Against proprietors.
Are we ignorant of the fact, that a demand for a dozen copies enables a bookseller to sell a thousand; that with an edition of five hundred he can supply a kingdom for thirty years?
What will the poor authors do in the presence of this omnipotent union of booksellers?
I will tell them what they will do.

They will enter the employ of those whom they now treat as pirates; and, to secure an advantage, they will become wage laborers.

A fit reward for ignoble avarice, and insatiable pride.

[69] Contradictions of contradictions! "Genius is the great leveller of the world," cries M.de Lamartine; "then genius should be a proprietor.
Literary property is the fortune of democracy." This unfortunate poet thinks himself profound when he is only puffed up.

His eloquence consists solely in coupling ideas which clash with each other: ROUND SQUARE, DARK SUN, FALLEN ANGEL, PRIEST and LOVE, THOUGHT and POETRY, GUNIUS {?
?
?}, and FORTUNE, LEVELING and PROPERTY.