And Julia?  And the housekeeping?—­the rent, food, and clothing, which controversy can hardly supply unless it be of the kind that serves as a recommendation to certain posts.  Controversial pamphlets have been known to earn large plums; but nothing of the sort could be expected from unpractical heresies about the Magicodumbras and Zuzumotzis.  Painfully the contrary.  Merman’s reputation as a sober thinker, a safe writer, a sound lawyer, was irretrievably injured:  the distractions of controversy had caused him to neglect useful editorial connections, and indeed his dwindling care for miscellaneous subjects made his contributions too dull to be desirable.  Even if he could now have given a new turn to his concentration, and applied his talents so as to be ready to show himself an exceptionally qualified lawyer, he would only have been like an architect in competition, too late with his superior plans; he would not have had an opportunity of showing his qualification.  He was thrown out of the course.  The small capital which had filled up deficiencies of income was almost exhausted, and Julia, in the effort to make supplies equal to wants, had to use much ingenuity in diminishing the wants.  The brave and affectionate woman whose small outline, so unimpressive against an illuminated background, held within it a good share of feminine heroism, did her best to keep up the charm of home and soothe her husband’s excitement; parting with the best jewel among her wedding presents in order to pay rent, without ever hinting to her husband that this sad result had come of his undertaking to convince people who only laughed at him.  She was a resigned little creature, and reflected that some husbands took to drinking and others to forgery:  hers had only taken to the Magicodumbras and Zuzumotzis, and was not unkind—­only a little more indifferent to her and the two children than she had ever expected he would be, his mind being eaten up with “subjects,” and constantly a little angry, not with her, but with everybody else, especially those who were celebrated.

This was the sad truth.  Merman felt himself ill-used by the world, and thought very much worse of the world in consequence.  The gall of his adversaries’ ink had been sucked into his system and ran in his blood.  He was still in the prime of life, but his mind was aged by that eager monotonous construction which comes of feverish excitement on a single topic and uses up the intellectual strength.

Merman had never been a rich man, but he was now conspicuously poor, and in need of the friends who had power or interest which he believed they could exert on his behalf.  Their omitting or declining to give this help could not seem to him so clearly as to them an inevitable consequence of his having become impracticable, or at least of his passing for a man whose views were not likely to be safe and sober.  Each friend in turn offended him, though unwillingly, and was suspected