able appearance upon his limited resources; perhaps
with his mind made petty and his temper spoiled by the little worries,
the petty malignant tattle and gossip and occasional insolence of a
little backbiting village? and don't you remember how for days you felt
haunted by a sort of nightmare that there was what you would be, if you
lived so long? Yes; you know how there have been times when for ten days
together that jarring thought would intrude, whenever your mind was
disengaged from work; and sometimes, when you went to bed, that thought
kept you awake for hours. You knew the impression was morbid, and you
were angry with yourself for your silliness; but you could not drive it
away.

It makes a great difference in the prospect of Future Years, if you are
one of those people who, even after middle age, may still make a great
rise in life. This will prolong the restlessness which in others is
sobered down at forty: it will extend the period during which you will
every now and then have brief seasons of feverish anxiety, hope, and
fear, followed by longer stretches of blank disappointment. And it will
afford the opportunity of experiencing a vividly new sensation, and of
turning over a quite new leaf, after most people have settled to the
jog-trot at which the remainder of the pilgrimage is to be covered. A
clergyman of the Church of England may be made a bishop, and exchange a
quiet rectory for a palace. No doubt the increase of responsibility is
to a conscientious man almost appalling; but surely the rise in life
is great. There you are, one of four-and-twenty, selected out of near
twenty thousand. It is possible, indeed, that you may feel more reason
for shame than for elation at the thought. A barrister unknown to fame,
but of respectable standing, may be made a judge. Such a man may even,
if he gets into the groove, be gradually pushed on till he reaches an
eminence which probably surprises himself as much as any one else. A
good speaker in Parliament may at sixty or seventy be made a Cabinet
Minister. And we can all imagine what indescribable pride and elation
must in such cases possess the wife and daughters of the man who has
attained this decided step in advance. I can say sincerely that I never
saw human beings walk with so airy tread, and evince so fussily their
sense of a greatness more than mortal, as the wife and the daughter of
an amiable but not able bishop I knew in my youth, when they came to
church o