Thackeray's nose had been broken in a school fight, while he was quite a little boy, by another little boy, at the Charter House; and there was probably some association intended to be jocose with the name of the great artist, whose nose was broken by his fellow-student Torrigiano, and who, as it happened, died exactly three centuries before Thackeray.
I can understand all the disquietude of his heart when that warning, as to the too great length of his story, was given to him.

He was not a man capable of feeling at any time quite assured in his position, and when that occurred he was very far from assurance.

I think that at no time did he doubt the sufficiency of his own mental qualification for the work he had taken in hand; but he doubted all else.

He doubted the appreciation of the world; he doubted his fitness for turning his intellect to valuable account; he doubted his physical capacity,--dreading his own lack of industry; he doubted his luck; he doubted the continual absence of some of those misfortunes on which the works of literary men are shipwrecked.

Though he was aware of his own power, he always, to the last, was afraid that his own deficiencies should be too strong against him.