Condescension is probably the worst sin in a critic. Any idiot can find bad lines in Whitman or Crane. Finding purplish or overwritten passages in writers makes a certain kind of critic feel superior. Aha! I wouldn't have written that! He says. Yes, but did you invent an entire new style, like Whitman did? Did you ever write a single phrase half as brilliant as "adagios of islands"? Quondam dormitat Homerus.