THE SINS OF REVIEWING
I have known thousands of reviewers and liked most of them, except
when they sneered at my friends or at me. Their profession, in
which I have taken a humble share, has always seemed to me a
useful, and sometimes a noble one; and their contribution to the
civilizing of reading man, much greater than the credit they are
given for it. We divide them invidiously into hack reviewers and
critics, forgetting that a hack is just a reviewer overworked, and
a critic a reviewer with leisure to perform real criticism. A good
hack is more useful than a poor critic, and both belong to the same
profession as surely as William Shakespeare and the author of
a Broadway "show."
The trouble is that the business of reviewing has not been
sufficiently recognized as a profession. Trades gain in power and
recognition in proportion as their members sink individuality in
the mass and form a union which stands as one man against the
world. Professions are different. They rise by decentralization,
and by specializing within the group. They gain distinction not
only by the achievements of their individual members but by a
curious splitting into subtypes of the species.
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