"let me alone!" cried oberon, his eyes flashing fire. "i will burn them! not a scorched syllable shall escape! would you have me a damned author? to undergo sneers, taunts, abuse, and cold neglect, and faint praise, bestowed, for pity's sake, against the giver's conscience! a hissing and a laughing-stock to my own traitorous thoughts! an outlaw from the protection of the grave, one whose ashes every careless foot might spurn, unhonored in life, and remembered scornfully in death! am i to bear all this, when yonder fire will insure me from the whole? no!