"I know that the profession of journalist is an honorable one, when it is carried on without prejudice or passion, when one writes with impartiality. I will not say, with spirit and good taste, for those qualities should be indispensable prerequisites of admission to the guild. Unluckily, it is not always so. Since newspapers have become so numerous, all the unappreciated poets, all the unsuccessful authors, have turned journalists. These gentry, having failed to induce anyone to produce their plays, fall furiously upon those authors who succeed. Luckily, the real public does substantial justice; often, indeed, the very extravagance of the insults heaped upon a man of talent simply intensifies the public interest in him. And, after all, it is a pitiable thing, it seems to me, to pass one's life tearing to tatters those who produce! It is the old story of the he-goat in the fold: he does nothing, and attacks whoever wants to work." "You don't seem to be fond of journalists?" "I think very highly of them when they are intelligent and their criticisms are decent. I once knew a very popular literary man, who laughed till he cried over the savage attacks that the journalists made upon his works. 'If I were not successful,' he would say, 'those fellows would not honor me with their hatred. They would not say anything about me unless it were to offer me some patronizing compliment. Ah! my dear fellow, congratulate me! Everybody cannot have enemies.'--But, to return to Monsieur Saint-Bergame: for what newspaper does he write?" "Really, I can't tell you; for some new sheet--more than one, perhaps. He has the reputation of being very bitter, and prides himself on it." "He has no reason to. Nothing is so easy as to say unkind things; the conversation of cooks and concierges is principally made up of them." "I believe, too, that Saint-Bergame has had a long play in verse accepted at the Odéon, or at the Français, or perhaps at the Théâtre-Historique. But he's been talking about it a long, long while, and nobody else ever mentions it." "And are these monsieur's only titles to the admiration of his contemporaries?" "I know of no others. However, he's a good-looking fellow, dresses well, and follows all the fashions. He's a _beau cavalier_; so you must not be surprised if all the ladies fight for the honor of capturing him." "Oh! I am surprised at nothing." "But do you not cultivate the arts, Monsieur Rochebrune? I should say that I had heard of songs and ballads of which you are doubly the author, having composed both words and music." "Yes, monsieur, that is true. But one is no more a literary man because one can write a ballad, than one is a composer because one has composed an air and worked out a piano accompaniment for it." "Mere modesty on your part, monsieur; you can't make me believe that a man can compose an air without being a musician." "One may be like Jean-Jacques, who had not the slightest conception of counterpoint."