Waverley | Page 8

the Author. The
knowledge that I had the public approbation was like having the
property of a hidden treasure, not less gratifying to the owner than if all
the world knew that it was his own. Another advantage was connected
with 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 concealed, in the character of the Author of these
Novels, subjected me occasionally to awkward embarrassments, as it
sometimes happened that those who were sufficiently intimate with me
would put the question in direct terms. In this case, only one of three
courses could be followed. Either I must have surrendered my secret, or
have returned an equivocating answer, or, finally, must have stoutly
and boldly denied the fact. The first was a sacrifice which I conceive no
one had a right to force from me, since I alone was concerned in the
matter. The alternative of rendering a doubtful answer must have left
me open to the degrading suspicion that I was not unwilling to assume
the merit (if there was any) which I dared not absolutely lay claim to;
or those who might think more justly of me must have received such an
equivocal answer as an indirect avowal. I therefore considered myself
entitled, like an accused person put upon trial, to refuse giving my own
evidence to my own conviction, and flatly to deny all that could not be
proved against me. At the same time I usually qualified my denial by
stating that, had I been the Author of these works, I would have felt
myself quite entitled to protect my secret by refusing my own evidence,
when it was asked for to accomplish a discovery of what I desired to
conceal.
The real truth is, that I never expected or hoped to disguise my
connection with these Novels from any one who lived on terms of

intimacy with me. The number of coincidences which necessarily
existed between narratives recounted, modes of expression, and
opinions broached in these Tales and such as were used by their Author
in the intercourse of private life must have been far too great to permit
any of my familiar acquaintances to doubt the identity betwixt their
friend and the Author of Waverley; and I believe they were all morally
convinced of it. But while I was myself silent, their belief could not
weigh