“By coorse you do. Well, it's that same feelin' makes me cautious of sayin' what he ought to do. For, after all, a variety of capacity implies discursiveness, and discursiveness is the mother of failure.”
“You speak like an oracle, Doctor.”
“If I do, it's because the priest is beside me,” said Billy, howmg. “My notion is this: I'd let him cultivate his fine gifts for a year or two in any way he liked,—in work or idleness; for they 'll grow in the fallow as well as in the tilled land. I 'd let him be whatever he liked,—striving always, as he's sure to be striving, after something higher, and greater, and better than he'll ever reach; and then, when he has felt both his strength and his weakness, I 'd try and attach him to some great man in public life; set a grand ambition before him, and say, 'Go on.'”
“He's scarcely the stuff for public life,” muttered Sir Horace.
“He is,” said Billy, boldly.
“He 'd be easily abashed,—easily deterred by failure.”
“Sorra bit. Success might cloy, but failure would never damp him.”
“I can't fancy him a speaker.”
“Rouse him by a strong theme and a flat contradiction, and you 'll see what he can do.”
“And then his lounging, idle habits—”