CHAPTER X.
Wonderful power to benumb possesses this brother.
-- EMERSON.
"Of course, Hester," said Mr.Gresley, leading the way to his study and speaking in his lesson-for-the-day voice, "I don't pretend to write"-- ("They always say that," thought Hester)--"I have not sufficient leisure to devote to the subject to insure becoming a successful author.
And even if I had I am afraid I should not be willing to sell my soul to obtain popularity, for that is what it comes to in these days.

The public must be pandered to.

It must be amused.

The public likes smooth things, and the great truths--the only things I should care to write about--are not smooth, far from it." "No, indeed." "This little paper on 'Dissent,' which I propose to publish in pamphlet form after its appearance as a serial--it will run to two numbers in the _Southminster Advertiser_--was merely thrown off in a few days when I had influenza, and could not attend to my usual work." "It must be very difficult to work in illness," said Hester, who had evidently made a vow during her brief sojourn in the garden, and was now obviously going through that process which the society of some of our fellow-creatures makes as necessary as it is fatiguing--namely, that of thinking beforehand what we are going to say.
Mr.Gresley liked Hester immensely when she had freshly ironed herself flat under one of these resolutions.

He was wont to say that no one was pleasanter than Hester when she was reasonable, or made more suitable remarks.