Thomas Wentworth Higginson, The new world and the new book

[89] or the Saturday Review, the fact incidentally comes out that his companion happened to write that very article. ‘Never again,’ the visitor thinks, ‘shall I be any more awed by what I read in those periodicals than if it had appeared in my village newspaper at home.’ But he goes his way, and in a month is looking with as much deference as ever for the ‘verdict of the London Press.’ It seems a tribute to the greatness of our common nature that the most ordinary individuals have weight with us as soon as there are enough of them to get together in a jury-box, or even in a newspaper office, and pronounce a decision. As Chancellor Oxenstiern sent the young man on his travels to see with how little wisdom the world was governed, so it is worth while for every young writer to visit New York or London, that he may see with how little serious consideration his work will be criticised. The only advantage conferred by added years in authorship is that one learns this lesson a little better, though the oldest author never learns it very well.

But apart from all drawbacks in the way of haste and shallowness, there is a profounder