The Inflating of Bullfrogs
454 THE INFLATING OF BULLFROGS IN AN article in the New Statesman, on The Present Inflation of Literary Values, which has started a brisk correspondence in the London publication, Richard Le...
...Some day, surely, he will burst—but not while his inflation means the inflation of the bank-accounts of publishers who can convince the public that Morley's estimate of Gladstone is not to be compared with that of a Captain Wright...
...they furnish outlines and synopses and much material about the writer—his favorite recreation, his views on prohibition and evolution, and his opinion of his new eight-cylinder car...
...he must be kind and loving today, for tomorrow his new book will appear...
...Le Gallienne suggests that perhaps, after all, the literary inflation may be only a subdivision of the inflation of all contemporary values...
...perhaps this universal inflation is the result of a steady campaign of disparagement of the past with consequent deflation, which permits false appraisal of the present by stultifying standards of comparison...
...The estimate of the events of a special period, of a reign, involved years of study and research...
...With the masterpieces of former generations dismissed with a sneer, it is easy for the discoverer of the present to find in every pond, and in not a few puddles, sounds indicative of surprising genius...
...It demands only that disagreement shall be expressed with everything written before the beginning of the twentieth century...
...Now, the history of mankind is dashed off in monthly or weekly numbers...
...The bullfrog has now become so big that when his history becomes topic for Sunday sermons and illustrated syndicate articles, his interpretations, boiled down so that the really literate may discuss them at parties, are accepted as gospel...
...By this time, he is nearly ready to write a history...
...The inflation of the bullfrog begins with the appearance of the jacket enfolding his first work...
...He might have carried the thought a little further...
...There was a time when the writing of a history was quite an undertaking...
...In those days of the past, when the work of an author approached genius by the taking of infinite pains, there were readers of books as well as writers of them...
...This not only adds to his bank-account, but gives him opportunity to explain modern literary values to the multitude...
...At this stage, the boom of the other bullfrogs begins to be heard...
...Bigger and ever bigger...
...Organizations are formed for this very purpose...
...454 THE INFLATING OF BULLFROGS IN AN article in the New Statesman, on The Present Inflation of Literary Values, which has started a brisk correspondence in the London publication, Richard Le Gallienne points out that certain bullfrogs of the publishing preserves have become so big by their own continuous "boom, boom," and the general chorus of blurb and critic, that they disclose themselves to many, "not as bullfrogs, but as bulls...
...One by one they raise their voices in acclaim...
...For this is the sweet nature of the bullfrog...
...The achievement of the present is that it dispenses with the reading of books...
...Seeking an explanation of a phenomenon as amusing as it is astonishing, Mr...
...At the proper period of growth, the author becomes a lecturer...
Vol. 5 • March 1927 • No. 17
