disappointment. Meanwhile, at present, if I anticipate but little gain, I can meet with but a trifling loss: I do not set my heart on the success of efforts, which, I allow with my enemies, (for to have enemies is the doom of literature, which even the most ordinary writer does not escape,) are petty and unimportant; I am not so elevated by the praise of this man, or so humbled by the blame of that, as to forfeit "the level temperature of the mind," or transgress the small and charmed circle from which Reason—a sorceress when she confines her efforts, an impostor when she enlarges them—banishes the intrusion of others. Nor do I myself believe that to any one who has formed the habit of application, is the production of books, whatever be their nature, (so long as they are neither in poetry nor abstract science) attended with that utter and absorbing engrossment of time which is usually imagined. Life has hours enough for all but the idle; and for my own part, if I were not in the common habit of turning to more important subjects, as a study, I should never have had the presumption to write even novels, as a recreation. Do not conceive, however, from what I have said, that I am going to write novels all the rest of my life,—I am excusing what has been, and is,—not prefacing what is to be.
I have now, my dear friend, said all that I wished to touch upon in excuse for the nature of my productions. I do not make you, nor, through you, my Readers, an apology for my egotism or my prolixity.
