You know very well that I write verses sometimes, because I have read some of them at this table.

(The company assented,--two or three of them in a resigned sort of way, as I thought, as if they supposed I had an epic in my pocket, and was going to read half a dozen books or so for their benefit.)--I continued.

Of course I write some lines or passages which are better than others; some which, compared with the others, might be called relatively excellent.

It is in the nature of things that I should consider these relatively excellent lines or passages as absolutely good.

So much must be pardoned to humanity.