Wanted
We want a Society for the Suppression of Erudite Research and the
Decent Burial of the Past. The ghosts of the dead past want quite as
much laying as raising.
Ephemeral and Permanent Success
The supposition that the world is ever in league to put a man down is
childish. Hardly less childish is it for an author to lay the blame
on reviewers. A good sturdy author is a match for a hundred
reviewers. He, I grant, knows nothing of either literature or
science who does not know that a mot d'ordre given by a few wire-
pullers can, for a time, make or mar any man's success. People
neither know what it is they like nor do they want to find out, all
they care about is the being supposed to derive their likings from
the best West-end magazines, so they look to the shop with the
largest plate-glass windows and take what the shop-man gives them.
But no amount of plate-glass can carry off more than a certain amount
of false pretences, and there is no mot d'ordre that can keep a man
permanently down if he is as intent on winning lasting good name as I
have been. If I had played for immediate popularity I think I could
have won it. Having played for lasting credit I doubt not that it
will in the end be given me. A man should not be held to be ill-used
for not getting what he has not played for. I am not saying that it
is better or more honourable to play for lasting than for immediate
success.
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