his declaration merely showed that he lacked the power to appreciate
Mr. Tennyson. But I think, my thoughtful friend, you would have found
it hard to pity him when you saw plainly that the poor blockhead
despised and pitied you.

The conceit of the stolid dunce is bad, but the conceit of the
brisk and lively dunce is worse. The stolid dunce is comparatively
quiet; his crass mind works slowly; his vacant face wears an aspect
of repose; his talk is merely dull and twaddling. But the talk of
the brisk dunce is ambitiously absurd: he lays down broad principles:
he announces important discoveries which lie has made: he has
heard able and thoughtful men talk, and he tries to do that kind
of thing. There is an indescribable jauntiness about him apparent
in every word and gesture. As for the stolid dunce, you would be
content if the usages of society permitted your telling him that
he is a dunce. As for the brisk dunce, you would like to take him
by the ears and shake him.

It is wonderful how ordinary, sensjble persons, with nothing brilliant
about them, may live daily in a comfortable feeling that they are
great geniuses: if they live constantly amid a little circle of
even the most incompetent judges, who are always telling them that
they are great geniuses. For it is natural to conclude that the
opinion of the people whom you commonly see is a fair reflex of
the opinion of all the world; and it is wonderful how highly even
a very able man will estimate the value of the opinion of even a
very stupid man, provided the stupid man entertains and frequently
expresses an immensely high opinion of the very able man. I have
known a man, holding a somewhat important position for which he was