“If we now consider the activity of the poet more closely, we perceive that the realization of his intention consists solely in rendering possible the representation of the strengthened actions of his poetized forms through an exposition of their motives to the feelings, as well as the motives themselves. Also by an expression that in so far engrosses his activity, as the invention and production of this expression in truth first render the introduction of such motives and actions possible.”
After this splendid example of style and lucidity, it may be that even the ordinary, every-day, unostentatious reviewer whom we so liberally despise will be admitted to possess some few redeeming virtues.
And, in truth, patience is one of them. Think of the dull books which lie piled upon his table! Think how many they are, and how long they are, and how alike they are, and how serious they are, and how little we ourselves would care to read them! If the reviewer sometimes misses what is really good, or praises what is really bad, this does not mean that he is incompetent, dishonest, or butcherly. It means that he is human, that he is tired, perhaps a little peevish, and disposed to think the world would be a merrier place if there were fewer authors in it. The new novelist or budding poet who comes forward at this unpropitious moment is not hailed with acclamations of delight; while the conscientious worker who has spent long months in compiling the weighty memoirs of departed mediocrity is outraged by the scant attention he receives. Meanwhile the number of books increases with fearful speed. Each is the embodiment of a sanguine hope, and each claims its meed of praise. A fallible reviewer struggles with the situation as best he can, saying pleasant things which are scantily merited, and sharp things which are hardly deserved; but striving intelligently, and with tolerable success to tell a self-indulgent public something about the volumes which it is too lazy to read for itself.
“O dreams of the tongues that commend us, Of crowns for the laureate pate, Of a public to buy and befriend us, Ye come through the Ivory Gate. But the critics that slash us and slate, But the people that hold us in scorn, But the sorrow, the scathe, and the hate, Through the portals of horn.”