longer you write the less you will be liable to the error of that
supposition.'--'Perhaps, Sir, you discover nothing but faults?'--'Far
the contrary: I have discovered the first great quality of genius.'

This was a drop of reviving cordial, and I eagerly asked--'What is
that?'--'Energy. But, like the courage of Don Quixote, it is ill
directed; it runs a tilt at sheep and calls them giants.' 'Go on,
Sir,' said I: 'continue your allegory.'--'Its beauties are courtezans,
its enchanted castles pitiful hovels, and its Mambrino's helmet is no
better than a barber's bason.' 'But pray, Sir, be candid, and point
out all its defects!--All!'--'I am sorry to observe, Mr. Trevor,
that my candour has already been offensive to your feelings. If we
would improve our faculties, we must not seek unmerited praise, but
resolutely listen to truth.'--'Why, Sir, should you suppose I seek
unmerited praise.'

He made no reply, and I repeated my requisition, that he should point
out all the defects of my manuscript: once more, all, all! 'The
defects, Mr. Trevor,' said he, 'are many of them such as are common
to young writers; but some of them are peculiar to writers whose
imagination is strong, and whose judgment is unformed. Paradoxical as
it may seem, it is a disadvantage to your composition that you have
the right side of the question. Diffuse and unconnected arguments, a
style loaded with epithets and laborious attempts in the writer to
display himself, are blemishes that give less offence when employed
to defend error than when accumulated in the cause of truth, which is
forgotten and lost under a profusion of ornaments. The difficulties of
composition resemble those of geometry: they are the recollection of
things so simple and convincing that we imagine we never can forget
them; yet they are frequently forgotten at every step, and in every