“I read for the same reason that I ate or drank; because it was a real craving of nature. I wrote on the same principle as I spoke – out of the impulse and feelings of the mind; nor could I help it, for what came, came out, and there was the end of it. For as to self–conceit, that could not receive food from flattery, since to this hour, not half a dozen people in the world know that I have ever penned a line.”
