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 Levy 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 Levy 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.
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