This neighbor's own opinion
has, in like manner, been adopted from one above him, and so,
ascendingly, to a few gifted individuals who kneel around the
summit, beholding, face to face, the master spirit who stands upon the
pinnacle....
You are aware of the great barrier in the path of an American
writer. He is read, if at all, in preference to the combined and
established wit of the world. I say established; for it is with
literature as with law or empire- an established name is an estate
in tenure, or a throne in possession. Besides, one might suppose
that books, like their authors, improve by travel- their having
crossed the sea is, with us, so great a distinction. Our antiquaries
abandon time for distance; our very fops glance from the binding to
the bottom of the title-page, where the mystic characters which
spell London, Paris, or Genoa, are precisely so many letters of
recommendation.
I mentioned just now a vulgar error as regards criticism. I think
the notion that no poet can form a correct estimate of his own
writings is another. I remarked before that in proportion to the
poetical talent would be the justice of a critique upon poetry.
Therefore a bad poet would, I grant, make a false critique, and his
self-love would infallibly bias his little judgment in his favour; but
a poet, who is indeed a poet, could not, I think, fail of making a
just critique; whatever should be deducted on the score of self-love
might be replaced on account of his intimate acquaintance with the
subject; in short, we have more instances of false criticism than of
just where one's own writings are the test, simply because we have
more bad poets than good.
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