Page:Romance & Reality 2.pdf/193

Rh be his merit what it may, is forgotten. We have no patriotism towards posterity; and the selfish amusement of the present always has, and always will, outweigh the important interests of the future,—or else a law would long ago have passed, for every century to consign the production of its predecessor to the flames. Readers would benefit by the originality this would produce; and writers would no longer have to complain that their predecessors had taken all their best ideas: Edward Lorraine.—"Where shall we find a literary Curtius, to leap, volumes and all, a voluntary offering into this gulf of oblivion?" Lady Mandeville.—"This is so like a man's scheme,—always expecting others to be more disinterested than himself!" Edward Lorraine.—"This tale, by the by, of Di Vasari, is written in a style in which our literature is less fertile than in its other branches." Lady Mandeville.—"One at this moment occurs to me, and one quite out of my ordinary course. You and Emily, and even Mr. Morland, are decidedly 'romanticists.' I must own