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Professional ambition suggested that literary labours, unpopular

with the vulgar and the half educated, are not likely to help a

man up the ladder of promotion. But common sense presently

suggested to me that, professionally speaking, I was not a

success, and, at the same time, that I had no cause to be ashamed

of my failure. In our day, when we live under a despotism of the

lower "middle class" Philister who can pardon anything but

superiority, the prizes of competitive services are monopolized

by certain "pets" of the Mediocratie, and prime favourites of

that jealous and potent majority-the Mediocrities who know "no

nonsense about merit." It is hard for an outsider to realise how

perfect is the monopoly of common place, and to comprehend how

fatal a stumbling stone that man sets in the way of his own

advancement who dares to think for himself, or who knows more or

who does more than the mob of gentlemen-employes who know very

little and who do even less.