Author

“ They show, if we can read an author in his works, as plainly as words can speak, that he had sincerely repented his early sins and follies, and had fully realized those simple and sublime truths, which have been in all ages the stay and comfort of the wise and the good. We make one extract, which will prove our assertion, and more than compensate our reader for the interruption of the narrative. ”

“ The first condition of modern progress in novel-writing, as in other more serious branches of learning, was that the author should be free to look about him, to reflect and choose, to pick up his ideas and his matter anyhow. ”

“ It's an odd thing—or, perhaps, a natural one—that an author of the sort of book that they are impressed by, a scientist, a brain-worker of any description, literary or not, talks and thinks of a novelist with respect, while these people themselves find him beneath them. ”

“ The writing of essays and conversations, set in a framework of scenery and incident, and delineating character admirably though only incidentally, is the field of literature in which the author stands without a rival. ”

“ What can we see or acquire, but what we are? You have observed a skilful man reading Virgil. Well, that author is a thousand books to a thousand persons. Take the book into your two hands, and read your eyes out; you will never find what I find. ”

“ In some of those tracts the Author’s object was to improve the taste and understanding of his reader; in others, to mend his heart; in others, to point out to him the proper use of philosophy, by showing its application to the duties of common life. ”

“ It is supposed, that by the act of writing in verse an Author makes a formal engagement that he will gratify certain known habits of association; that he not only thus apprizes the Reader that certain classes of ideas and expressions will be found in his book, but that others will be carefully excluded. ”

“ So in all work in composition, select a subject that readily lends itself to the form of discourse demanded; or, conversely, select the form of discourse suitable for presenting most effectively your material.
Author’s Individuality. If an author is writing for other purposes than for conscious practice, he should choose the form of discourse in which he can best work, and to which he can best shape his material. Some men tell stories well; others are debaters; while yet others are wonderfully gifted with eloquence. ”

“ I shall then deviate from this ancient established usage of writers, for various, and to myself obvious reasons, the most prominent of which is, that I esteem that class of persons into whose hands this work may fall, as an intelligent and reading people, better prepared to pass judgment than myself, who, if they utter criticism, will base their opinions upon the merit of the work itself, aside from the self-eulogistic encomiums of the author. ”

“ But whether thus submissively or not, at least be sure that you go to the author to get at his meaning, not to find yours. Judge it afterwards if you think yourself qualified to do so; but ascertain it first. And be sure, also, if the author is worth anything, that you will not get at his meaning all at once;—nay, that at his whole meaning you will not for a long time arrive in any wise. Not that he does not say what he means, and in strong words too; but he cannot say it all; and what is more strange, will not, but in a hidden way and in parables, in order that he may be sure you want it. ”

“ No novel is anything, for the purposes either of comedy or tragedy, unless the reader can sympathise with the characters whose names he finds upon the pages. Let an author so tell his tale as to touch his reader's heart and draw his tears, and he has, so far, done his work well. Truth let there be,—truth of description, truth of character, human truth as to men and women. If there be such truth, I do not know that a novel can be too sensational. ”

“ Amenities of Literature.—We have ever considered the author of these volumes as a literary benefactor, one, who in his own peculiar province has done more to advance the cause of letters than any other writer, by rescuing from oblivion and doing justice to the primitive sons of genius who laid the basis of English literature. ‘The Amenities’ we regard superior to its brothers, ‘The Curiosities’ and ‘The Miscellanies,’ inasmuch that there is more unity in its design, a greater depth of research, and as it were, a kind of history of the minds of authors as well as of their writings. ”

“ In former times criticism was busy with the questions of technique, with matters of rhetoric and grammar; a writer's work furnished opportunities for discussing how near to old ideas of authorship the author approached. To-day we study an author in connection with his own life and with ours. ”

“ Where one author is cramped by a pen and hampered in the choice of the words that make writing the natural expression of thought, the other allows words and ideas to blend in interesting, amusing or touching homogeneity, always harmonious and always natural. ”

“ But if we are to be answered by a class, plethoric with wealth and rank; that literature ought to be content with living on its own means; must not the obvious answer be—Is the author to be an author, down to his grave? ”

“ The intrinsic merits of an author are a question of very subordinate consideration to the keeping up the character of the work and supplying the town with a sufficient number of grave or brilliant topics for the consumption of the next three months! ”

“ If the things we hear told be avowedly fictitious, and yet curious or affecting or entertaining, we may indeed admire the author of the fiction, and may take pleasure in contemplating the exercise of his skill. ”

“ Such at least is the Idea, which the Author of these Dialogues has formed to himself of the manner in which this exquisite sort of composition may be attempted by more successful writers. For to conceive an excellence, and to copy it, he understands and laments, are very different things. ”

“ and therefore, to conclude this point, I will say no more, but so let great authors have their due, as time, which is the author of authors, be not deprived of his due—which is, further and further to discover truth. ”

“ Otherwise I should not have been asked to write one about the lighter work of an author who in virtue of a shelf-full of books comprehending all varieties of literary activity—novels and tales, biography, autobiography, history, linguistics, literary and social criticism, the drama, versification and verse as well as prose, even juvenile fiction—is widely recognized both at home and abroad as one of the particularly representative men of letters of our time. ”

“ It would be in the highest degree instructive to follow, if we could, in his career step by step, an author who at once founded and carried his art to perfection, and to go through his works in the order of time. ”

“ From his familiar handling of all questions connected with the literary profession, and his confident judgements on them, it would be easy to tell that the author of the Lives was a professional man of letters. ”

“ I clearly felt that a creation of importance could be produced only when its author isolated himself. ”

“ I have always considered an author as a human being, who possesses at once two sorts of lives, the intellectual and the vulgar: in his books we trace the history of his mind, and in his actions those of human nature. It is this combination which interests the philosopher and the man of feeling; which provides the richest materials for reflection; and all those original details which spring from the constituent principles of man. Johnson’s passion for literary history, and his great knowledge of the human heart, inspired at once the first and the finest model in this class of composition. ”

“ The case ought, surely, to put us occasionally upon reflecting. May an author not, in some degree, by choosing his literary company, choose also his literary character, and so, when he comes to51 write, write himself back to his masters? ”

“ If you do not think much of the Souls, what position is the book to occupy in respectable literature? If the author has written what is absolutely true from personal observation, the book cannot be lightly treated. ”

“ The Author trusts that he has conveyed the information to the reader in the most simple manner, his object being to make it a book of instruction rather than a mere work of words, whose tendency is rather to perplex than aid. ”

“ Under their authority we see introduced into literary work an habitual grace and perfection, a clearness and directness, a light and pliable strength, and a fine shading of expression, such as no other tongue can even define. We see the same high standard in their criticism, in their works of research, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, and in short throughout literature. ”

“ It is quite true that the characteristics of the general author's style are found throughout the whole work.1 The Acts are no mere aggregate of scraps collected and rudely joined together, but the work of one author in the sense that whatever materials he may have used for its composition were carefully assimilated, and subjected to thorough and systematic revision to adapt them to his purpose. ”

“ Lastly, and chiefly, I commend these classical authors to you because they, in the European civilisation which we all inherit, conserve the norm of literature; the steady grip on the essential; the clean outline at which in verse or in prose—in epic, drama, history, or philosophical treatise—a writer should aim. ”

“ If the secret history of books could be written, and the author’s private thoughts and meanings noted down alongside of his story, how many insipid volumes would become interesting, and dull tales excite the reader! ”

“ If a book come from the heart, it will contrive to reach other hearts; all art and author-craft are of small amount to that. ”

“ It is usual for authors, in the preface to their productions, to cite to the reader all the good qualities of their writings, and especially those which their own imaginations suggest, and which, unless mentioned, might otherwise have been passed over unnoticed. ”

“ The choice, and we may add the gravity, of the subjects, the importance of the action, the extent of the developements, and the fidelity of the descriptions, stamp them with a peculiar character, and oblige us to assign to their authors a distinct rank among novel writers. ”

“ One source of the conversation of authors, is the character of other authors, and on that they are rich indeed. What things they say! What stories they tell of one another, more particularly of their friends! ”

“ For experience is an author’s most valuable asset; experience is the thing that puts the muscle and the breath and the warm blood into the book he writes. ”

“ Nothing is further from our thought than to undervalue saturation and possession, the fact of the particular experience, the state and degree of acquaintance incurred, however such a consciousness may have been determined; for these things represent on the part of the novelist, as on the part of any painter of things seen, felt or imagined, just one half of his authority—the other half being represented of course by the application he is inspired to make of them. ”

“ As regards the particular consideration, when people see a book, and know that its author is skilled in the branch of science of which it treats, and is thoroughly versed therein, they judge its merits more fairly and apply themselves more seriously to read and remember it, so that both author and reader are better satisfied. ”

“ The Calamities of Authors have often excited the attention of the lovers of literature; and, from the revival of letters to this day, this class of the community, the most ingenious and the most enlightened, have, in all the nations of Europe, been the most honoured, and the least remunerated. ”

“ And if this be the case in those fine and nervous descriptions which great authors themselves have taken from life, how much more strongly will it hold when the writer himself takes his lines not from nature, but from books? ”

“ That the allegory of the poem is closely connected with its aim and ethical tendency is evident from the statement of the author that "the generall end therefore of all the booke is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline. ”

“ Another difficult task, perhaps the most difficult of all, the authoress has well performed. We mean the handling of stories whose facts she partly or wholly disbelieves, while she admires and loves their spirit and moral; or doctrines, to pronounce on whose truth or falsehood is beyond her subject. ”

“ When the characters are really alive before their author, the latter does nothing but follow them in their action, in their words, in the situations which they suggest to him; ”

“ In this work are exhibited, in a very high degree, the two most engaging powers of an author. New things are made familiar, and familiar things are made new. ”

“ You take the authors who have treated most exhaustively of these matters; you read them, you study them; you apply your own minds, in sustained thought, to the facts and principles which they give you. ”