Eighteen
I would point out that literature by no means comprises the whole field of knowledge, and that the disturbing thirst to improve one’s self—to increase one’s knowledge—may well be slaked quite apart from literature.
Nineteen
The public, by its casual approval, may give notoriety and a vogue which passes, but it is incapable of the sustained ardour of appreciation which alone results in authentic renown. It is incapable because it is nonchalant. To the public art is a very little thing—a distraction, the last resort against ennui. To the critics art looms enormous. They do not merely possess views; they are possessed by them. Their views amount to a creed, and that creed must be spread. Quiescence is torment to the devotee. He cannot cry peace when there is no peace. Passionate conviction, like murder, will out. “I believe; therefore you must believe”: that is the motto which moves the world.
Twenty
Only those who have lived at the full stretch seven days a week for a long time can appreciate the full beauty of a regularly recurring idleness.
Twenty-one
Publishers as a commercial class are neither more nor less honourable than any other commercial class, and authors are neither more nor less honourable than publishers. In the world of commerce one fights for one’s own hand and keeps within the law; the code is universally understood, and the man who thinks it ought to be altered because he happens to be inexperienced, is a fool.
Twenty-two
There can be no sort of doubt that unless I was prepared to flout the wisdom of the ages, I ought to have refused his suggestion. But is not the wisdom of the ages a medicine for majorities? And, indeed, I was prepared to flout it, as in our highest and our lowest moments we often are.