I have thought my Cleverness an outer quality, a mountebank’s cloak,
and as such not belonging in this book of my own self. But there are
no outer qualities. Everything in and about me is my own self.
My Cleverness is of high quality--even supernatural, I have
thought--and is of unobvious tenors.
To any essentially false nature, such as mine, a quick and positive
Cleverness is its needfulest resource in coping with this pushing
world. To any un-sanely sensitive nature such as mine Cleverness is
its fender against human encounters and onslaughts.
There is no Cleverness in this I write. There is writing skill and my
dead-feeling genius. But my Cleverness is beside those points.