I don't doubt the medicament is quite as good as the patient deserves,
and probably a great deal better,--I added, reinforcing my feeble
compliment.
[When you pay a compliment to an author, don't qualify it in the next
sentence so as to take all the goodness out of it. Now I am thinking of
it, I will give you one or two pieces of advice. Be careful to assure
yourself that the person you are talking with wrote the article or book
you praise. It is not very pleasant to be told, "Well, there, now! I
always liked your writings, but you never did anything half so good as
this last piece," and then to have to tell the blunderer that this last
piece is n't yours, but t' other man's. Take care that the phrase or
sentence you commend is not one that is in quotation-marks. "The best
thing in your piece, I think, is a line I do not remember meeting before;
it struck me as very true and well expressed:
"'An honest man's the noblest work of God.'
"But, my dear lady, that line is one which is to be found in a writer of
the last century, and not original with me." One ought not to have
undeceived her, perhaps, but one is naturally honest, and cannot bear to
be credited with what is not his own. The lady blushes, of course, and
says she has not read much ancient literature, or some such thing.
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