This can easily be done, by dint
of practice, after dipping into three or four pages of your author. Many
reviewers have special aversions, authors they detest. Whatever they are
criticising, novels, poems, plays, they begin by an attack on their pet
aversion, who has nothing to do with the matter in hand. They cannot
praise A, B, C, and D, without first assailing E. It will generally be
found that E is a popular author. But the great virtue of a reviewer,
who would be unreadable and make others unread, is a languid ignorant
lack of interest in all things, a habit of regarding his work as a
tedious task, to be scamped as rapidly and stupidly as possible.
You might think that these qualities would displease the reviewer's
editor. Not at all, look at any column of short notices, and you will
occasionally find that the critic has anticipated my advice. There is no
topic in which the men who write about it are so little interested as
contemporary literature. Perhaps this is no matter to marvel at. By the
way, a capital plan is not to write your review till the book has been
out for two years. This is the favourite dodge of the ---, that
distinguished journal.
Pages:
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51