Vulgar words in An Author's Mind : The Book of Title-pages (Page 1)
This book at a glance
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~ ~ ~ Sentence 274 ~ ~ ~
Now, strictly speaking, in order to hallucinate honestly, your opium-writer ought to have had some practical knowledge of opium-eating: then could he descant with the authority of experience--yea, though he write himself thereby down an ass--on its effects upon mind and body; then could he tell of luxuries and torments in true Frenchified detail; then could he expound its pains and pleasures with all the eloquence of personal conviction.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 967 ~ ~ ~
Take my word for it--if indeed I can be a fair witness--the man who has written a book, is above the unwriting average, and, as such, should be ranked mentally above them: no light research, and tact, and industry, and head-and-hand labour, are sufficient for a volume; even certain stolid performances in print do not shake my judgment; for arrant blockheads as sundry authors undoubtedly are, the average (mark, not all men, but the average) unwriting man is an author's intellectual inferior.