It must have been good, but probably not so good as I then thought it--I have entirely forgotten all about it; otherwise, I remember that we argued afterward: I for its publication; he against.

I was thinking of the wretched author whose fate hung in the balance.

He became a pathetic possibility, hidden in the heart of the white paper that bore pen-markings of a kind too good to be marketable.

There was something appalling in Lea's careless--"Oh, it's too good!" He was used to it, but as for me, in arguing that man's case I suddenly became aware that I was pleading my own--pleading the case of my better work.

Everything that Lea said of this work, of this man, applied to my work; and to myself.
"There's no market for that sort of thing, no public; this book's been all round the trade.