When someone who knows something about something enters a group discussing this particular subject, conversation stops; people become silent, let him talk, and become hostile toward him because they sense his superiority. On t he other hand, if someone joining the group promptly betrays by opening his mouth that he knows no more than the others, then there is lively conversation. So it goes also in the larger areas. In literature a real achievement is never discussed, is not reviewed, but what stands no higher than the average gets big space in all the periodicals–and the real achievement becomes merely an object of silent envy.

Pap. X3 A 729 n.d., 1851