Perhaps the absoluteness of the act of writing, in effect, his own elegy--and the absoluteness of his inability to answer his critics afterward--curiously mellowed him.
He never worried about counteracting criticism. 
mnli hypothesis: He never worried about counteracting criticism.  premise: Perhaps the absoluteness of the act of writing, in effect, his own elegy--and the absoluteness of his inability to answer his critics afterward--curiously mellowed him.