He had not wit or scope or force. Judges always
ranked him beneath a rival, if he had any; and he believed the
judges were right. His work seemed to him thin, commonplace,
feeble. At times he felt his own weakness so fatally that he
could not go on; when he had nothing to say, he could not say it,
and he found that he had very little to say at best. Much that he
then wrote must be still in existence in print or manuscript,
though he never cared to see it again, for he felt no doubt that
it was in reality just what he thought it. At best it showed only
a feeling for form; an instinct of exclusion. Nothing
shocked--not even its weakness.
Inevitably an effort leads to an ambition -- creates it -- and
at that time the ambition of the literary student, which almost
took place of the regular prizes of scholarship, was that of
being chosen as the representative of his class -- Class Orator
-- at the close of their course. This was political as well as
literary success, and precisely the sort of eighteenth-century
combination that fascinated an eighteenth century boy. The idea
lurked in his mind, at first as a dream, in no way serious or
even possible, for he stood outside the number of what were known
as popular men. Year by year, his position seemed to improve, or
perhaps his rivals disappeared, until at last, to his own great
astonishment, he found himself a candidate.
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