He was a revolutionist by sheer force of insight. His mind covered at a single bound the slow progress of years, and he was too impatient to wait for the laggards to catch him up. The stupid are in a great majority at all times, and in all situations, but some men, not less great than Vanbrugh, have possessed the art of coaxing them, and leading them on. It was just this art that Vanbrugh lacked. Unconscious of his own brutality, he trampled on folly and dullness with feet of iron, and the dull and foolish turned and rent him. Up to the age of forty Bernard Vanbrugh’s life had been one long record of disaster. As a student he had been deeply unpopular, even with his professors, who saw that they had in him a critic rather than a pupil. While still walking the hospitals, the young man had ventured to argue with the great lights of the profession whom he was there to watch reverently and believe implicitly. He had had the audacity to suggest to a celebrated gynecologist the use of ice at a critical stage of a well-known operation; and though the specialist found himself obliged to act on the advice, and subsequently enhanced his reputation by adopting the treatment in his private practice, he never forgave the young man’s presumption. The medical authorities treated Vanbrugh with strict justice, up to the point at which justice ceased to be obligatory; that is to say, they awarded him as examiners every prize for which he chose to enter, but they refused him a house-surgeoncy. When the astonished and mortified young man tried to learn the reason for this refusal, he was met by polite excuses and the recommendation that he should start in practice as a consultant. One old professor told him the truth. “Our honorary staff will not have you,” he said bluntly. “Not because they haven’t confidence in you, but because they think you haven’t confidence in them.” With a bitter smile Vanbrugh acknowledged the justice of the excuse. He made up his mind that he must accept a house-surgeoncy in the provinces. But when he came to apply for the usual testimonials from those who had superintended his education, he received documents so frigidly worded as to show clearly that they were given as a matter of obligation merely, and not with any good will. The local doctors in whose hands the appointments lay discerned the actual disapproval beneath the formal recommendation. Vanbrugh, the most distinguished student of his year, or for many years, was not even invited to present himself for a personal interview when he applied for a post of two hundred a year in a small country town. He abandoned this useless attempt without much regret. He knew well enough that London contained his destiny, and that he had been guilty of treason to his own powers in seeking to escape it.