My wife was an opera singer, you know. She bellowed her way through Wagner as a Valkyrie. I married her and made her give up the theatre, to my eternal cost. She was to go on acting for myself alone. A performance at his own expense, lasting for more than twenty years, tends to wear out your spectator.
It is a law of human nature that in victory even the coward may boast of his prowess, while defeat injures the reputation even of the brave.