deprive his character of the initiative rightly belonging to it.
Self-assertion is the practical complement of self-esteem. To be
largely endowed with the latter quality, yet constrained by a coward
delicacy to repress it, is to suffer martyrdom at the pleasure of
every robust assailant, and in the end be driven to the refuge of a
moody solitude. That encounter with his objectionable uncle after
the prize distribution at Whitelaw showed how much Godwin had lost
of the natural vigour which declared itself at Andrew Peak's second
visit to Twybridge, when the boy certainly would not have endured
his uncle's presence but for hospitable considerations and the
respect due to his mother. The decision with which he then unbosomed
himself to Oliver, still characterised his thoughts, but he had not
courage to elude the dialogue forced upon him, still less to make
known his resentment of the man's offensive vulgarity. He endured in
silence, his heart afire with scornful wrath.

The affliction could not have befallen him at a time when he was
less capable of supporting it resignedly. Notwithstanding his
noteworthy success in two classes, it seemed to him that he had lost
everything--that the day was one of signal and disgraceful defeat.
In any case that sequence of second prizes must have filled him with
chagrin, but to be beaten thus repeatedly by such a fellow as Bruno
Chilvers was humiliation intolerable. A fopling, a mincer of
effeminate English, a rote-repeater of academic catchwords--bah!
The by-examinations of the year had whispered presage, but Peak
always felt that he was not putting forth his strength; when the
serious trial came he would show what was really in him. Too late he
recognised his error, though he tried not to admit it. The extra
subjects had exacted too much of him; there was a limit to his
powers. Within the College this would be well enough understood, but