Once a month or so that weekly always
found some picture which was the finest that had been done since the old
masters, or some satire that was the finest that had appeared since Swift
or some something which was incomparably the finest that had appeared
since something else. If Ernest had put his name to the book, and the
writer had known that it was by a nobody, he would doubtless have written
in a very different strain. Reviewers like to think that for aught they
know they are patting a Duke or even a Prince of the blood upon the back,
and lay it on thick till they find they have been only praising Brown,
Jones or Robinson. Then they are disappointed, and as a general rule
will pay Brown, Jones or Robinson out.
Ernest was not so much up to the ropes of the literary world as I was,
and I am afraid his head was a little turned when he woke up one morning
to find himself famous. He was Christina's son, and perhaps would not
have been able to do what he had done if he was not capable of occasional
undue elation. Ere long, however, he found out all about it, and settled
quietly down to write a series of books, in which he insisted on saying
things which no one else would say even if they could, or could even if
they would.
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