world, in which the present is still constituted by the future or the
past; and because his feelings have been habitually associated with
thoughts and images, to the number, clearness, and vivacity of which
the sensation of self is always in an inverse proportion. And yet,
should he perchance have occasion to repel some false charge, or to
rectify some erroneous censure, nothing is more common than for the
many to mistake the general liveliness of his manner and language,
whatever is the subject, for the effects of peculiar irritation from
its accidental relation to himself. [13]

For myself, if from my own feelings, or from the less suspicious test
of the observations of others, I had been made aware of any literary
testiness or jealousy; I trust, that I should have been, however,
neither silly nor arrogant enough to have burthened the imperfection
on genius. But an experience--(and I should not need documents in
abundance to prove my words, if I added)--a tried experience of twenty
years, has taught me, that the original sin of my character consists
in a careless indifference to public opinion, and to the attacks of
those who influence it; that praise and admiration have become yearly
less and less desirable, except as marks of sympathy; nay that it is
difficult and distressing to me to think with any interest even about
the sale and profit of my works, important as, in my present
circumstances, such considerations must needs be. Yet it never
occurred to me to believe or fancy, that the quantum of intellectual
power bestowed on me by nature or education was in any way connected
with this habit of my feelings; or that it needed any other parents or
fosterers than constitutional indolence, aggravated into languor by
ill-health; the accumulating embarrassments of procrastination; the
mental cowardice, which is the inseparable companion of
procrastination, and which makes us anxious to think and converse on