I felt the airs of heaven playing about it, and fancied it
already encircled by a halo of literary glory.
As I passed by the windows of bookshops, I anticipated the time when my
work would be shining among the hotpressed wonders of the day; and my
face, scratched on copper, or cut in wood, figuring in fellowship with
those of Scott and Byron and Moore.
When I applied at the publisher's house there was something in the
loftiness of my air, and the dinginess of my dress, that struck the
clerks with reverence. They doubtless took me for some person of
consequence, probably a digger of Greek roots, or a penetrator of
pyramids. A proud man in a dirty shirt is always an imposing character
in the world of letters; one must feel intellectually secure before he
can venture to dress shabbily; none but a great scholar or a great
genius dares to be dirty; so I was ushered at once to the sanctum
sanctorum of this high priest of Minerva.
The publishing of books is a very different affair now-a-days from what
it was in the time of Bernard Lintot. I found the publisher a
fashionably-dressed man, in an elegant drawing-room, furnished with
sofas and portraits of celebrated authors, and cases of splendidly
bound books.
