of emotion, and there had been little to depress his spirit
during those thirty years when all the fairies had danced attendance on
him; even defeat had but intoxicated his fighting instinct and given
another excuse for flattery and encouragement. During the eleven months
since he had left England he had experienced neither encouragement nor
flattery. He could not recall having made a profound impression upon any
of his casual acquaintances; he certainly had created no sensation. It
was true that his role had been that of the listener, the student, but
he had so long accepted himself as a personality, as the most remarkable
of England's younger productions, that he had been deeply mortified more
than once at the cavalier treatment of middle-aged business men with no
time to waste upon a young Britisher of no possible use to them.

To-day he boldly faced the haunting doubt if he were really a great man;
if his success in England, as well as his phenomenal self-confidence,
had not been merely the result of an inordinate ambition fed by
fortuitous circumstances. He recalled that from childhood his
grandfather and his mother had practically decreed that the bright,
lovable, mischievous boy was to be a great man; that as he grew older
the entire family connection joined the conspiracy. It is easy enough to
believe in yourself when the world believes in you, and easy enough to
make the world take you at your own valuation when you have a powerful
backing, a reasonable amount of cleverness, a sublime audacity, the
power of speech, and a happy series of accidents. Were all great men
two-thirds accidental or manufactured? He felt inclined to believe it,
but while it soothed his torn and throbbing pride, it by no means
lessened his apprehension.

Was he not a great man, even so? He felt anything but a great man at the
moment. He recalled that he had indulged in few lapses into complacency
since his departure incognito from England, and that he had deliberately
held self-analysis at bay by incessant travel and a compulsory interest
in subjects that did not appeal to him in the least. It was this absence
of interest after close upon a year in the country that appalled him as
much as his inner visioning. He hated the country. He hated its
politics, both parties impartially. He hated all the questions that
absorbed the American mind, from graft to negroes. He had sat in the
Congressional galleries in Washington, attended political me