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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: no such veil. And I cannot help thinking of a passage in the
"Imitation of Christ" where the ascetic author, who knew life so
profoundly, says that "there are persons esteemed on their
reputation who by showing themselves destroy the opinion one had
of them." This is the danger incurred by an author of fiction
who sets out to talk about himself without disguise.
While these reminiscent pages were appearing serially I was
remonstrated with for bad economy; as if such writing were a form
of self-indulgence wasting the substance of future volumes. It
seems that I am not sufficiently literary. Indeed, a man who
never wrote a line for print till he was thirty-six cannot bring
A Personal Record | 
