e Living Rock" being admired as mine! At such times,
it is very difficult to preserve my incognito. I have wondered that
nobody ever reads the truth in my indignant face.

As a consequence of all these trials, I sometimes become impatient,
inaccessible to compliment, and--since the truth must be told--a little
ill-tempered. My temperament, as my family and friends know, is of an
unusually genial and amiable quality, and I never snub an innocent but
indiscreet admirer without afterwards repenting of my rudeness. I have
often, indeed, a double motive for repentance; for those snubs carry
their operation far beyond their recipients, and come back to me
sometimes, after months or even years, in "Book Notices," or other
newspaper articles. Thus the serene path of literature, which the
aspiring youth imagines to be so fair and sunny, overspread with the
mellowest ideal tints, becomes rough and cloudy. No doubt I am to blame:
possibly I am rightly treated: I "belong to the public," I am told with
endless congratulatory iteration, and therefore I ought not to feel the
difference between the public's original humoring of my moods, and my
present enforced humoring of its moods. But I _do_ feel it, somehow. I
have of late entertained the suspicion, that I am not wholly the
creation of popular favor. "The public," I am sure, never furnished me
with my comic or my lively-serious vein of writing. If either of those
veins had not been found good, they would not have encouraged me to work
them. I declare, boldly, that I give an ample return for what I get, and
when I satisfy curiosity or yield to unreasonable demands upon my
patience and good-humor, it is "to boot."

Nevertheless, it is a generous public, on the whole, and gives trouble
only through thoughtlessness, not malice. It delights in its favorites,
because imagining that they so intensely enjoy its favor. And don't we,
after all? (I say _we_ purposely, and my publisher will tell you why.)
Now that I have written away my vexation, I recognize very clearly that
my object in writing this article is apology rather than complaint. All
whom I have ever rudely treated will now comprehend the unfortunate
circumstances under which the act occurred. If some one should visit me
to-morrow, I have no doubt he will write: "Mr. Dionysius Green is all,
and more than all, one would anticipate from reading his charming works.
Benevolence beams from his brow, fancy sparkles from his eyes, and
g