What I have been reading, thought I, is certainly very clever and very talented; but talent and cleverness I think I have heard some one say are very commonplace things, only fitted for everyday occasions.

I question whether the man who wrote the book I saw this day on the bridge was a clever man; but, after all, was he not something much better?
I don't think he could have written this article, but then he wrote the book which I saw on the bridge.

Then, if he could not have written the article on which I now hold my forefinger--and I do not believe he could--why should I feel discouraged at the consciousness that I, too, could not write it?
I certainly could no more have written the article than he could; but then, like him, though I would not compare myself to the man who wrote the book I saw upon the bridge, I think I could--and here I emptied the glass of claret--write something better.
Thereupon I resumed the newspaper; and, as I was before struck with the fluency of style and the general talent which it displayed, I was now equally so with its commonplaceness and want of originality on every subject; and it was evident to me that, whatever advantage these newspaper-writers might have over me in some points, they had never studied the Welsh bards, translated Kaempe Viser, or been under the pupilage of Mr.Petulengro and Tawno Chikno.
And as I sat conning the newspaper three individuals entered the room, and seated themselves in the box at the farther end of which I was.

They were all three very well dressed; two of them elderly gentlemen, the third a young man about my own age, or perhaps a year or two older: they called for coffee; and, after two or three observations, the two eldest commenced a conversation in French, which, however, though they spoke it fluently enough, I perceived at once was not their native language; the young man, however, took no part in their conversation, and when they addressed a portion to him, which indeed was but rarely, merely replied by a monosyllable.

I have never been a listener, and I paid but little heed to their discourse, nor indeed to themselves; as I occasionally looked up, however, I could perceive that the features of the young man, who chanced to be seated exactly opposite to me, wore an air of constraint and vexation.