The early life of the author is especially embittered by the utterances of these good folks.  As a prophet is of no honour in his own country, so it is with the young aspirant for literary fame with his folks at home.  They not only disbelieve in him, but—­generally, however, with one or two exceptions, who are invaluable to him in the way of encouragement—­’make hay’ of him and his pretensions in the most heartless style.  If he produces a poem, it achieves immortality in the sense of his ‘never hearing the last of it;’ it is the jest of the family till they have all grown up.  But this he can bear, because his noble mind recognises its own greatness; he regards his jeering brethren in the same light as the philosophic writer beholds ’the vapid and irreflective reader.’  When they tell him they ’can’t make head or tail of his blessed poetry,’ he comforts himself with the reflection of the great German (which he has read in a translation) that the clearest handwriting cannot be read by twilight.  It is when his literary talents have received more or less recognition from the public at large, that home criticism becomes so painful to him.  His brethren are then boys no longer, but parsons, lawyers, and doctors; and though they don’t venture to interfere with one-another as regards their individual professions, they make no sort of scruple about interfering with him.  They write to him their unsolicited advice and strictures.  This is the parson’s letter: 

  ’MY DEAR DICK,

’I like your last book much better than the rest of them; but I don’t like your heroine.  She strikes both Julia and myself [Julia is his wife, who is acquainted with no literature but the cookery-book] as rather namby-pamby.  The descriptions, however, are charming; we both recognised dear old Ramsgate at once. [The original of the locality in the novel being Dieppe.] The plot is also excellent, though we think we have some recollection of it elsewhere; but it must be so difficult to hit upon anything original in these days.  Thanks for your kind remembrance of us at Christmas:  the oysters were excellent.  We were sorry to see that ill-natured little notice in the Scourge.

  ’Yours affectionately,

  ‘BOB.’

Jack the lawyer writes: 

  ’DEAR DICK,

’You are really becoming ["Becoming?” he thinks that becoming] quite a great man:  we could hardly get your last book from Mudie’s, though I suppose he takes very small quantities of copies, except from really popular authors.  Marion was charmed with your heroine [Dick rather likes Marion; and doesn’t think Jack treats her with the consideration she deserves], and I have no doubt women in general will admire her, but your hero—­you know I always speak my mind—­is rather a duffer.  You should go into the world more, and sketch from life.  The Vice-Chancellor gave me great pleasure by speaking of your early poems very highly the other day, and I assure you it was quite a drop down for me, to find that he was referring to some other writer of the same name.  Of course I did not undeceive him.  I wish, my dear fellow, you would write stories in one volume instead of three.  You write a short story capitally.

  ’Yours ever,