Points of Friction
active than when he had been cradled in the anthers of a rose."
The story is an angling story, and it would be unreasonable to spoil it by sympathizing with the bait. But there is something in the painting of the little beetle's beauty, and in the amused description of its pain, which would sicken a donkey-beating costermonger, if he were cultivated enough to know what the author was driving at. It takes education and an unswerving reverence for sport to save us from the costermonger's point of view.
There are times when it is easier to mock than to pity; there are occasions when we may be seduced from blame, even if we are not won all the way to approval. Mrs. Pennell tells us in her very interesting and very candid life of Whistler that the artist gratified a grudge against his Venetian landlady by angling for her goldfish (placed temptingly on a ledge beneath his window-
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