HKB
brings about in human affairs. All that I once did now appears sheer folly, and sometimes in looking around me I fail to recognise that it is the same world.
The man whose life is devoted to immaterial pursuits is a child in worldly affairs; he is helpless without a guardian. The world in which we live is wide enough for every place which is worth taking to be occupied; every post to be held creates, so to speak, the person to fill it. I had never imagined that the product of my thought could have any market value. I had always had an idea of writing, but it had never occurred to me that it would bring me in any money. I was greatly astonished, therefore, when a man of pleasant and intelligent appearance called upon me in my garret one day, and, after complimenting me upon several articles which I had written, offered to publish them in a collected form. A stamped agreement which he had with him specified terms which seemed to me so wonderfully liberal that when he asked me if all my future writings should be included in the agreement, I gave my assent. I was tempted to make one or two observations, but the sight of the stamp stopped me, and I was unwilling that so fine a piece of paper should be wasted. I did well to forego them, for M. Michel Lévy must have been created by a special decree of Providence to be my editor. A man of letters who has any self-respect should write in only one journal and in one review, and should have only one publisher. M. Michel Lévy and myself always got on very well together. At a subsequent date, he pointed out to me that the agreement which he had prepared was not sufficiently remunerative for me, and he substituted for it one much more to my advantage. I am told that he has not made a bad speculation out of me. I am delighted to hear it. In any event, I may safely say that if I possessed a fund of literary wealth it was only fair that he should have a large share of it, as but for him I should never have suspected its existence.
II. It is very difficult to prove that one is modest, for the very assertion of one's modesty destroys one's claim to it. As I have said, our old Christian teachers had an excellent rule upon this score, which was never to speak of oneself either in praise or depreciation. This is the true principle, but the general reader will not have it so, and is the cause of all the mischief. He leads the writer to commit faults upon which he is afterwards very hard, just as the staid middle classes of another age applauded the actor, and yet excluded him from the Church. "Incur your own damnation, as long as you amuse us" is often the sentiment which lurks beneath the encouragement, often flattering in appearance, of the public. Success is more often than not acquired by our defects. When I am very well pleased with what I have written, I have perhaps nine or ten persons who approve of what I have said. When I cease to keep a strict watch upon myself, when my literary conscience hesitates, and my hand shakes, thousands are anxious for me to go on.