Mrs. Triplet's health had long been failing; and,
although her duties at her little theater were light and occasional, the
manager was obliged to discharge her, since she could not be depended
upon.
The family had not enough to eat! Think of that! They were not warm at
night, and they felt gnawing and faintness often by day. Think of that!
Fortune was unjust here. The man was laughable, and a goose; and had no
genius either for writing, painting, or acting; but in that he resembled
most writers, painters, and actors of his own day and ours. He was not
beneath the average of what men call art, and it is art's
antipodes--treadmill artifice.
Other fluent ninnies shared gain, and even fame, and were called
'penmen,' in Triplet's day. Other ranters were quietly getting rich by
noise. Other liars and humbugs were painting out o' doors indoors, and
eating mutton instead of thistles for drenched stinging-nettles, yclept
trees; for block-tin clouds; for butlers' pantry seas, and
garret-conceived lakes; for molten sugar-candy rivers; for airless
atmosphere and sunless air; for carpet nature, and cold, dead fragments
of an earth all soul and living glory to every cultivated eye but a
routine painter's. Yet the man of many such mediocrities could not keep
the pot boiling. We suspect that, to those who would rise in life, even
strong versatility is a very doubtful good, and weak versatility
ruination.
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