" "I should think one of those epithets would do at a time," said Mary, trying to smile, but feeling alarmed.
Yes, novels; for I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel-writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances, to the number of which they are themselves adding—joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust.
By using offensive epithets such as "poetess with cerebral palsy" or "countrywoman who composes poems", media outlets have succeeded in catching the eyes of readers and viewers.
