The Irish are a very fair people, said Oscar Wilde: they never speak well of another.
That’s certainly true for the Irish, but even more so for writers of any nationality, who are seldom happier than when scalping one of their own and boiling him or her in potash of aqua regium (but all, naturally, in the name of art.) Writers can usually be relied on to append their self-righteous signatures to petitions from PEN denouncing the Turkish, Chinese or Russian governments (especially if they are unknown in those jurisdictions, so their booksales will not be affected). However, the more intellectually mediocre writers are seldom as exercised as when they are denouncing a fellow-writer for offending the consensual sanctimony of their times. Moreover, all writers – good or bad – have a grisly tendency to be preening, solipsitic, and often extremely unpleasant individuals: Wilde, Shaw, Joyce, Yeats certainly were.
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