In the first place, it seems
almost impossible that a man of Milvain's mind and instincts should
have deliberately chosen literature as the occupation of his life;
with money and success as his only aim he would surely have become a
stockbroker or a moneylender. In the second place, Edwin Reardon's
dire failure, with his rapid descent into extreme poverty, is clearly
traceable not so much to a truly artistic temperament in conflict with
the commercial spirit, as to mental and moral weakness, which could
not but have a baneful influence upon his work.'
[Footnote 13: F. Dolman in _National Review_, vol. xxx.; cf. _ibid_., vol.
xliv.]
This criticism does not seem to me a just one at all, and I dissent from it
completely. In the first place, the book is not nearly so depressing as
_The Nether World_, and is much farther removed from the strain of French
and Russian pessimism which had begun to engage the author's study when he
was writing _Thyrza_. There are dozens of examples to prove that Milvain's
success is a perfectly normal process, and the reason for his selecting the
journalistic career is the obvious one that he has no money to begin
stock-broking, still less money-lending.
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