He would take me for a besieged town. I need, that is to say, a decent man who can accommodate himself to all my desires in a general sort of way. We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us from seeing it. We do not worry about being respected in towns through which we pass. But if we are going to remain in one for a certain time, we do worry.
Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, skeptically of skepticism.
Those who write against vanity want the glory of having written well, and their readers the glory of reading well, and I who write this have the same desire, as perhaps those who read this have also. Our notion of symmetry is derived form the human face. Hence, we demand symmetry horizontally and in breadth only, not vertically nor in depth. When we encounter a natural style we are always surprised and delighted, for we thought to see an author and found a man. Everything that is written merely to please the author is worthless.