And I'll tell you why.

There's no longer any real 'criticism' of literary work in the papers nowadays.

There's only extravagant eulogium written up by an author's personal friends and wormed somehow into the press--or equally extravagant abuse, written and insinuated in similar fashion by an author's personal enemies.

Well now, you can't live without having both friends and enemies--you generally have more of the latter than the former, particularly if you are successful.

There's nothing a lazy man won't do to 'down' an industrious one,--nothing an unknown scrub won't attempt in the way of trying to injure a great fame.