I retained, I suppose, some tolerable opinion of my own composition, though Janet did not comprehend it, and felt loath to retrench those Delilahs of the imagination, as Dryden calls them, the tropes and figures of which are caviar to the multitude.

Besides, I hate rewriting as much as Falstaff did paying back--it is a double labour.
So I determined with myself to consult Janet, in future, only on such things as were within the limits of her comprehension, and hazard my arguments and my rhetoric on the public without her imprimatur.

I am pretty sure she will "applaud it done." and in such narratives as come within her range of thought and feeling I shall, as I first intended, take the benefit of her unsophisticated judgment, and attend to it deferentially--that is, when it happens not to be in peculiar opposition to my own; for, after all, I say with Almanzor,-- "Know that I alone am king of me." The reader has now my who and my whereabout, the purpose of the work, and the circumstances under which it is undertaken.

He has also a specimen of the author's talents, and may judge for himself, and proceed, or send back the volume to the bookseller, as his own taste shall determine..