“It is not dark,” she said. “It shines as usual. Are you quite sure it is a failure? You may have given me a gift that still had worth. How terrible that would be!”
I laughed.
“I am afraid it would never have met with much approval. I can quite see myself that, judged from some points, it might be called extravagant.”
“Now,” she cried, putting her hand upon my arm, “I’ll give you a little piece of advice, a real piece of worldly wisdom.”
“What is it?”
“Never admit yourself to be in the wrong.”
“But—” I began.
“No ‘buts.’ Never admit yourself to be in the wrong. I’ll give you another piece of advice too. If anyone says anything to you about your book, tell them they must be terribly dull of comprehension. It was simply written as a caricature of everything but goodness.”
“You know more about it than I do myself.”
“No, I don’t. But you forget. You’ve had so much of the cramping pain of failure since, that you forget the pleasant hours you spent when it was being written. I remember one night, after the little house was quiet, and you had gone away, Plucritus took one of those books and turned the leaves up to a certain page.