bills and vast advertising vans, than if he set up in a modest
way, in something like proportion to his means. And if he succeeds,
well; if he fails, his creditors bear the loss. A great field
has been opened for the disappointment of men who start with the
flourish of trumpets already mentioned, by the growing system of
competitive examinations. By these, your own opinion of yourself,
and the home opinion of you, are brought to a severe test. I think
with sympathy of the disappointment of poor lads who hang on week
after week, hoping to hear that they have succeeded in gaining the
coveted appointment, and then learn that they have failed. I think
with sympathy of their poor parents. Even when the prize lost is
not substantial pudding, but only airy praise, it is a bitter thing
to lose it, after running the winner close. It must be a supremely
irritating and mortifying thing to be second wrangler. Look at the
rows of young fellows, sitting with their papers before them at a
Civil Service Examination, and think what interest and what hopes
are centred on every one of them. Think how many count on great
success, kept up to do so by the estimation in which they are held
at home. Their sisters and their mothers think them equal to anything.
Sometimes justly; sometimes the fact justifies the anticipation.
When Baron Alderson went to Cambridge, he tells us that he would
have spurned the offer of being second man of his year; and sure
enough, he was out of sight the first. But for one man of whom the
home estimation is no more than just, there are ten thousand in
whose case, to strangers, it appears simply preposterous.

There is one sense in which all after-life may be said to be a
disappointment. It is far different from that which it was pictured
by early anticipations and hopes. The very greatest material success
still leaves the case thus. And no doubt it seems strange to many