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84 Thoughts upon Reading George Gissing’s New Grub Street Avoid creditors but court your editors. A lukewarm notice in the Times is like Heroin and sex combined, remember. Bring extra pens and aspirin for your tours, And scan the weekly lists for that fleeting spike That transmutes memoirs to legal tender. Go hungry before selling off your books. The hard times will come and probably stay. Swim the infested waters where careerists Circle with their finny tribe—riding old flukes— Who look famous on paper, who can sway A committee, while scholars gather interest. Bored, natch, the rest of the world looks on, While we trawl battlefields to learn who won. ...

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