han the sands of the sea. What is a
child? But an ode--my ode! A child is but an ordinary product of man and
woman, but a poem is a divine product of the Muses. My poem is sacred;
it shall not be defiled by any Petrus or Johannes! Let my house fall
about my head, let my household gods be scattered abroad, let the Fates
with their serpent hair render desolate my hearth; but do not rob me of
my verse. I would sooner lose the light of my eyes than the light of my
verse! Ah! let me wander through the land like Homer, sightless,
homeless; let me beg my bread from door to door, and I will sing the
ode, the ode to Amyntas.' ...

He said all this with so much feeling that Mrs Peter began to cry, and,
with her apron up to her eyes, said that she didn't want him to go
blind; but even if he did, he should never want, for she would work
herself to the bone to keep him. Peter waved his hand in tragic
deprecation. No, he would beg his bread from door to door; he would
sleep by the roadside in the bitter winter night.

Now, the parson was present during this colloquy, and he proposed an
arrangement; and finally it was settled that Peter should have his way
in this case, but that Mrs Peter should have the naming of all
subsequent additions to the family. So, of the rest, one was called
Peter, and one was called John, and there was a Mary, and a Jane, and a
Sarah; but the eldest, according to agreement, was christened Amyntas,
although to her dying day, notwithstanding the parson's assurances, the
mother was convinced in her heart of hearts that the name was papistical
and not fit for a plain, straightforward member of the church by law
established.

III

Now, it was as clear as a pikestaff to Peter the Schoolmaster that a
person called Amyntas could not go through the world like any other
ordinary being; so he devoted particular care to his son's education,
teaching him, which was the way of schoolmasters then as now, very many
entirely useless things, and nothing that could be to him of the
slightest service in earning his bread and butter.

But twelve children cannot be brought up on limpid air, and there were
often difficulties when new boots were wanted; sometimes, indeed, there
were difficulties when bread and meat and puddings were wanted. Such
things did not affect Peter; he felt not the pangs of hunger as he read
his books, and he vastly preferred to use the white and the yolk of an
egg in the restoration of an old leat