I thought I saw him standing over me as I worked shut up in my cabinet."-- "Under him," writes Roederer, "there is no man of any merit who, as a reward for long and difficult labor, does not feel himself better compensated by a new task than by the most honorable leisure." Never did positions less resemble sinecures.

Never was the happiness of successful candidates or the misery of unsuccessful candidates better justified.

Never the compliance, the difficulty, the risks of a required task have been compensated more fairly by the enjoyment of the allocated rewards nor moderated the bitterness of the frustrated pretensions.[3333] Never were public functions assigned or fulfilled in a way to better satisfy the legitimate craving for advancement, the dominant desire of democracy and of the century, and in a way to better disarm the bad passions of democracy and of the century, consisting of an envious leveling, anti-social rancor and the inconsolable regrets of the man who has failed.

Never did human competition encounter a similar judge, so constant, so expert and so justified .-- He is himself conscious of the unique part he plays.

His own ambition, the highest and most insatiate of all, enables him to comprehend the ambition of others; to place everywhere the man who suits the post in the post which suits the man--this is what he has done for himself and what he does for others.