Few are there that will leave the secure seclusion of the scholar's life, the peaceful walks of literature and learning, to stand out a target for the criticism of unkind and hostile minds.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
A scholar is like a book written in a dead language. It is not every one that can read in it.
Much literary criticism comes from people for whom extreme specialization is a cover for either grave cerebral inadequacy or terminal laziness, the latter being a much cherished aspect of academic freedom.
The mind of the scholar, if he would leave it large and liberal, should come in contact with other minds.
There is far too much literary criticism of the wrong kind. That is why I never could have survived as an academic.
The writers who reject tendentiousness and purpose in their work are the very ones who display it in every word they write. I could draw countless examples from the history of literature to show that the more a writer clamours for spiritual freedom, the more tendentious his work is liable to be.
The nature of fiction is to make one distrustful of any character who lectures and castigates.
My writing of fiction comes under a very general heading of those teachers, critics, scholars who like to try their own hand once or twice in their lives.
When ideas are young and vulnerable, criticism can be lethal.
The novelist must look on humanity without partiality or prejudice. His sympathy, like that of the historian, must be unbounded, and untainted by sect or party.
Books themselves need no defense. Their spokesmen come and go, their readers live and die, they remain constant.