I have got so far as to lose the distinction between right and wrong. Isn't that the first step in politics? - Henry Brooks Adams

Rather by instinct than by guidance, he turned to writing, and his professors or tutors occasionally gave his English composition a hesitating approval; but in that branch, as in all the rest, even when he made a long struggle for recognition, he never convinced his teachers that his abilities, at their best, warranted placing him on the rank-list, among the first third of his class. Instructors generally reach a fairly accurate gauge of their scholars' powers.

The idea that one has actually met a real genius dawns slowly on a Boston mind, but it made entry at last.

...no number of centuries could ever educate him to Swinburne's level, even in technical appreciation.