If there is little leisure the value of the hardly-spared moments is enhanced; we may convince ourselves of this in the lives of those who have reached eminence in learning, through circumstances apparently hopeless.

If the conditions of life are unfavourable, it is generally possible to find one like-minded friend who will double our power by quickening enthusiasm or by setting the pace at which we must travel, and leading the way.

There may be side by side in the same calling in life persons doing similar work in like circumstances, with like resources, of whom one is contentedly stagnating, feeling satisfied all the time that duty is done and nothing neglected--and this may be true up to a certain point--while the other is haunted by a blessed dissatisfaction, urged from within to seek always something better, and compelling circumstances to minister to the growth of the mind.

One who would meet these two again after the interval of a few months would be astonished at the distance which has been left between them by the stagnation of one and the advance of the other.
Another danger is that of becoming dogmatic and dictatorial from the habit of dealing with less mature intelligences, from the absence of contradiction and friction among equals, and the want of that most perfect discipline of the mind--intercourse with intellectual superiors.

Of course it is a mark of ignorance to become oracular and self-assured, but it needs watchfulness to guard against the tendency if one is always obliged to take the lead.