“[T]here seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labor of the novelist and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them... [novels are works] in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.”
