Ravenshoe. By Henry Kingsley.

364 RAVENSHOE.
CHAPTER LVIII.
THE NORTH SIDE OF GROSVENOR SQUARE.
JOHN MARSTON'S first disappointment in life had been his
refusal by Mary. He was one of those men, brought up in a
hard school, who get, somehow, the opinion that everything which
happens to a man is his own fault. He used to say that every
man who could play whist could get a second if he chose. I have
an idea that he is in some sort right. But he used to carry this
sort of thing to a rather absurd extent. He was apt to be hard
on men who failed, and to be always the first to say, "If he had
done this, or left that alone, it would not have been so," and he
himself, with a calm, clear brain and perfect health, had succeeded
in everything he had ever tried at, even up to a double first. At
one point he was stopped. He had always given himself airs of
superiority over Charles, and had given him advice, good as it
was, in a way which would have ruined his influence with nine
men out of ten; and suddenly he was brought up. At the most
important point in life, he found Charles his superior. Charles
had won a woman's love without knowing it, or caring for it; and
he had tried for it, and failed.
John Marston was an eminently noble and high-minded man.
His faults were only those of education, and his faults were very
few. When he found himself rejected, and found out why it was
so,- when he found that he was no rival of Charles, and that
Charles cared naught for poor Mary, - he humbly set his quick
brain to work to find out in what way Charles, so greatly his
inferior in intellect, was superior to him in the most important of
all things. For he saw that Charles had not only won Mary's
love, but the love of every one who knew-him; whereas he, John
Marston, had but very few friends.
And, when he once set to work at this task, he seemed to
come rapidly to the conclusion that Charles was superior to him
in everything except application. "And how much application
should I have had," he concluded, "if I had not been a needy
man?"
So you see that his disappointment cured him of what was
almost his own vice, - conceit. Everything works together for
good for those who are really good.
Hitherto, John Marston had led only the life that so many
young Englishmen lead, - a life of study, combined with violent,