Yet, considering the earnestness with which we go to work, we are really very miserably rewarded. We do not make half such big incomes as the authors we judge and condemn. I say this advisedly, because, as a positive fact, the men and women writers whom we most hold up to opprobrium are the wretches who make the most money. The very devil is in it! The poets we go out of our way to praise, our Oxford and Cambridge pets and our heavy men, don't "sell"; not as they ought to (in our opinion), by any manner of means. And then they come to us--these children of the Muse--and complain bitterly that certain Press-ignored fellows, who never had a "boom" in their lives, _do_ sell. And it is all the fault of the Ass-public, and we are supposed to be responsible for the humours of the Ass. It is too bad. We cannot help it if the Ass persists in remaining idiotically ignorant of the astounding wisdom contained behind the thick skull and solemn brow of a certain dear and choice morsel of mannerism we know, who dwelleth at Oxford, and who is called by some of his disciples "A Marvel." Aye, a marvel so marvellous that he hath grown weighty with the burden of his own wonder. And the phrase "I wonder!" is a frequent and favourite murmur of this impassive phenomenon; this "leader" of an excessively narrow literary "set"--this true "heavy father" of the little low comedy of Clique. For the rest, his voice is mild and dreamy, his eyes reserved and bilious, his step as of one in doubt, who deems the morning come when it is yet but night. Of a truth he is a good and simple goose, well stuffed with savoury learning; but whether the world will ever benefit by the dish is a matter which only the world itself can decide. Personally, I like the "Marvel"; I know him for a harmless soul, a gentlemanly dull _poseur_, whose posing vexes no one and amuses many. Only I have ceased to try and "write him up," because I have read his classic novel, and having accomplished that daring and difficult feat I consider I have done enough.