sententiae

“For men’s tastes are so various, the tempers of some are so severe, their minds so ungrateful, their tempers so cross, that there seems no point in publishing something, even if it’s intended for their advantages, that they will receive only with contempt and ingratitude.  Better simply to follow one’s own natural inclinations, lead a merry, peaceful life, and ignore the vexing problems of publication.  Most men know nothing of learning; many despise it.  The clod rejects as too difficult whatever isn’t cloddish.  The pedant dismisses as mere trifling anything that isn’t stuffed with obsolete words.  Some readers approve only of ancient authors; most men like their own writing best of all.  Here’s a man so solemn he won’t allow a shadow of levity, and there’s one so insipid of taste that he can’t endure the salt of a little wit.  Some dullards dread satire as a man bitten by a hydrophobic dog dreads water; some are so changable that they like one thing when they’re seated and another when they’re standing” (More, in a letter to Peter Giles, 111)