the secrecy
which I observed. I could appear or retreat from the stage at pleasure,
without attracting any personal notice or attention, other than what
might be founded on suspicion only. In my own person also, as a
successful author in another department of literature, I might have been
charged with too frequent intrusions on the public patience; but the
Author of Waverley was in this respect as impassible to the critic as the
Ghost of Hamlet to the partisan of Marcellus. Perhaps the curiosity of
the public, irritated by the existence of a secret, and kept afloat by
the discussions which took place on the subject from time to time, went a
good way to maintain an unabated interest in these frequent publications.
There was a mystery concerning the Author which each new novel was
expected to assist in unravelling, although it might in other respects
rank lower than its predecessors.

I may perhaps be thought guilty of affectation, should I allege as one
reason of my silence a secret dislike to enter on personal discussions
concerning my own literary labours. It is in every case a dangerous
intercourse for an author to be dwelling continually among those who make
his writings a frequent and familiar subject of conversation, but who
must necessarily be partial judges of works composed in their own
society. The habits of self-importance which are thus acquired by authors
are highly injurious to a well-regulated mind; for the cup of flattery,
if it does not, like that of Circe, reduce men to the level of beasts, is
sure, if eagerly drained, to bring the best and the ablest down to that
of fools. This risk was in some degree prevented by the mask which I
wore; and my own stores of self-conceit were left to their natural
course, without being enhanced by the partiality of friends or adulation
of flatterers.

If I am asked further reasons for the conduct I have long observed, I can
only resort to the explanation supplied by a critic as friendly as he is
intelligent; namely, that the mental organisation of the novelist must be
characterised, to speak craniologically, by an extraordinary development
of the passion for delitescency! I the rather suspect some natural
disposition of this kind; for, from the instant I perceived the extreme
curiosity manifested on the subject, I felt a secret satisfaction in
baffling it, for which, when its unimportance is considered, I do not
well know how to account.

My desire to remain conceal