
For some days I was smitten with the idea of dedicating my little booklet to one of my numerous personal antagonists, and conveying some subtly devised insult with an air of magnanimity. I thought, for instance, of Blizzard———
Sir Joseph Blizzard,
The most distinguished, if not the greatest, of contemporary
anatomists.
I think it was "X. L's" book, "Aut Diabolus aut Nihil," that set me upon another line. There is, after all, your reader to consider in these matters, your average middle-class person to impress in some way. They say the creature is a snob, and absolutely devoid of any tinge of humour, and I must confess that I more than half believe it. At any rate, it was that persuasion inspired
To the Countess of X.,
In Memory of Many Happy Days.
I know no Countess of X. as a matter of fact, but if the public is such an ass as to think better of my work for the suspicion, I do not care how soon I incur it. And this again is a pretty utilisation of the waste desert of politics———
My Dear Salisbury,—Pray accept this unworthy tribute of my affectionate esteem.
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