tiality
has never concealed from me the fact of your deficiency in certain
powers of mind which are essential to early excellence in learning, yet
I have never been for a moment distrustful of your possessing an
intellect which, if well disciplined and well cultured, will continue to
expand, improve, and yield excellent fruit long after the mental
faculties of many of your more fortunate rivals will have passed from
their full maturity into premature decay. Faith in yourself (which is
but one of the many forms of faith in God) is the one thing needful to
your intellectual progress; and if your faith in yourself may but
survive the disappointment of your academical ambition, that
disappointment will be converted into a blessing.'

The letter shows, I think, under the rather elaborate phraseology, both
the perspicuity with which the father had estimated his son's talents
and the strong sympathy which bound them together. The reference to
Fitzjames's 'want of faith in himself' is significant. If want of faith
is to be measured by want of courage in tackling the difficulties of
life, no man could be really less open to the charge than Fitzjames. But
my father, himself disposed to anticipate ill fortune, had certain
reasons for attributing to his son a tendency in the same direction.
Fitzjames's hatred of all exaggeration, his resolute refusal to be
either sentimental or optimistic, led him to insist upon the gloomy side
of things. Moreover, he was still indolent; given to be slovenly in his
work, and rather unsocial in his ways, though warmly attached to a few
friends. My father, impressed by these symptoms, came to the conclusion
that Fitzjames was probably unsuited for the more active professions for
which a sanguine temper and a power of quickly attaching others are
obvious qualifications. He therefore looked forward to his son's
adoption of the clerical career, which his own deep piety as well as his
painful experience of official vexations had long made him regard as the
happiest of all careers. Circumstances strengthened this feeling. My
father's income had been diminished by his resignation, while the
education of his two sons became more expensive, and he had to
contribute to the support of his brother George. No human being could
have made us feel more clearly that he would willingly give us his last
penny or his last drop of blood. But he was for a time more than usually
vexed and anxious; and the fact could not b