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.  “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.

But notwithstanding all this, and making due allowance for venial faults, I may safely claim that I have been modest, and in this respect, at all events, I have not come short of the St. Sulpice standard.  I am not afflicted with literary vanity.  I do not fall into the error which distinguishes the literary views of our day.  I am well assured that no really great man has ever imagined himself to be one, and that those who during their lifetime browse upon their glory while it is green, do not garner it ripe after their death.  I only feigned to set store by literature for a time to please M. Sainte-Beuve who had great influence over me.  Since his death, I have ceased to attach any value to it.  I see plainly enough that talent is only prized because people are so childish.  If the public were wise, they would be content with getting the truth.  What they like is in most cases imperfections.  My adversaries, in order to deny me the possession of other qualities which interfere with their apologeticum, are so profuse in their allowance