Page:The Yellow Book - 07.djvu/148

 instance), regard Mr. Marriott Watson with expectant pleasure, dread Mr. Anthony Hope, and flee from Miss Marie Corelli as from the German measles. You must have knowledge—a University education, indeed, would do you no harm, nor an acquaintance with the literatures of France and Russia. You must have a tradition of culture. And, above all, you must have leisure,—for any sort of considered writing you must have leisure.

Well, how many of these endowments, how much of this equipment is your Pressman, your Saturday Reviewer, likely to have? Taste? The analytic faculty? The instinct for the just word? Knowledge? A University education? An acquaintance with the writings of de la Clos and Frontin, of Poushkine and Karamanzine? A tradition of culture? And leisure? Leisure. He is paid at the rate of so many shillings a column. And he has his bread to earn; and bread, my dear, is costly. One does what one can. One glances hurriedly through the book that has been sent one "for review," and then (provided one is honest, and has no private spite to wreak upon the author, no private envy to assuage, no private log to roll) one dashes off one's "thousand words," more or less, of unconsidered praise or unconsidered abuse, as the case may be. One says the book is "good," the book is "bad." Good—bad: with the variations upon them to be found in his Dictionary of Synonyms: there are your Pressman-Critic's alternative criticisms. Good—with greater or smaller emphasis; bad—with greater or smaller virulence, and more or less frequent references to the length of the author's hair. There is your Pressman-Critic's "terminology." A novel by Mr. George Meredith is—good; a novel by Mr. Conan Doyle is—good. You would hardly call that manner of criticism searching, enlightening, exhaustive; you would hardly call it nuancé, I fancy, sir.

But you are wondering why I should take the matter so ously