Memoirs of Horace Walpole and His Contemporaries - Including Numerous Original Letters, Chiefly From Strawberry Hill #252816

When young, he says, I wished for fame. Not examining whether I was capable of attaining it, nor considering in what light fame was desirable. There are two parts of honest fame that attendant on the truly great, and that better sort which is due to the good. I fear I did not aim at the latter, nor discover, until too late, that I could not compass the former. Having neglected the best road, and having instead of the other strolled into a narrow path that led to no goal worth seeking, I see the idleness of my journey.