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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: any task, undertaken in an adventurous spirit acquires the merit
of romance. But the critics as a rule exhibit but little of an
adventurous spirit. They take risks, of course--one can hardly
live with out that. The daily bread is served out to us (however
sparingly) with a pinch of salt. Otherwise one would get sick of
the diet one prays for, and that would be not only improper, but
impious. From impiety of that or any other kind--save us! An
ideal of reserved manner, adhered to from a sense of proprieties,
from shyness, perhaps, or caution, or simply from weariness,
induces, I suspect, some writers of criticism to conceal the
adventurous side of their calling, and then the criticism becomes
A Personal Record |
