But it is unfortunate there is not more division of opinion on the subject, because, while this view may add to the interest of autobiography, it weakens its weight and authority; and there are good reasons for supposing that one of the necessary “short cuts” of contemporary literature of the near future will be the brief critical autobiography. There is not a mother’s son of us in the whole scribbling guild, great or small, puffed or starved, can get his fill of praise; for there are too many of us scribbling in these latter years, and that man is fortunate who is famous for a whole season. There are but few who can reasonably hope for a life in the memory of mankind as long as Mumm’s champagne. It may be there are but few of us deserve it. Such scraps of comfort as occasionally fall to our lot are almost invariably disappointing, for our friends are perversely addicted to flattering us in good, round, general terms, which save thought and lack positiveness, or else they appreciate us for the very qualities it is perfectly evident we do not possess in the least degree. But this is the inevitable result of the production of literature by lightning-like machinery working day and night. All these sugared things which authors crave can only be supplied by other writers who, aside from the necessity of earning a livelihood, are plagued with private personal ambitions of their own; and if there is any sort of drudgery more tedious than the reviewing of other people’s literature, I should like to know what it is. Those who have to earn precarious bread by the pen, somehow or other, are so busy reviewing and scribbling on topical matters that they have absolutely no time for reading, and so very few writers out of the great multitude receive more than a few perfunctory words of praise or indifferent comment, and are then straightway forgotten. With the ever increasing tide of books, literary criticism tends to become more and more a mere matter of description and catalogueing, and as this is obviously inadequate to satisfy all the demands of those who would live in the public eye, we have latterly seen the development of that interesting personage, the psychological interviewer. Even this does not meet the exigencies of an overcrowded market. The psychological interviewer is only occupied with those whose names will help to sell _his_ wares. The secret charm of the psychological interview, when it is at all well done, is that it enables an author to supplement the necessarily perfunctory reviewing of the day with his own keener critical insight into the less obvious excellent qualities of his work. This done with a fine conscientious egotism and some show of candor, carries as much weight with liberal and unprejudiced minds as rare and subtle criticism. In fact, it is autobiography, which the interviewer breaks up into more or less dramatic dialogue.