Very far from
being a popular author under my own name, so far, indeed, as to be
almost unread, I found the verses of my pseudonym copied everywhere; saw
them pinned up in workshops; I heard them quoted and their authorship
debated; I once even, when rumor had at length caught up my name in one
of its eddies, had the satisfaction of overhearing it demonstrated, in
the pauses of a concert, that _I_ was utterly incompetent to have
written anything of the kind. I had read too much not to know the utter
worthlessness of contemporary reputation, especially as regards satire,
but I knew also that by giving a certain amount of influence it also had
its worth, if that influence were used on the right side. I had learned,
too, that the first requisite of good writing is to have an earnest and
definite purpose, whether aesthetic or moral, and that even good
writing, to please long, must have more than an average amount either of
imagination or common-sense. The first of these falls to the lot of
scarcely one in several generations; the last is within the reach of
many in every one that passes; and of this an author may fairly hope to
become in part the mouthpiece.
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