Good God! What a genius I had when I wrote that book [A Tale of a Tub].

Swift’s exclamation is usually read as a wry, self-mocking boast: he marvels at the audacity and inventiveness of his earlier satire while implicitly acknowledging the distance between the writer he once was and the man looking back. The invocation “Good God!” heightens the comic effect, as if even Swift is startled by the irreverent brilliance of A Tale of a Tub. In quotation anthologies the line often functions as a capsule of Swift’s reputation for razor-edged wit and for a satirist’s double stance—simultaneously proud of his craft and suspicious of vanity. It also hints at the precariousness of literary fame: genius can feel like something one “had” at a particular moment, not a permanent possession.