14 AN EGOTISTICAL CHAPTER 



ness, sympathy, religiousness, — and strong by 

 his poorer, or at least his less attractive, qualities. 

 But in letters the reverse is probably true. How 

 many of us owe our success in this field to qualities 

 which in a measure disqualified us for an active 

 career! A late writer upon Carlyle seeks to demon- 

 strate that the "open secret of his life" was his 

 desire to take a hand in the actual affairs of English 

 politics; but it is quite certain that the traits and 

 gifts which made him such a power in literature 

 — namely, his tremendous imagination and his 

 burdened prophetic conscience — would have stood 

 in his way in dealing with the coarse affairs of this 

 world. 



In my own case, what hinders me with the world 

 helps me with impersonal nature. I do not stand 

 in my own light. My will, my personality, offer 

 little resistance : they let the shy, delicate influences 

 pass. I can surrender myself to nature without 

 effort, but am more or less restrained and self-con- 

 scious in the presence of my fellows. Bird and 

 beast take to me, and I to them. I can look in the 

 eye of an ugly dog and win him, but with an ugly 

 man I have less success. 



I have unmistakably the feminine idiosyncrasy. 

 Perhaps this is the reason that my best and most 

 enthusiastic readers appear to be women. In the 

 genesis of all my books, feeling goes a long way 

 before intellection. What I feel I can express, 



