The materials on which the subject of this chapter depends are too
various to lead to a single definite and trustworthy answer. Men who
have won their way to the front out of uncongenial environments owe
their success principally, I believe, to their untiring energy, and
to an exceptionally strong inclination in youth towards the pursuits
in which they afterwards distinguished themselves. They do not seem
often to be characterized by an ability that continues pre-eminent on
a wider stage, because after they have fully won a position for
themselves, and become engaged in work along with others who had no
early difficulties to contend with, they do not, as a rule, show
greatly higher natural ability than their colleagues. This is
noticeable in committees and in other assemblies or societies where
intellects are pitted against one another. The bulk of existing
noteworthies seem to have had but little more than a fair education
as small boys, during which their eagerness and aptitude for study
led to their receiving favour and facilities. If, in such cases, the
aptitudes are scholastic, a moderate sum suffices to give the boy a
better education, enabling him to win scholarships and to enter a
University. If they lie in other directions, the boy attracts notice
from some more congenial source, and is helped onwards in life by
other means. The demand for exceptional ability, when combined with
energy and good character, is so great that a lad who is gifted with
them is hardly more likely to remain overlooked than a bird's nest in
the playground of a school. But, by whatever means noteworthiness
is achieved, it is usually after a course of repeated and
half-unconscious testings of intelligence, energy, and character,
which build up repute brick by brick.
If we compare the number of those who achieved noteworthiness through
their own exertions with the numbers of the greatly more numerous
persons whose names are registered in legal, clerical, medical,
official, military, and naval directories, or in those of the titled
classes[A] and landed gentry, or lastly, of those of the immense
commercial world, the proportion of one noteworthy person to one
hundred of the generality who were equally well circumstanced as
himself does not seem to be an over-estimate.
[A] By a rough count of the entries in Burke's "Peerage, Baronetage
and Knightage," I find that upwards of 24,000 ladies are of
sufficient rank to be included by name in his Table of
Precedence.