The habits of self-importance which are thus acquired by authors
are highly injurious to a well-regulated mind; for the cup of flattery,
if it does not, like that of Circe, reduce men to the level of beasts, is
sure, if eagerly drained, to bring the best and the ablest down to that
of fools. This risk was in some degree prevented by the mask which I
wore; and my own stores of self-conceit were left to their natural
course, without being enhanced by the partiality of friends or adulation
of flatterers.
If I am asked further reasons for the conduct I have long observed, I can
only resort to the explanation supplied by a critic as friendly as he is
intelligent; namely, that the mental organisation of the novelist must be
characterised, to speak craniologically, by an extraordinary development
of the passion for delitescency! I the rather suspect some natural
disposition of this kind; for, from the instant I perceived the extreme
curiosity manifested on the subject, I felt a secret satisfaction in
baffling it, for which, when its unimportance is considered, I do not
well know how to account.
My desire to remain concealed, in the character of the Author of these
Novels, subjected me occasionally to awkward embarrassments, as it
sometimes happened that those who were sufficiently intimate with me
would put the question in direct terms.
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