There is in a sound and correct intellect, with all its gifts fairly balanced, a calm consciousness of power, a certainty that when its strength is fairly put out, it must be to realise the usual result of strength.

Men of second-rate faculties, on the contrary, are fretful and nervous, fidgeting after a celebrity which they do not estimate by their own talents, but by the talents of some one else.

They see a tower, but are occupied only with measuring its shadow, and think their own height (which they never calculate) is to cast as broad a one over the earth.
It is the short man who is always throwing up his chin, and is as erect as a dart.

The tall man stoops, and the strong man is not always using the dumb-bells.
Maltravers had not yet, then, the keen and sharp yearning for reputation; he had not, as yet, tasted its sweets and bitters--fatal draught, which _once_ tasted, begets too often an insatiable thirst! neither had he enemies and decriers whom he was desirous of abashing by merit.

And that is a very ordinary cause for exertion in proud minds.