he will forgive you these things; but never say anything against him as an authorfor this he will not forgive. If you don’t think my book a good one, and you happen to meet me, just act as if we were strangers to each other.
No, even such a chapter “for a change” appears to me, through the magnifying-glass of my vanity as an author, to be most important and indispensable; and if you do not read it, and afterwards feel disappointed with my book, I shall not hesitate to tell you that your not reading it was the cause of your inability to appreciate my book, for the chapter you omitted was just the most essential of allI therefore—for I am a man and an author—should hold every chapter to be essential which you had passed over with unpardonable readerlike levity. I imagine that your wife asks, “What do you think of that book?” And you say, for instance—[horribile auditu to me]—with the pomp of diction peculiar to married men—
“Humph! so-so.—I don’t know yet.”
Well then, barbarian! read on; what is most important is about to commence. And with trembling lips I look at you, and measure the thickness of the turned leavesand I look on your face for the reflection of that chapter “that is so important,”“No,” I say, “he has not yet jumped upembraced somebody in ecstasyhis wife perhaps” But you read on. It appears to me that
