Читать книгу International Weekly Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science — Volume 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 - Various - Страница 1

The LORGNETTE, the cleverest book of its kind (we were about to write, since the days of Addison, but to avoid possible disagreement say)—since IRVING and PAULDING gave us Salmagundi, is still coming before us at agreeable intervals, and will soon be issued in a brace of volumes illustrated by DARLEY. The Author keeps his promises, given in the following paragraphs some time ago:

"It would be very idle to pretend, my dear Fritz, that in printing my letters, I had not some hope of doing the public a trifling service. There are errors which need only to be mentioned, to be frowned upon; and there are virtues, which an approving word, even of a stranger, will encourage. Both of these objects belong to my plan; yet my strictures shall not be personal, or invidious. It will be easy, surely, to carry with me the sympathies of all sensible people, in a little harmless ridicule of the foibles of the day, without citing personal instance; and it will be vastly easier, in such Babylon as ours, to designate a virtue, without naming its possessor! Still, you know me too well, to believe that I shall be frightened out of free, or even caustic remark, by any critique of the papers, or by any dignified frown of the literary coteries of the city.... This LORGNETTE of mine will range very much as my whim directs. In morals, it will aim to be correct; in religion, to be respectful; in literature, modest; in the arts, attentive; in fashion, observing; in society, free; in narrative, to be honest; in advice, to be sound; in satire, to be hearty; and in general character, whatever may be the critical opinions of the small littérateurs, or the hints of fashionable patrons, to be only—itself."