"How do you know that?"
"Because I have made up my mind not to fail, but to work at a thing till I succeed. When a man is a failure it is always his own fault."
"Except when it is God's; and then failure is better than success," said Joanna quietly, who knew more about failure—and therefore more about success—than Paul did.
He had still to learn that the man who tries and succeeds is one degree less of a hero than the man who fails and yet goes on trying.
Mr. Martin did not at all approve of Paul Seaton's going to Oxford: nominally, because he upheld that learning was a dangerous thing for a young man who had his own living to get; and actually, because he could not bear any one else to enjoy such advantages of mind, body or estate as had not been vouchsafed, in still fuller measure, to himself. He therefore spoke a word of warning to the young man one day when Paul happened to be calling at The Cedars.
(The Martins' house was called The Cedars because there happened to be a yew-tree in the middle of the lawn.)
"My dear Paul," Mr. Martin began, "I trust that the purely intellectual life in which you are now indulging will in no way unfit you for earning your own living in a suitable and becoming way; nor, on the other hand, lead you into infidelity."
Paul likewise hoped not, and said so.
"To my mind," interpolated Mrs. Martin, "there are few more delusive snares than learning, falsely so called."
This excellent lady had no taste for art or literature, and consequently she considered them wrong. It is so easy—and pleasant—to discover sins lurking in the pursuits for which we are not inclined. Many of us possess wonderful powers of perception in this matter.