is not even so much. In the whole work there is nothing grandly
affecting but the character and the inexplicable misery of the writer.

Meantime, by what accident, so foreign to my nature, do I find myself
laying foundations towards a higher valuation of my own workmanship?
O reader, I have been talking idly. I care not for any valuation that
depends upon comparison with others. Place me where you will on the
scale of comparison: only suffer me, though standing lowest in your
catalogue, to rejoice in the recollection of letters expressing the
most fervid interest in particular passages or scenes of the
_Confessions_, and, by rebound from _them_, an interest in their author:
suffer me also to anticipate that, on the publication of some parts
yet in arrear of the _Suspiria_, you yourself may possibly write a
letter to me, protesting that your disapprobation is just where it
was, but nevertheless that you are disposed to shake hands with me--by
way of proof that you like me better than I deserve.


FOOTNOTES

[1] "_Next to the bible in currency_."--That is, next in the fifteenth
century to the Bible of the nineteenth century. The diffusion of the "De
Imitatione Christi" over Christendom (the idea of Christendom, it must be
remembered, not then including any part of America) anticipated, in 1453,
the diffusion of the Bible in 1853. But why? Through what causes?
Elsewhere I have attempted to show that this enormous (and seemingly
incredible) popularity of the "De Imitatione Christi" is virtually to be
interpreted as a vicarious popularity of the Bible. At that time the
Bible itself was a fountain of inspired truth every where sealed up; but
a whisper ran through the western nations of Europe that the work of