and early kept out of a vocation for which he is wholly unfit. I am
far from saying that the resolute examiner who plucks freely, and
the resolute editor who rejects firmly, are deficient in kindness
of heart, or even in vividness of imagination to picture what they
are doing: though much of the suffering and disappointment of this
world is caused by men who are almost unaware of what they do. Like
the brothers of Isabella, in Keats' beautiful poem,

Half ignorant, they turn an easy wheel,
That sets sharp racks at work, to pinch and peel.

Yet though principle and moral decision may be in you sufficient
to prevent your weakly yielding to the feeling, be sure you always
sympathize with failure;--honest, laborious failure. And I think
all but very malicious persons generally do sympathize with it. It
is easier to sympathize with failure than with success. No trace of
envy comes in to mar your sympathy, and you have a pleasant sense
that you are looking down from a loftier elevation. The average man
likes to have some one to look down upon--even to look down upon
kindly. I remember being greatly touched by hearing of a young man
of much promise, who went to preach his first sermon in a little
church by the sea-shore in a lonely highland glen. He preached his
sermon, and got on pretty fairly; but after service he went down
to the shore of the far-sounding sea, and wept to think how sadly
he had fallen short of his ideal, how poor was his appearance
compared to what he had intended and hoped. Perhaps a foolish vanity
and self-conceit was at the foundation of his disappointment; but
though I did not know him at all, I could not but have a very kindly
sympathy for him. I heard, years afterwards, with great pleasure,
that he had attained to no small eminence and success as a pulpit