"If you desire thoroughly to mortify and even to injure an opponent,"
said an old swindler to me, "reproach him with the very defect or vice
of which you feel conscious in yourself.--Fly into a rage ... and
reproach him!
"In the first place, that makes other people think that you do not
possess that vice.
"In the second place, your wrath may even be sincere.... You may profit
by the reproaches of your own conscience.
"If, for example, you are a renegade, reproach your adversary with
having no convictions!
"If you yourself are a lackey in soul, say to him with reproof that he
is a lackey ... the lackey of civilisation, of Europe, of socialism!"
"You may even say, the lackey of non-lackeyism!" I remarked.
"You may do that also," chimed in the old rascal.
February, 1878.