A clergyman, or a doctor, or a lawyer, feels himself no whit disgraced if he reaches the end of his worldly labours without special note or honour.

But to a soldier or a sailor, such indifference to his merit is wormwood.

It is the bane of the professions.

Nine men out of ten who go into it must live discontented, and die disappointed.
Captain Cuttwater had no idea that he was an old man.

He had lived for so many years among men of his own stamp, who had grown grey and bald, and rickety, and weak alongside of him, that he had no opportunity of seeing that he was more grey or more rickety than his neighbours.