Even to the end of his career at Cambridge he was not aware that
he had it in him to do anything, but others had begun to see that he
was not wanting in ability and sometimes told him so. He did not
believe it; indeed he knew very well that if they thought him clever
they were being taken in, but it pleased him to have been able to take
them in, and he tried to do so still further; he was therefore a
good deal on the lookout for cants that he could catch and apply in
season, and might have done himself some mischief thus if he had not
been ready to throw over any cant as soon as he had come across
another more nearly to his fancy; his friends used to say that when he
rose he flew like a snipe, darting several times in various directions
before he settled down to a steady, straight flight, but when he had
once got into this he would keep to it.
CHAPTER XLVI
WHEN he was in his third year a magazine was founded at Cambridge,
the contributions to which were exclusively by undergraduates.
Ernest sent in an essay upon the Greek Drama, which he has declined to
let me reproduce here without his being allowed to re-edit it. I
have therefore been unable to give it in its original form, but when
pruned of its redundancies (and this is all that has been done to
it) it runs as follows-
"I shall not attempt within the limits at my disposal to make a
resume of the rise and progress of the Greek drama, but will confine
myself to considering whether the reputation enjoyed by the three
chief Greek tragedians, AEschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, is one
that will be permanent, or whether they will one day be held to have
been overrated.
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