An author may have a reputation which is confined to the surface, and lose it and become pitied, then despised, then forgotten, entirely forgotten--the frequent steps in a surface reputation.

At surface reputation, however great, is always mortal, and always killable if you go at it right--with pins and needles, and quiet slow poison, not with the club and tomahawk.

But it is a different matter with the submerged reputation--down in the deep water; once a favorite there, always a favorite; once beloved, always beloved; once respected, always respected, honored, and believed in.

For, what the reviewer says never finds its way down into those placid deeps; nor the newspaper sneers, nor any breath of the winds of slander blowing above.

Down there they never hear of these things.