As long as you're holding something back, you can always say to yourself, I have this in reserve, and can pull it out when I really need to impress. But once it's out there in the cold, clear light of day, you can at last see it from every side, and realize how very small and inadequate it is, and how flawed. Every person who views the work is a curved mirror, and in them you scrutinize your naked self from a million different angles, and are petrified as by the gorgon's head.
It takes a certain humility to strive for any type of greatness, for if you fail then people will see it. It calls for magnanimity, for strict attention to the work itself, for forgetfulness of self. Pusillanimity is secretly tied to pride, the pride that would say to God, I went and buried my talent for I know that you are a hard master, thus flinging his gifts in his teeth.
That is all.
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