I mean this is a monologue though, and it’s specifically self indulgent self deprecating content, this poor guy is whining about how he’s so smart and so old and ugly and how could he have ever thought that someone as young and got as Hester would be satisfied with him. It’s character voice, and it’s illustrative - “without a modicum of merit?” Really? This passage tells a whole story in itself, and it’s a familiar, human story, that bitter men have always told and will always tell anyone with will listen. “I wasn’t good enough.”