should be inclined to say in the latter case that a schoolmaster’s success (in the best sense) depends almost entirely upon his being able to arrive at sound principles and at the same time to avoid mannerism in applying them.  For instance, it is of no use to hold up for a boy’s consideration a principle which is quite outside his horizon; what one has to do is to try and give him a principle which is just a 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 else.  If one dimly suspects that one is a liar, a coward, or a snob, and gratefully believes that one has not been placed in a position which inevitably reveals these characteristics in their full nakedness, one may be fairly certain that other people know that one is so tainted.

The discouraging point is that one is not similarly conscious of one’s virtues.  I take for granted that I have some virtues, because I see that most of the people whom I meet have some sprinkling of them, but I declare that I am quite unable to say what they are.  A fault is patent and unmistakable.  The old temptation comes upon one, and one yields as usual; but with one’s virtues, if they ever manifest themselves, one’s own feeling is that one might have done better.  Moreover, if one tries deliberately to take stock of one’s good points, they seem to be only natural and instinctive ways of behaving; to which no credit can possibly attach, because by temperament one is incapable of acting otherwise.