THE possession of unlimited power will make a despot of almost any man.
There is a possible Nero in the gentlest human creature that walks.
EVERY living author has a projection of himself, a sort of eidolon, that
goes about in near and remote places making friends or enemies for him
among persons who never lay eyes upon the writer in the flesh. When he
dies, this phantasmal personality fades away, and the author lives only
in the impression created by his own literature. It is only then that
the world begins to perceive what manner of man the poet, the novelist,
or the historian really was. Not until he is dead, and perhaps some long
time dead, is it possible for the public to take his exact measure.
Up to that point contemporary criticism has either overrated him or
underrated him, or ignored him altogether, having been misled by the
eidolon, which always plays fantastic tricks with the writer temporarily
under its dominion. It invariably represents him as either a greater or
a smaller personage than he actually is.
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