"And then, under cover of names respected by the immense majority of
Frenchmen (who will always be against the Government), you can crush
Nathan; for although his work is far above the average, it confirms
the bourgeois taste for literature without ideas. And after that, you
understand, it is no longer a question of Nathan and his book, but of
France and the glory of France. It is the duty of all honest and
courageous pens to make strenuous opposition to these foreign
importations. And with that you flatter your readers. Shrewd French
mother-wit is not easily caught napping. If publishers, by ways which
you do not choose to specify, have stolen a success, the reading
public very soon judges for itself, and corrects the mistakes made by
some five hundred fools, who always rush to the fore.

"Say that the publisher who sold a first edition of the book is
audacious indeed to issue a second, and express regret that so clever
a man does not know the taste of the country better. There is the gist
of it. Just a sprinkle of the salt of wit and a dash of vinegar to
bring out the flavor, and Dauriat will be done to a turn. But mind
that you end with seeming to pity Nathan for a mistake, and speak of
him as of a man from whom contemporary literature may look for great
things if he renounces these ways."

Lucien was amazed at this talk from Lousteau. As the journalist spoke,
the scales fell from his eyes; he beheld new truths of which he had
never before caught so much as a glimpse.

"But all this that you are saying is quite true and just," said he.

"If it were not, how could you make it tell against Nathan's book?"
asked Lousteau. "That is the first manner of demolishing a book, my
boy; it is the pickaxe style of criticism. But there are plenty of
other ways. Your education will complete itself in time. When you are
absolutely obliged to speak of a man whom you do not like, for
proprietors and editors are sometimes under compulsion, you bring out
a neutral special article. You put the title of the book at the head
of it, and begin with general remarks, on the Greeks and the Romans if
you like, and wind up with--'and this brings us to Mr. So-and-so's
book, which will form the subject of a second article.' The second
article never appears, and in this way you snuff out the book between
two promises. But in this case you are writing down, not Nathan, but
Dauriat; he needs the pickaxe style. If the book is really good, the
p