From a review of "Letters of Thomas Mann" in The Hindu:

There is a great deal of correspondence with critics, editors, columnists and professors who kept up his reputation yet were ready to pounce on him if he failed to live up to their literary, political or moral expectations. Mann's responses show that he had a great deal more integrity than other "greats" who succumbed to the powerful and the influential. How much easier, he reflects, it was for unrecognised geniuses like Stendhal or Italo Svevo to say exactly what they thought and felt! Because it did not matter: no one gave a damn what they wrote, except for a few close friends. Failure in one's lifetime can be a kind of luck, as long it does get you down permanently!