Never let criticisms operate upon your face or your mind; it is very rarely that an author is hurt by his critics. The blaze of reputation cannot be blown out, but it often dies in the socket. A very few names may be considered as perpetual lamps that shine unconsumed. 328 Johnson: Letters to and from the Late Samuel Johnson. From Original MSS. by Hester Lynch Piozzi, London, 1788. II. 110. (George Birkbeck Hill, Editor.) No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money. 329 Johnson: Boswell's Life of Johnson. III. 19. (George Birkbeck Hill, Editor, 1887.) The best part of every author is in general to be found in his book, I assure you. 330 Johnson: Boswell's Life of Johnson. I. 450. Note 1. (George Birkbeck Hill, Editor, 1887.) The chief glory of every people arises from its authors. 331 Johnson: Works. V. 49. (Oxford edition, 1825.) The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book. 332 Johnson: Boswell's Life of Johnson. 1775. (Routledge edition, Vol. ii. Ch. 10.) The more intellectual people are, the readier will they attend to what a man tells them. If it is just they will follow it, be his practice what it will. No man practises so well as he writes. 333 Johnson: Boswell's Life of Johnson. V. 210. (George Birkbeck Hill, Editor, 1887.) The promises of authors are like the vows of lovers. 334 Johnson: Works. VII. 450. (Oxford edition, 1825.) The reciprocal civility of scenes in the farce of life. 335 Johnson: Works. authors is one of the most risible VI. 478. (Oxford edition, 1825.) There is nothing more dreadful to an author than regret, compared with which reproach, hatred, and oppression are names of happiness. 336 Johnson: The Rambler. No. 2. There is something noble in publishing truth, though it condemns one's self. 337 Johnson: Boswell's Life of Johnson. V. 210. (George Birkbeck Hill, Editor, 1887.) There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to have done everything by chance. 338 Johnson: Works. VIII. 24. (Oxford edition, 1825.) The worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works. An assault upon a town is a bad thing, but starving it is still worse; an assault may be unsuccessful, you may have more men killed than you kill, but if you starve the town you are sure of victory. 339 Johnson: Boswell's Life of Johnson. III. 375. (George Birkbeck Hill, Editor, 1887.) Writers commonly derive their reputation from their works; but there are works which owe their reputation to the character of the writer. The public sometimes has its favorites, whom it regards for one species of excellence with the honors due to another. 340 Johnson: Works. VI. 478. (Oxford edition, 1825.) Ready writing makes not good writing; but good writing brings on ready writing. 341 Ben Jonson: Timber; or, Discoveries made upon A man starts upon a sudden, takes pen, ink, and paper, and, without ever having had a thought of it before, resolves within himself he will write a book. He has no talent at writing, but he wants fifty guineas. 342 La Bruyere: The Characters or Manners of the It is the glory and merit of some men to write well, and of others not to write at all. 343 La Bruyère: Characters. Of Works of Genius. (Rowe, Translator.) To make a book is no less a trade than to make a clock; something more than wit is necessary to form an author. 344 La Bruyère: Characters. Of Works of Genius. (Rowe, Translator.) Truth is the best guide to make a man write forcibly, naturally, and delicately. 345 La Bruyère: Characters. Of Works of Genius. (Rowe, Translator.) Every great author is a great reformer; and the reform is either in thought or language. 346 Landor: Imaginary Conversations. Andrew Marvel and Bishop Parker. Authors in general are stark mad on the subject of their own works. 347 Le Sage: Gil Blas. Bk. vii. Ch. 4. (Smollett, Translator.) Hope never tells a more flattering tale than in the ear of a dramatic author. 348 Le Sage: Gil Blas. Bk. xi. Ch. 10. (Smollett, Translator.) Authors' lives in general are not uniform, they are strangely checkered by vicissitudes; and even were the outward circumstances uniform, the inward struggles must still be various. 349 George Henry Lewes: The Spanish Drama. Ch. 2. A great writer does not reveal himself here and there, but everywhere. 350 Lowell: My Study Windows. Chaucer. If the works of the great poets teach anything, it is to hold mere invention somewhat cheap. It is not the finding of a thing, but the making something out of it after it is found, that is of consequence. 351 Lowell: My Study Windows. Chaucer. The multitude of books is a great evil. There is no measure or limit to this fever for writing; every one must be an author; some out of vanity to acquire celebrity and raise up a name, others for the sake of lucre and gain. 352 Martin Luther: Table Talk. Miscellaneous. He that cometh in print because he would be known, is like the fool that cometh into the market because he would be seen. 353 Lyly: Euphues. The Anatomy of Wit. To the A great writer is the friend and benefactor of his readers, and they cannot but judge of him under the deluding influence of friendship and gratitude. 354 Macaulay: Essays. Lord Bacon. What a wonderful, what an almost magical boon, a writer of great genius confers upon us, when we read him intelligently. As he proceeds from point to point in his argument or narrative, we seem to be taken up by him, and carried from hill-top to hill-top, where, through an atmosphere of light, we survey a glorious region of thought, looking freely, far and wide, above and below, and gazing in admiration upon all the beauty and grandeur of the scene. 355 Horace Mann: Lectures on Education. Lect. vi. He who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things ought himself to be a true poem. 356 Milton: Apology for Smectymnuus. The last thing that we find in making a book is to know what we shall put first. 357 Pascal: Thoughts. Ch. 9. No. 30. (Wight, The name is the man; renown is the writer. 358 Joseph Roux: Meditations of a Parish Priest. Two sorts of writers possess genius: those who think, and those who cause others to think. 359 Joseph Roux: Meditations of a Parish Priest. Literature. Poets, 16. (Hapgood, Trans.) Every great writer may be at once known by his guiding the mind far from himself, to the beauty which is not of his creation, and the knowledge which is past his finding out. 360 Ruskin: Modern Painters. Preface. (Second edition.) We judge of the excellence of a rising writer, not so much by the resemblance of his works to what has been done before, as by their difference from it. 361 Ruskin: Modern Painters. Preface. (Second edition.) Let there be gall enough in thy ink, though thou write with a goose-pen, no matter. 362 Shakespeare: Twelfth Night. Act iii. Sc. 2. Look in thy heart and write. 363 Sir Philip Sidney: Maxim. A quick ear and eye, an ability to discern the infinite suggestiveness of common things, a brooding, meditative spirit, are all that the essayist requires to start business with. 364 Alexander Smith: Dreamthorp. On the Writing of Essays. A perilous trade, indeed, is that of a man who has to bring his tears and laughter, his recollections, his personal griefs and joys, his private thoughts and feelings, to market, to write them on paper, and sell them for money. Thackeray: English Humorists. Goldsmith. 365 Sterne and I have got my spindle and my distaff ready, -my pen and mind, never doubting for an instant that God will send me flax. 366 Timothy Titcomb (J. G. Holland): Gold-Foil. The habit of writing clearly soon comes to the writer who is a severe critic to himself. 367 Trollope: Autobiography. Ch. 12. Cheerfulness is a characteristic of all great writers whose thoughts and imaginations have their spring in primitive feelings and affections, which are sound, vigorous, and unspotted with discontent and misanthropy. 368 E. P. Whipple: Success and its Conditions. There is no surer sign of a bad heart than for a writer to find delight in degrading his species. 369 E. P. Whipple: Literature and Life. Wit and Humor. All authors whatever in their dedication are poets. 370 Wycherley: Love in a Wood; or, St. James's Park. Dedication. AUTHORSHIP - AVARICE. AUTHORSHIP -see Authors. Authorship is a royal priesthood; but woe to him who rashly lays unhallowed hands on the ark or the altar, professing a zeal for the welfare of the race only that he may secure the confidence and sympathies of others, and use them If a man have no heroism in his for his own selfish ends. soul, no animating purpose beyond living easily and faring sumptuously, I can imagine no greater mistake on his part than that of resorting to authorship as a vocation. 371 Horace Greeley: Recollections of a Busy Life. Letter to the Hon. Robert Dale Owen, March 5, 1860. Literature is a noble calling, but only when the call obeyed by the aspirant issues from a world to be enlightened and blessed, not from a void stomach clamoring to be gratified and filled. 372 Horace Greeley: Recollections of a Busy Life. Letter to the Hon. Robert Dale Owen, March 5, 1860. Sell not your integrity, barter not your independence. Beg of no man the privilege of earning a livelihood by authorship, since that is to degrade your faculty, and very probably to corrupt it; but seeing through your own clear eyes, and uttering the impulses of your own honest heart, speak as truth and love shall dictate, asking no material recompense, but living by the labor of your hands until recompense shall be voluntarily tendered to secure your service; and you may frankly accept it without a compromise of your integrity or a peril to your freedom. 373 Horace Greeley: Recollections of a Busy Life. Letter to the Hon. Robert Dale Owen, March 5, 1860. AUTUMN see Hoar-Frost, Indian Summer, October, Rivulets, Sunlight. Magnificent Autumn! He comes not like a pilgrim, clad in russet weeds. He comes not like a hermit, clad in gray. But he comes like a warrior, with the stain of blood upon his His scarlet banner brazen mail. His crimson scarf is rent. drips with gore. His step is like a flail upon the threshingfloor. 374 Longfellow: Prose Works. Appendix II. The BlankBook of a Country Schoolmaster. XVII. Autumn. - a mighty flower-garden blossoming The tints of autumn, under the spell of the enchanter, Frost. 375 Whittier: Patucket Falls. AVARICE see Ambition, Gambling, Office, War. 376 George Bancroft: History of the United States of |