Chapter L: Mr. Finch Finels to Tom Cordis

"Dear Tom,--

"The next best thing to seeing you, you witty dog, is reading one
of your letters; but accept a little advice from one who has had
experience, and don't throw away so many good things on one
individual; economise your bon-mots, my dear fellow, spread them
over your private correspondence as sparingly as they do butter on
bread at boarding-schools. Ah! you will grow wiser by and by, when
you find out how very rare is an original idea. Why--we literary
people, if by chance we improvise one in conversation, always stop
short after it, and turning to our friends say, 'Now remember,
that's _mine_, don't you use it, for I intend putting it in my next
book.'

"What am I doing, hey? Living by my wits, though not in the way of
literature, which I find does not pay; for there has been such a
surfeit of poor books that even a good one is now eyed with
suspicion.

"At present, however, I am, thanks to Mrs. John Howe, in a
comfortable state of wardrobe and purse. You should see this Venus!
Who can set bounds to the vanity of woman? (This is in Proverbs, I
believe; if it is not it ought to be.) At any rate, woman's vanity
is the wire I am now pulling, to keep me in bread and butter.

"Mrs. John Howe is old, ugly, and shrewish; how she _would_ rave,
if she saw this! All her married life, she has led her husband by
the nose. John is a good-natured, easy fellow, with no brains or
education to speak of. Latterly, something has turned up between
them, deuce knows what, I don't; but Richard is himself again,
smokes when and where he likes, and goes round like the rest of us.

"You will see that he is improving when I tell you that he has
bought his wife off to mind her own business, and let him mind his,
by an allowance of so much a year; and here's where the interest of
my story comes in, my dear boy, for just so long as I can make Mrs.
John believe that she is as young as she ever was, (and as
beautiful, as by Jove! she _never_ was), and that I can not exist
one minute out of her presence, why so much the more hope there is
for my tailor and landlady, confound them! _En passant_: I dare say
_you_ might wince a little at the idea of being supported by a
woman; that only shows that you have not yet learned to recognize
'the sovereignty of the individual.' But the best thing is yet to
come. Mrs. John imagines herself a blue-stocking! though she can
not spell straight to save her life, and has not the remotest idea
whether Paris is in Prussia or Ireland. You should hear her mangle
Italian, which she has just begun. It makes my very hair stand on
end; I see where it is all tending. She asked me the other day
about the divorce law; as if I would _marry_ the old vixen! Never
mind, so long as the money holds out I shall hoodwink her even in
this.

"Write soon. I saw little Kate last week, fresh as a Hebe, and
beautiful as nobody else ever was, or can be. Pity she is such a
little Puritan! She would be irresistible were it not for that
humbug. I live in hope that contact with the world, and intercourse
with me, will eradicate this, her only weakness. Bless her sweet
mouth, and witching eyes.

"Yours, as usual,
FINELS."