A. T. Quiller-Couch

“ Taffy stared at her. "I don't know that I thought much about them."
"Didn't you feel as if it was a battle and you wanted to beat them all?"
He broke out laughing. "Why, the examiner was an old man, as dry as a stick! And I hardly remember what the others were like—except one, a white-headed boy with a pimply face. I couldn't help noticing him, because whenever I looked up there he was at the next table, staring at me and chewing a quill."
"I can't understand," she confessed. "Often and often I have tried to think myself a man—a man with ambition. And to me that has always meant fighting. ”

“ Taffy remembered the afternoons when he had roamed the sand-hills longing for George's company. "Why, yes," said he; "it used to be always lonely."
"I think we have been the loneliest children in the whole world—you and I and George—only George didn't feel it the same way. And now it's coming to an end with you. You are going up to Oxford, and soon you will have heaps of friends. Can you not understand? ”

“ Taffy——"
"Yes?"
"I wish you would write to me when you get to Oxford. Write regularly. Tell me all you do."
"You will like to hear?"
"Of course I shall. So will George. But it's not only that. You have such an easy way of going forward; you take it for granted you're going to be a great man——"
"I don't."
"Yes, you do. You think it just lies with yourself, and it is nobody's business to interfere with you. You don't even notice those who are on the same path. Now a woman would notice every one, and find out all about them."
"Who said I wanted to be a great man?" ”