little ahead of his practice, which he can admire and also believe
to be within his reach.

Besides this experience which I have acquired, I have acquired a
similar experience in the direction of teaching--I know now the
sort of statement which arrests the attention and arouses the
interest of boys; I know how to put a piece of knowledge so that it
appears both intelligible and also desirable to acquire.

Then I have learnt, in literary matters, the art of expression to a
certain extent. I can speak to you with entire frankness and
unaffectedness, and I will say that I am conscious that I can now
express lucidly, and to a certain extent attractively, an idea. My
deficiency is now in ideas and not in the power of expressing them.
I have quality though not quantity. It amuses me to read this old
diary and see how impossible I found it to put certain thoughts
into words.

But apart from these definite acquirements, I cannot see that my
character has altered in the smallest degree. I detect the same
little, hard, repellent core of self, sitting enthroned, cold,
unchanging, and unchanged, "like a toad within a stone," to borrow
Rossetti's great simile. I see exactly the same weaknesses, the
same pitiful ambitions, the same faults. I have learnt, I think, to
conceal them a little better; but they are not eradicated, nor even
modified. Even with regard to their concealment, I have a terrible
theory. I believe that the faults of which one is conscious, which
one admits, and even the faults of which one faintly suspects
oneself, and yet supposes that one conceals from the world at
large, are the very faults that are absolutely patent to every one