Recently I was on my way home after lecturing to you, when a number of my recent audience met me (I see no objection to telling you a story like this now that you and I are friends)—they met me, then, and after greeting me gave some indication of approval. They accompanied me for some distance, vying in noisy praise until I blushed for shame at the thought that I fell far short of their praises. The substance of their approbation, which all alike emphasised, was the strangeness of the thought in my composition and the degree of freshness it displayed. It would be better to quote verbatim:
“What novelty! What marvellous paradoxes! How inventive he is! The freshness of thought is beyond compare!” They continued in this strain. They had clearly been taken with the lecture—I don’t suppose they could have any reason for telling lies and flattering a stranger as they did, one who had no other reason for claiming their attention.
 To be honest, however, their praise caused me considerable annoyance, and when they had gone and I was left alone, I reflected as follows: “So this is the only attraction in my writings, that they are unconventional and keep off the beaten track, while good vocabulary, conformity to the ancient canon,




 

penetration of intellect, power of perception, Attic grace, good construction, general competence, perhaps have no place in my work. Otherwise they would not have ignored these qualities and praised only the novel and strange element in my style. I, fool that I was, had thought when they rose in approbation that perhaps this particular feature too had some attraction for them—I remembered the truth of Homer’s remark
 Od . i, 352. 
 that the new song takes the fancy of an audience; but I did not think to attribute so much—indeed all of it—to novelty, but supposed novelty to be a kind of additional ornament making some contribution indeed to the approbation of my work, the audience’s real praise and commendation, however, going to those other qualities. As a result my elation overstepped its bounds—to think I nearly believed them when they called me unique and in a class apart in Greece and other flatteries of this kind. In the words of the proverb, my treasure turned out ashes, and their approval is not much different from that which they would give a conjurer.