Of
that writer himself I am not speaking: he is diligent,
clean, and pleasing; we all owe him periods of entertainment,
and he has achieved an amiable popularity which he has
adequately deserved. But the truth is, he does not, or did
not when he first embraced it, regard his profession from
this purely mercenary side. He went into it, I shall venture
to say, if not with any noble design, at least in the ardour
of a first love; and he enjoyed its practice long before he
paused to calculate the wage. The other day an author was
complimented on a piece of work, good in itself and
exceptionally good for him, and replied, in terms unworthy of
a commercial traveller that as the book was not briskly
selling he did not give a copper farthing for its merit. It
must not be supposed that the person to whom this answer was
addressed received it as a profession of faith; he knew, on
the other hand, that it was only a whiff of irritation; just
as we know, when a respectable writer talks of literature as
a way of life, like shoemaking, but not so useful, that he is
only debating one aspect of a question, and is still clearly
conscious of a dozen others more important in themselves and
more central to the matter in hand. But while those who
treat literature in this penny-wise and virtue-foolish spirit
are themselves truly in possession of a better light, it does
not follow that the treatment is decent or improving, whether
for themselves or others.
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