Each system acts independently of the rest, and indeed
considers all other stars as mere exhalations and transient meteors,
beaming for awhile with false fires, but doomed soon to fall and be
forgotten; while its own luminaries are the lights of the universe,
destined to increase in splendor and to shine steadily on to
immortality."
"And pray," said I, "how is a man to get a peep into one of these
systems you talk of? I presume an intercourse with authors is a kind of
intellectual exchange, where one must bring his commodities to barter,
and always give a _quid pro quo_."
"Pooh, pooh--how you mistake," said Buckthorne, smiling; "you must
never think to become popular among wits by shining. They go into
society to shine themselves, not to admire the brilliancy of others. I
thought as you do when I first cultivated the society of men of
letters, and never went to a blue-stocking coterie without studying my
part beforehand as diligently as an actor. The consequence was, I soon
got the name of an intolerable proser, and should in a little while
have been completely excommunicated had I not changed my plan of
operations. From thenceforth I became a most assiduous listener, or if
ever I were eloquent, it was tete-a-tete with an author in praise of
his own works, or what is nearly as acceptable, in disparagement of the
works of his contemporaries. If ever he spoke favorably of the
productions of some particular friend, I ventured boldly to dissent
from him, and to prove that his friend was a blockhead; and much as
people say of the pertinacity and irritability of authors, I never
found one to take offence at my contradictions.
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