Excerpt from The Plain Speaker, Vol. 2: Opinions on Books, Men, and Things

It is curious to consider the diversity of men"s talents, and the causes of their failure or success. which are not less numerous and contradictory than their pursuits in life. Fortune does not always smile on merit: - " the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong:" and even where the candidate for wealth or honours succeeds, it is as often, perhaps, from the qualifications which he wants as from those which ho possesses; or the eminence which he is lucky enough to attain, is owing to some faculty or acquirement, which neither he nor any body else suspected. There is a balance of power in the human mind, by which defects frequently assist in furthering our views, as superfluous excellences are converted into the nature of impediments; and again, there is a continual substitution of one talent for another, through which we mistake the appearance for the reality, and judge (by implication) of the means from the end.

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