It was invented only as
a protection against envy. That there have always been rascals to urge
this virtue, and to rejoice heartily over the bashfulness of a man of
merit, has been shown at length in my chief work.[1] In Lichtenberg's
_Miscellaneous Writings_ I find this sentence quoted: _Modesty should
be the virtue of those who possess no other_. Goethe has a well-known
saying, which offends many people: _It is only knaves who are
modest_!--_Nur die Lumpen sind bescheiden_! but it has its prototype
in Cervantes, who includes in his _Journey up Parnassus_ certain rules
of conduct for poets, and amongst them the following: _Everyone whose
verse shows him to be a poet should have a high opinion of himself,
relying on the proverb that he is a knave who thinks himself one_.
And Shakespeare, in many of his Sonnets, which gave him the only
opportunity he had of speaking of himself, declares, with a confidence
equal to his ingenuousness, that what he writes is immortal.[2]
[Footnote 1: _Welt als Wille_, Vol. II. c. 37.]
[Footnote 2: Collier, one of his critical editors, in his Introduction
to the Sonettes, remarks upon this point: "In many of them are to be
found most remarkable indications of self-confidence and of assurance
in the immortality of his verses, and in this respect the author's
opinion was constant and uniform.
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