His elder brother Henry served the curacy
and taught the school of his late father's parish, and lived in narrow
circumstances at Goldsmith's birthplace, the old goblin house at Pallas.
None of his relatives were in circumstances to aid him with anything more
than a temporary home, and the aspect of every one seemed somewhat changed.
In fact, his career at college had disappointed his friends, and they began
to doubt his being the great genius they had fancied him. He whimsically
alludes to this circumstance in that piece of autobiography, "The Man in
Black," in the Citizen of the World.
"The first opportunity my father had of finding his expectations
disappointed was in the middling figure I made at the University; he had
flattered himself that he should soon see me rising into the foremost rank
in literary reputation, but was mortified to find me utterly unnoticed and
unknown. His disappointment might have been partly ascribed to his having
overrated my talents, and partly to my dislike of mathematical reasonings
at a time when my imagination and memory, yet unsatisfied, were more eager
after new objects than desirous of reasoning upon those I knew. This,
however, did not please my tutors, who observed, indeed, that I was a
little dull, but at the same time allowed that I seemed to be very
good-natured, and had no harm in me.
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