you have that instinct, to give it the right sort of expression.

I believe that at the time when Rupert Drone had taken the medal in
Greek over fifty years ago, it was only a twist of fate that had
prevented him from becoming a great writer. There was a buried author
in him just as there was a buried financier in Jefferson Thorpe. In
fact, there were many people in Mariposa like that, and for all I
know you may yourself have seen such elsewhere. For instance, I am
certain that Billy Rawson, the telegraph operator at Mariposa, could
easily have invented radium. In the same way one has only to read
the advertisements of Mr. Gingham, the undertaker, to know that there
is still in him a poet, who could have written on death far more
attractive verses than the Thanatopsis of Cullen Bryant, and under a
title less likely to offend the public and drive away custom. He has
told me this himself.

So the Dean tried first this and then that and nothing would seem to
suit. First of all he wrote:

"It is now forty years since I came among you, a youth full of life
and hope and ardent in the work before me--" Then he paused, doubtful
of the accuracy and clearness of the expression, read it over again
and again in deep thought and then began again:

"It is now forty years since I came among you, a broken and
melancholy boy, without life or hope, desiring only to devote to the
service of this parish such few years as might remain of an existence
blighted before it had truly begun--" And then again the Dean
stopped. He read what he had written; he frowned; he crossed it
through with his pen. This was no way to write, this thin egotistical