Search -
The plain speaker: opinions on books, men, and things [by W. Hazlitt].
The plain speaker opinions on books men and things - by W. Hazlitt Author:William Hazlitt Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ESSAY III. ON THE CONVERSATION OF AUTHORS. ESSAY III. ON THE CONVERSATION OF AUTHORS. An author is bound to write—well or ill, wisely or foolishly: i... more »t is his trade. But I do not see that he is bound to talk, any more than he is bound to dance, or ride, or fence better than other people. Reading, study, silence, thought, are a bad introduction to loquacity. It would be sooner learnt of chambermaids and tapsters. He understands the art and mystery of his own profession, which is book-making: what right has any one to expect or require him to do more—to make a bow gracefully on entering or leaving a room, to make love charmingly, or to make a fortune at all ? In all things there is a division of labour. A lord is no less amorous for writing ridiculous love- letters, nor a General less successful for wanting wit and honesty. Why then may not a poor author say nothing, and yet pass muster? Set him on the top of a stage-coach, he will makeno figure ; he is mum-cliance, while the slang-wit flies about as fast as the dust, with the crack of the whip and the clatter of the horses' heels: put him in a ring of boxers, he is a poor creature— " And of his port as meek as is a maid." Introduce him to a tea-party of milliner's girls, and they are ready to split their sides with laughing at him: over his bottle, he is dry: in the drawing-room,rude or awkward: he is too refined for the vulgar, too clownish for the fashionable : —" he is one that cannot make a good leg, one that cannot eat a mess of broth cleanly, one that cannot ride a horse without spur-galling, one that cannot salute a woman, and look on her directly:"—in courts, in camps, in town and country, he is a cypher or a butt: he is good for nothing but a laughing-stock or a scare-crow. You can scarcely get a word out ...« less