I wish to take this opportunity of tendering my thanks to a large
number of reviewers for the very gratifying reception given to
the earlier volumes of this series. And I have great pleasure in
expressing my obligations to my friend Mr. W.G. Collingwood, who has
looked over most of my proofs and often given me excellent advice in
my effort to turn Schopenhauer into readable English.
T.B.S.
ON AUTHORSHIP.
There are, first of all, two kinds of authors: those who write for the
subject's sake, and those who write for writing's sake. While the
one have had thoughts or experiences which seem to them worth
communicating, the others want money; and so they write, for money.
Their thinking is part of the business of writing. They may be
recognized by the way in which they spin out their thoughts to the
greatest possible length; then, too, by the very nature of their
thoughts, which are only half-true, perverse, forced, vacillating;
again, by the aversion they generally show to saying anything straight
out, so that they may seem other than they are. Hence their writing
is deficient in clearness and definiteness, and it is not long before
they betray that their only object in writing at all is to cover
paper. This sometimes happens with the best authors; now and then, for
example, with Lessing in his _Dramaturgie_, and even in many of Jean
Paul's romances.
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