"The world has been too strong for _me_, I know," he said one day to

Lydgate. "But then I am not a mighty man--I shall never be a man of

renown. The choice of Hercules is a pretty fable; but Prodicus makes

it easy work for the hero, as if the first resolves were enough.

Another story says that he came to hold the distaff, and at last wore

the Nessus shirt. I suppose one good resolve might keep a man right if

everybody else's resolve helped him."

The Vicar's talk was not always inspiriting: he had escaped being a

Pharisee, but he had not escaped that low estimate of possibilities

which we rather hastily arrive at as an inference from our own failure.

Lydgate thought that there was a pitiable infirmity of will in Mr.

Farebrother.




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