THE INBORN TALENT
shows, through all its crudeness, the unmistakable gleam of the Inborn Talent. And as to the fourth class, that of the professional critic, there are a good many successful authors who freely admit the debt they owe to him for many a frank word of praise or censure in earlier years. Indeed, this last source of outside help ought to be the most disinterested and the most useful of them all. That it is not, is due to two simple and rather obvious facts: first, that it cannot possibly reach the novice in letters until he begins to get his writings into print; secondly, that the rank and file of reviewers think it their duty to speak to the readers of books rather than to the writers of them—to tell the general public why they ought to like or dislike a certain volume, instead of telling the author in what particulars his work was good and in what others it might have been better.
[13]
