People are fond of blaming valets because no man is a hero to his valet.

But it is equally true that no man is a valet to his hero; and the hero, consequently, is apt to blunder very ludicrously about valets, through judging them from an irrelevant standard of heroism: heroism, remember, having its faults as well as its qualities.

I, always on the heroic plane imaginatively, had two disgusting faults which I did not recognize as faults because I could not help them.

I was poor and (by day) shabby.

I therefore tolerated the gross error that poverty, though an inconvenience and a trial, is not a sin and a disgrace; and I stood for my self-respect on the things I had: probity, ability, knowledge of art, laboriousness, and whatever else came cheaply to me.