it was in their smirking faces, in the slyness of their voices; intheir untidy gestures. It was an air of inanities uttered as revelations andinsolently demanding acceptance as such; an air, not of innocent presumption,but of conscious effrontery
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it was in their smirking faces, in the slyness of their voices; intheir untidy gestures. It was an air of inanities uttered as revelations andinsolently demanding acceptance as such; an air, not of innocent presumption,but of conscious effrontery; as if the author knew the nature of his work andboasted of his power to make it appear sublime in the minds of his audience andthus destroy the capacity for the sublime within them. The work justified theverdict of its sponsors: it brought laughs, it was amusing; it was an indecentjoke, acted out not on the stage but in the audience. It was a pedestal fromwhich a god had been torn, and in his place there stood, not Satan with a sword,but a corner lout sipping a bottle of Coca-Cola.
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