head of mine knows better)--but the work has been _inside_, and not
when at stated times I held up my light to you--and, that there is no
self-delusion here, I would prove to you (and nobody else), even by
opening this desk I write on, and showing what stuff, in the way of
wood, I _could_ make a great bonfire with, if I might only knock the
whole clumsy top off my tower! Of course, every writing body says the
same, so I gain nothing by the avowal; but when I remember how I have
done what was published, and half done what may never be, I say with
some right, you can know but little of me. Still, I _hope_ sometimes,
though phrenologists will have it that I _cannot_, and am doing
better with this darling 'Luria'--so safe in my head, and a tiny slip
of paper I cover with my thumb!

Then you inquire about my 'sensitiveness to criticism,' and I shall be
glad to tell you exactly, because I have, more than once, taken a
course you might else not understand. I shall live always--that is for
me--I am living here this 1845, that is for London. I write from a
thorough conviction that it is the duty of me, and with the belief
that, after every drawback and shortcoming, I do my best, all things
considered--that is for _me_, and, so being, the not being listened to
by one human creature would, I hope, in nowise affect me. But of
course I must, if for merely scientific purposes, know all about this
1845, its ways and doings, and something I do know, as that for a
dozen cabbages, if I pleased to grow them in the garden here, I might
demand, say, a dozen pence at Covent Garden Market,--and that for a
dozen scenes, of the average goodness, I may challenge as many
plaudits at the theatre close by; and a dozen pages of verse, brought
to the Rialto where verse-merchants most do congregate, ought to bring
me a fair proportion of the Reviewers' gold currency, seeing the other
traders pouch their winnings, as I do see. Well, when they won't pay