A. By passing them over in a dead silence, and sternly refusing to recognise their existence.
Q. How should you treat your contemporaries?
A. If you appreciate your work at its proper (that is to say, your own) value, you will not admire contemporaries.
Q. And what will you say of authors of the past?
A. That it is fortunate that they did live in the past, as they certainly do not exist in the present, and will certainly not revive in the future.
Q. How should you criticise a contemporary's novel?
A. If you are sure of his influencing a criticism of your own work favourably, praise his romance sky high. If he is, from a reviewer's point of view, a negligable quantity, why, treat him on that basis.
Q. Then what is your motto?
A. "Nothing for nothing."
Q. Do you consider a novelist's life the best possible form of existence?