guished characters. I can get no
farther. Such is the misery of pretensions beyond your situation,
and which are not backed by any external symbols of wealth or rank,
intelligible to all mankind!

The impertinence of admiration is scarcely more tolerable than the
demonstrations of contempt. I have known a person whom I had never
seen before besiege me all dinner-time with asking what articles I had
written in the _Edinburgh Review?_ I was at last ashamed to answer to my
splendid sins in that way. Others will pick out something not yours, and
say they are sure no one else could write it. By the first sentence they
can always tell your style. Now I hate my style to be known, as I hate
all _idiosyncrasy._ These obsequious flatterers could not pay me a worse
compliment. Then there are those who make a point of reading everything
you write (which is fulsome); while others, more provoking, regularly
lend your works to a friend as soon as they receive them. They pretty
well know your notions on the different subjects, from having heard you
talk about them. Besides, they have a greater value for your personal
character than they have for your writings. You explain things better in
a common way, when you are not aiming at effect. Others tell you of the
faults they have heard found with your last book, and that they defend
your style in general from a charge of obscurity. A friend once told me
of a quarrel he had had with a near relation, who denied that I knew
how to spell the commonest words. These are comfortable confidential
communications to which authors who have their friends and excusers are
subject. A gentleman told me that a lady had objected to my use of the
word _learneder_ as bad grammar. He said he thought it a pity that I
did not take more care, but that the lady was perhaps prejudiced, as her
husband held a government office. I looked for the word, and found it
in a motto from Butler. I was piqued, and desired him to tell the fair
critic that the fault was not in me, but in one who had far more wit,
more learning, and loyalty than I could pretend to. Then, again, some
will pick out the flattest thing of yours they can find to load it with
panegyrics; and others tell you (by way of letting you see how high they
rank your capacity) that your best passages are failures. Lamb has a
knack of tasting (or as he would say, _palating_) the insipid. Leigh
Hunt has a trick of turning away from the relishing morsels you put on