with complete assent all here written respecting the power of
Sincerity, will basely desert their allegiance to the truth the next
time they begin to write; and they will desert it because their
misguided views of Literature prompt them to think more of what the
public is likely to applaud than of what is worth applause;
unfortunately for them their estimation of this likelihood is generally
based on a very erroneous assumption of public wants: they grossly
mistake the taste they pander to.

In all sincere speech there is power, not necessarily great power, but
as much as the speaker is capable of. Speak for yourself and from
yourself, or be silent. It can be of no good that you should tell in
your "clever" feeble way what another has already told us with the
dynamic energy of conviction. If you can tell us something that your
own eyes have seen, your own mind has thought, your own heart has felt,
you will have power over us, and all the real power that is possible
for you. If what you have seen is trivial, if what you have thought is
erroneous, if what you have felt is feeble, it would assuredly be
better that you should not speak at all; but if you insist on speaking
Sincerity will secure the uttermost of power.

The delusions of self-love cannot be prevented, but intellectual
misconceptions as to the means of achieving success may be corrected.
Thus although it may not be possible for any introspection to discover
whether we have genius or effective power, it is quite possible to know
whether we are trading upon borrowed capital, and whether the eagle's
feathers have been picked up by us, or grow from our own wings. I hear
some one of my young readers exclaim against the disheartening tendency
of what is here said. Ambitious of success, and conscious that he has
no great resources within his own experience, he shrinks from the idea