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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: my own reputation, as that of the Republick of Letters, which Mr.
Partridge hath endeavoured to wound through my sides. If men of
publick spirit must be superciliously treated for their ingenious
attempts, how will true useful knowledge be ever advanced? I wish
Mr. Partridge knew the thoughts which foreign universities have
conceived of his ungenerous proceedings with me; but I am too
tender of his reputation to publish them to the world. That
spirit of envy and pride, which blasts so many rising genius's in
our nation, is yet unknown among professors abroad: The necessity
of justifying myself will excuse my vanity, when I tell the
reader that I have near a hundred honorary letters from several
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