Although I had been only half-educated, I was fond of reading, and I had plenty of time for it. I read good books, and read them with enthusiasm. I was much taken with the Greek dramatists, especially with Euripides, but my only means of access to them was through translations. My aunt had another nephew who came to see her now and then. He had obtained an open exhibition at Oxford, and one day I found that he had a Greek Euripides in his pocket, and that he needed little help from a dictionary. He sometimes brought with him a college friend, and well do I remember a sneer from this gentleman about the poor creatures whose acquaintance with Æschylus was derived from Potter. I did not look at a translation again for some time.
The men at my office were a curious set. The father of one was a leader of the lowest blackguards in a small borough, who had much to do with determining elections there; another bore the strongest resemblance to a well-known peer; and another was the legitimate and perfectly scoundrel offspring of a newspaper editor. I formed no friendships with any of my colleagues, but one of them I greatly envied. He was deaf and dumb, the son of a poor clergyman, and had an extraordinary passion for botany. Every holiday was devoted to rambling about the country near London. He cared little for anything but his favourite science, but that he understood, and he never grew tired of it. I took no account of his deafness and dumbness; the one thing I saw was his mastership over a single subject. Gradually my incompleteness came to weigh on me like a nightmare. I imagined that if I had learned any craft which required skill, I should have been content. I was depressed when I looked at the watchmaker examining my watch. I should have walked the streets erect if there had been one thing which I could do better than anybody I met. There was nothing: I stood for nothing: no purpose was intended by God through me. I was also constitutionally inaccurate—this was another of my troubles—and nothing short of the daily use of a fact made me sure of it. No matter how zealously I went over and over again a particular historical period, I always broke down the moment my supposed acquisitions were tested by questions or conversation. I have read a book with the greatest attention I could muster, and have found, when I have seen a simple examination paper on it, that I could not have got a dozen marks. Of what value, then, were my notions on matters demanding far greater concentration of thought? Accuracy I fancied might be acquired, but I was mistaken. It is a gift as much as the art of writing sublime poetry. I struggled and struggled with pencil and précis, but I did not improve. My cousin’s before-mentioned friend took delight in checking, like an accountant, what was said to him, especially by me, and although I saw that this for the most part was a mere trick, I could not deny that it proved continually that my so-called opinions were not worth a straw. The related virtues of accuracy, strength of memory, and clear definition, are of great importance, but I over-estimated them. I see now that human affairs are so complicated, that had I possessed the advantages bestowed on my cousin and his companion, they would not have prevented delusions, all the more perilous, perhaps, because I should have been more confident. However, at the time of which I am speaking, I was wretched, and believed that my wretchedness was entirely due to deficiencies and weaknesses, from which my friends were free. No sorrow of genius is greater than the daily misery of the man with no gifts, who is not properly equipped, and has desires out of all proportion to his capacity.