There are very young, oh absurdly young! reviewers; and there are
elderly reviewers, with whiskers. There are also women reviewers.
Absurdly young reviewers are inclined to be youthful in their reviews.
Elderly reviewers usually have missed fire with their lives, or they
wouldn't still be reviewers. The best sort of a reviewer is the
reviewer that is just getting slightly bald. He is not a
flippertigibbet, and still an intelligent man--if he is a good reviewer.

Book reviews are in nearly all the papers. Proprietors of newspapers
don't read these things: they think they are deadly stuff. Many
authors don't: because they regard them as ill-natured and exceedingly
stupid. Book clerks don't read them much: for that would be like
working overtime. Business men infrequently have time for such
nonsense. University professors are inclined to pooh-pooh them as
things beneath them. Still somebody must read them, as publishers pay
for them with their advertising. No publishers' advertising, no book
reviews, is the policy of nearly every newspaper; and the reviews are
generally in proportion to the amount of advertising. Now publishers
are sagacious men who generally live in comfortable circumstances, and
who occasionally get quite rich and mingle in important society. They
set considerable store by reviews; they employ publicity men at good
wages who continually supply reviewers with valuable information by
post and telephone; they are fond of quoting in large type remarks from
reviews which please them; and sometimes, at reviews they don't like,
they stir up a fuss and have literary editors removed from office.

Yes, reviews have much power. They are eagerly read by multitudes of
people who write very indignantly to the paper to correct and rebuke
the reviewer when, owing to fatigue, he refers to Miss Mitford as