1852 THE IRONY OF SUCCESS 147 



what might be the matter. Whereupon I learnt that 

 the Medal had been conferred at the meeting of the 

 Council on the day before. I was very pleased . . . and 

 I thought you would be so too, and I thought moreover 

 that it was a fine lever to help us on, and if I could 

 have sent a letter to you immediately I should have sat 

 down and have written one to you on the spot. As it is 

 I have waited for official confirmation and a convenient 

 season. 



And now . . . shall I be very naughty and make a 

 confession ? The thing that a fortnight ago (before I got 

 it) I thought so much of, I give you my word I do not 

 care a pin for. I am sick of it and ashamed of having 

 thought so much of it, and the congratulations I get give 

 me a sort of internal sardonic grin. I think this has 

 come about partly because I did not get the official con- 

 firmation of what I had heard for some days, and with my 

 habit of facing the ill side of things I came to the con- 

 clusion that "Weld had made a mistake, and I went in 

 thought through the whole enormous mortification of 

 having to explain to those to whom I had mentioned it 

 that it was quite a mistake. I found that all this, when 

 I came to look at it, was by no means so dreadful as it 

 seemed quite bearable in short and then I laughed at 

 myself and have cared nothing about the whole concern 

 ever since. In truth ... I do not think that I am in 

 the proper sense of the word ambitious. I have an 

 enormous longing after the highest and best in all shapes 

 a longing which haunts me and is the demon which ever 

 impels me to work, and will let me have no rest unless I 

 am doing his behests. The honours of men I value so far 

 as they are evidences of power, but with the cynical mis- 

 trust of their judgment and my own worthiness, which 

 always haunts me, I put very little faith in them. Their 

 praise makes me sneer inwardly. God forgive me if I do 

 them any great wrong. 



. I i'eel and know that all the rewards and honours 





