On fancy's pinion fain would scale the sky,
And leave dull earth behind.

Yes, I would write my name
With the star's burning ray on heaven's broad scroll,
That I might still the restless thirst for fame
Which fills my soul.

Bayard Taylor was not a great genius, and he did not succeed in
winning quite all of that high fame for which he struggled throughout
his life. He never expected to have earth's blessings showered upon
him without working for them; and the fact that he failed somewhat in
his highest ambition--to be a far-famed poet--makes his life seem
nearer to our own. We call him a great man because he did well what
came to him to do, working hard all his life. In this we can all
follow his example.

CHAPTER IV

SELF-EDUCATION AND AMBITION

"The Village Record" (to the proprietor of which Bayard was
apprenticed) was printed upon an old-fashioned hand press, and it was
the business of the apprentices to set the type, help make up the
paper, pull the forms, and send the weekly issues off to the
subscribers.

The mechanical work was soon learned, and the young apprentice
found considerable time for reading. He now began that work of
self-education which he carried on through his whole life. Already,
before he left the academy, he had become acquainted with the works of
Charles Dickens, and had secured the great man's autograph. "I went to
the Academy," says he, "where I received a letter that had come on
Saturday. It was from Hartford; I knew instantly it was from Dickens.
It was double, and sealed neatly with a seal bearing the initials C.D.
In the inside was a sheet of satin notepaper, on which was written,
'Faithfully yours, Charles Dickens, City Hotel, Hartford, Feb. 10,
1842'; and below, 'with the compliments of Mr. Dickens.' I can long
recollect the thrill of pleasure I experienced on seeing the autograph
of one whose writings I so ardently admired, and to whom, in spirit, I
felt myself attached; and it was not without a feeling of ambition
that I looked upon it that as he, a humble clerk, had risen to be the
guest of a mighty nation, so I, a humble pedagogue [he was then pupil
teacher at the Academy], might by unremitted and arduous intellectual
and moral exertion become a light, a star, among the names of my
country. May it be!"

When he went to work at West Chester his reading was chiefly poetry
and travel. The result of his "fireside travels" we shall soon see.
The w