Friday, June 03, 2005

A Relevant Quote for Today

A quote from Peter Monro Jack-- discussing certain writers of the 1920's in an essay entitled, "The James Branch Cabell Period."

"Their esthetic sophistication has narrowed to the value of a nonce-word recorded in the dictionary, and with it has gone a baggage of irresponsible individualism, private follies and foibles, eccentricities and excesses, pretentious characters and imitation styles. They were all too easily and lavishly praised as wonder boys and girls, and the critical and social background gave them no incentive to match their peculiar state of mind against the general state of the world, which may be categorically stated as the only possibility for the development of character. They did not really develop at all, and a great deal of genuine talent was blanketed in a cozy bed of adolescent complacency, with the critics crooning it to sleep."

Does this sound like any people we know?

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