“I think, to begin with, that of all young men that I know you are the most self-reliant and the most confident.”
“Well, these are virtues, are they not?”
“Of course, you have every right to be self-reliant. You are a good scholar, and you have been regarded at the University as one of the coming men. You are actually already one of the men who are looked upon as arrived. So far you have justified your self-confidence.”
“So far my vanity is not wounded. But there is more.”
“Yes. You are also the most fortunate of young men. You are miles ahead of your contemporaries, because where they all lack something you lack nothing. One man wants birth—it takes a very strong man to get over a humble origin: another man wants manner: another has an unfortunate face—a harsh voice—a nervous jerkiness: another is deficient in style: another is ground down by poverty. You alone have not one single defect to stand in your way.”
“Let me be grateful, then.”
“You have that very, very rare combination of qualities which make the successful statesman. You are good-looking: you are even handsome: you look important: you have a good voice and a good manner as well as a good presence: you are a gentleman by birth and training: you have enough to live upon now: and you are the heir to a good estate. Really, Leonard, I do not know what else you could ask of fortune.”
“I have never asked anything of fortune.”
“And you get everything. You are too fortunate, Leonard. There must be something behind—something to come. Nature makes no man perfectly happy.”
“Indeed!” He smiled gravely. “I want nothing of that kind.”