'
'Why, that's the very thing I said just now as being the principle
of all ephemeral doers like myself.'
'Oh, I am sorry to have parodied you,' she said with some
confusion. 'Yes, of course. That is what you meant about not
trying to be famous.' And she added, with the quickness of
conviction characteristic of her mind: 'There is much littleness
in trying to be great. A man must think a good deal of himself,
and be conceited enough to believe in himself, before he tries at
all.'
'But it is soon enough to say there is harm in a man's thinking a
good deal of himself when it is proved he has been thinking wrong,
and too soon then sometimes. Besides, we should not conclude that
a man who strives earnestly for success does so with a strong
sense of his own merit. He may see how little success has to do
with merit, and his motive may be his very humility.'
This manner of treating her rather provoked Elfride. No sooner
did she agree with him than he ceased to seem to wish it, and took
the other side. 'Ah,' she thought inwardly, 'I shall have nothing
to do with a man of this kind, though he is our visitor.'
'I think you will find,' resumed Knight, pursuing the conversation
more for the sake of finishing off his thoughts on the subject
than for engaging her attention, 'that in actual life it is merely
a matter of instinct with men--this trying to push on. They awake
to a recognition that they have, without premeditation, begun to
try a little, and they say to themselves, "Since I have tried thus
much, I will try a little more.
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