Critics? —Asses! rather mules!—so emasculated, from vanity, they can not father a true thought. Like mules, too, from dunghills, they trample down gardens of roses: and deem that crushed fragrance their own—Oh! that all round the domains of genius should lie thus unhedged, for such cattle to uproot! Oh! that an eagle should be stabbed by a goose-quill! But at best, the greatest reviewers but prey on my leavings. For I am critic and creator; and as critic, in cruelty surpass all critics merely, as a tiger, jackals.
(Mardi)
I. F. "Well, failing to accomplish the object of the escort, you would have pointed to your orders?"
"Yes, but success is the military test, touchstone, talisman! If disaster had occurred, a thousand judges with goosequill in hand and printing press at elbow,—if they had noticed,would have condemned me unheard: the soldiers of a Republic have a narrow path to follow, and answer to two tribunals—the Government and the people."
(Scenes Beyond the Western Border, Sept 1851; and Scenes and Adventures)
Image credit: G. Greatbach from a drawing by J. Mason after H. Plancquet (1852).
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?822655
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