generally to keep it clean and legible. I am having a great tidying
just now, in the course of which the MS. of Erewhon turned up, and I
was struck with the great difference between it and the MS. of The
Authoress of the Odyssey. I have also taken great pains, with what
success I know not, to correct impatience, irritability and other
like faults in my own character--and this not because I care two
straws about my own character, but because I find the correction of
such faults as I have been able to correct makes life easier and
saves me from getting into scrapes, and attaches nice people to me
more readily. But I suppose this really is attending to style after
all. [1897.]
Diderot on Criticism
"Il est si difficile de produire une chose meme mediocre; il est si
facile de sentir la mediocrite."
I have lately seen this quoted as having been said by Diderot. It is
easy to say we feel the mediocrity when we have heard a good many
people say that the work is mediocre, but, unless in matters about
which he has been long conversant, no man can easily form an
independent judgment as to whether or not a work is mediocre. I know
that in the matter of books, painting and music I constantly find
myself unable to form a settled opinion till I have heard what many
men of varied tastes have to say, and have also made myself
acquainted with details about a man's antecedents and ways of life
which are generally held to be irrelevant.
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