A man who
wrote a book naturally labored under the delusion that he was wiser or
better than the majority of his fellow-creatures, in which case you
would do moral service by convincing him of his error, inhumanity
continued to encourage authorship at the present rate, obscurity would
soon become a claim to immortality. If a writer informed you that his
work "filled a literary void," his conceit was reprehensible, and on
moral grounds he ought to be chastised; if he told you that he had
only "yielded to the urgent request of his friends," it was only fair
to insinuate that his friends must have had very long ears.
Nevertheless, Dannevig's reviews were for about a month a very
successful feature of our paper. They might be described as racy
little essays, bristling with point and epigram, on some subject
suggested by the title-pages of current volumes. At the end of that
time, however, books began to grow scarce in our office, and before
another month was at an end, we had no more need of a reviewer. My
friend was then to have his last trial as a reporter.
One of his first experiences in this new capacity was at a
mass-meeting preceding an important municipal election. Not daring to
send his "copy" to the printer without revision, I determined to
sacrifice two or three hours' sleep, and to await his return.
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