It ain't that _I_ am vain, but that _you_
don't like to put your own light under a bushel. What's the worth of
your reputation, if you can't convey the reason for it to the person you
most wish to value it? Now I'll put it to you. Is it worth sixpence,
fippence, fourpence, threepence, twopence, a penny, a halfpenny, a
farthing? No, it ain't. Not worth a farthing. Very well, then. My
conclusion was that I would begin her book with some account of myself.
So that, through reading a specimen or two of me on the footboard, she
might form an idea of my merits there. I was aware that I couldn't do
myself justice. A man can't write his eye (at least _I_ don't know how
to), nor yet can a man write his voice, nor the rate of his talk, nor the
quickness of his action, nor his general spicy way. But he can write his
turns of speech, when he is a public speaker,--and indeed I have heard
that he very often does, before he speaks 'em.
Well! Having formed that resolution, then come the question of a name.
How did I hammer that hot iron into shape? This way. The most difficult
explanation I had ever had with her was, how I come to be called Doctor,
and yet was no Doctor. After all, I felt that I had failed of getting it
correctly into her mind, with my utmost pains. But trusting to her
improvement in the two years, I thought that I might trust to her
understanding it when she should come to read it as put down by my own
hand.
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