" He knew he was overfastidious. But how could one write history with Macaulay so close behind? Fiction or poetry, in the midst of the greatest galaxy of talent in the history of English literature? How could one be a creative scientist, with Lyell and Darwin still alive? Be a statesman, with Disraeli and Gladstone polarizing all the available space?
You will see that Charles set his sights high. Intelligent idlers always have, in order to justify their idleness to their intelligence. "

― John Fowles