I believe that many a man whom you would take to be ambitious,
pushing, and self-complacent, is ever pressed with a sad conviction of
inferiority, and wishes nothing more than quietly to slip through life.
It would please and satisfy him, if he could but be assured that he is
just like other people. You may remember a touch of nature (that is, of
some people's nature) in Burns; you remember the simple exultation of
the peasant mother, when her daughter gets a sweetheart: she is "well
pleased to see _her_ bairn respeckit _like the lave_," that is, like the
other girls round. And undue humility, perhaps even befitting humility,
holds back sadly in the race of life. It is recorded that a weaver in a
certain village in Scotland was wont daily to offer a singular petition;
he prayed daily and fervently for a better opinion of himself. Yes, a
firm conviction of one's own importance is a great help in life. It
gives dignity of bearing; it does (so to speak) lift the horse over many
a fence at which one with a less confident heart would have broken down.
But the man who estimates himself and his place humbly and justly will
be ready to shrink aside, and let men of greater impudence and not
greater desert step before him.
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