“ With us, novelty has an attraction; and a new book, if bad, is read when an old book, though good, is neglected. ”
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, The Coming Race (1871). copy citation
| Author | Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
|---|---|
| Source | The Coming Race |
| Topic | attraction novelty |
| Date | 1871 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1951/1951-h/1951-h.htm |
Context
“those books, for the reasons above stated, are infinitely better than any can write nowadays, and they are open to all to read without cost. We are not such fools as to pay for reading inferior books, when we can read superior books for nothing." "With us, novelty has an attraction; and a new book, if bad, is read when an old book, though good, is neglected." "Novelty, to barbarous states of society struggling in despair for something better, has no doubt an attraction, denied to us, who see nothing to gain in novelties; but after all, it is observed by one of our great authors four thousand years ago, that 'he who studies old books will always find in them something new, and he who reads new books will always find in them something old.' But to return to the question you have raised, there being then amongst us no stimulus to painstaking labour, whether in desire of fame or in pressure of want, such as have the poetic temperament, no doubt vent it in song, as you say the bird sings;”
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