The Chattering Classes

[Speaking of Carlyle] “The danger, as he saw it, was in the distraction: ordinary men and women turned to ‘art,’ and the worship of art, only when they had nothing more important to do or to think about. And idle humans – bored humans – were not whole humans. They were shells, chattering away to …

Argument Weak, Shout Here

“They [literary critics] had become an interest group battling for a share of influence, seeking to preserve their sense of self-importance by bullying an increasingly disgusted public into extending their mandate for another decade or two. The more they were called to account, the louder did they howl; the more they were asked to explain …

Entertained By Decadence

“After that all was chaos, and it was no longer possible to discover just which critics were making the most definitive statements about which Voluptuous Grotesqueries. The incessant gibberish had become one long rumble in the night, and Major Critics bobbed like corks in a sea of splendid horror.” [Bryan F. Griffin, Panic Among the …