Unknown, perhaps his reputation
Escapes the tax of defamation,
And wrapt in darkness, laughs unhurt,
While critic blockheads throw their dirt;
But he who madly prints his name,
Invites his foe to take sure aim.3
3 LLOYD.
He may be so shy, that if his book were praised he would shrink from the notoriety into which it would bring him; or so sensitive, that his mortification would be extreme, if it were known among his neighbours that he had been made the subject of sarcastic and contemptuous criticism.
Or if he ever possessed this diffidence he may have got completely rid of it in his intercourse with the world, and have acquired that easy habit of simulation without which no one can take his degree as Master of Arts in that great University. To hear the various opinions concerning the book and the various surmises concerning the author, take part in the conversation, mystify some of his acquaintance and assist others in mystifying themselves, may be more amusing to him than any amusement of which he could partake in his own character. There are some secrets which it is a misery to know, and some which the tongue itches to communicate; but this is one which it is a pleasure to know and to keep. It gives to the possessor, quasically speaking, a double existence: the exoteric person mingles as usual in society, while the esoteric is like John the Giganticide in his coat of darkness, or that knight who in the days of King Arthur used to walk invisible.
The best or the worst performer at a masquerade may have less delight in the consciousness or conceit of their own talents, than he may take in conversing with an air of perfect unconcern about his own dear book. It may be sport for him to hear it scornfully condemned by a friend, and pleasure to find it thoroughly relished by an enemy.
The secrets of nature
Have not more gift in taciturnity.4
Peradventure he praises it himself with a sincerity for which every reader will give him full credit; or peradventure he condemns it, for the sake of provoking others to applaud it more warmly in defence of their own favourable and pre-expressed opinion. Whether of these courses, thinkest thou, gentle reader, is he most likely to pursue? I will only tell thee that either would to him be equally easy and equally entertaining. “Ye shall know that we may dissemble in earnest as well as in sport, under covert and dark terms, and in learned and apparent speeches, in short sentences and by long ambage and circumstance of words, and finally, as well when we lie, as when we tell truth.”5
4 TROILUS and CRESSIDA.
5 PUTTENHAM.
In any one of the supposed cases sufficient reason is shown for his keeping, and continuing to keep his own secret.