The Vice of Advice.

Life is what other people make it. Apart from writing to the papers, and suchlike bawl games, the most popular perennial pastime is giving advice to people who are giving advice to other people who are too busy giving advice to take it. Advice is a cyclonic disturbance, or “free air” circulating in a “viscious” circle.

“Judge your neighbour by yourself” is good advice except when it isn't, for what is good advice for the duck is death by drowning for the hen.

Advice, strictly speaking, is an oblique objurgation of your neighbour's reputation, and an insinuation on the limitation of his mentality and morality, or a diplomatic discernment of his disparity. Thus advice never should be sought unless a prior decision to reject it has been registered in the cerebral cells of the seeker—which, of course, always is the case. Such does not include expert advice which, being a circumvention of common sense, is beyond the reach of the average intelligence.

“Judge your neighbour” is the oldest inhuman sport known to inhumanity. Excluding our own, there exist nine hundred and ninety-nine million points of view in the mental microplasm of Man, so that the chance of ours being the only authentic oyster is equal to the life-span of a cheer-germ at the pessimists' picnic.