Beauty, as the sum of several
beautiful parts, reached its apotheosis in Swinburne. It can't go any
further--except in the novel, perhaps."
Dick interrupted him impatiently:
"You know these new novels make me tired. My God! Everywhere I go some
silly girl asks me if I've read 'This Side of Paradise.' Are our girls
really like that? If it's true to life, which I don't believe, the next
generation is going to the dogs. I'm sick of all this shoddy realism. I
think there's a place for the romanticist in literature."
Anthony tried to remember what he had read lately of Richard Caramel's.
There was "A Shave-tail in France," a novel called "The Land of Strong
Men," and several dozen short stories, which were even worse. It had
become the custom among young and clever reviewers to mention Richard
Caramel with a smile of scorn. "Mr." Richard Caramel, they called him.
His corpse was dragged obscenely through every literary supplement. He
was accused of making a great fortune by writing trash for the movies.
As the fashion in books shifted he was becoming almost a byword
of contempt.
While Anthony was thinking this, Dick had got to his feet and seemed to
be hesitating at an avowal.
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