less Nature its own questions and its own replies.

The minstrel took the talk on himself, and the talk charmed his
listener. It became so really eloquent in the tones of its utterance, in
the frank play of its delivery, that I could no more adequately describe
it than a reporter, however faithful to every word a true orator may
say, can describe that which, apart from all words, belongs to the
presence of the orator himself.

Not, then, venturing to report the language of this singular itinerant,
I content myself with saying that the substance of it was of the
nature on which it is said most men can be eloquent: it was personal
to himself. He spoke of aspirations towards the achievement of a name,
dating back to the dawn of memory; of early obstacles in lowly birth,
stinted fortunes; of a sudden opening to his ambition while yet in
boyhood, through the generous favour of a rich man, who said, "The child
has genius: I will give it the discipline of culture; one day it shall
repay to the world what it owes to me;" of studies passionately begun,
earnestly pursued, and mournfully suspended in early youth. He did not
say how or wherefore: he rushed on to dwell upon the struggles for a
livelihood for himself and those dependent on him; how in such struggles
he was compelled to divert toil and energy from the systematic pursuit
of the object he had once set before him; the necessities for money
were too urgent to be postponed to the visions of fame. "But even," he
exclaimed, passionately, "even in such hasty and crude manifestations
of what is within me, as circumstances limited my powers, I know that
I ought to have found from those who profess to be authoritative judges
the encouragement of praise. How much better, then, I should have done
if I had found it! How a little praise warms out of a man the good
that is in him, and the sneer of a contempt which he feels to be unjust
chills the ardour to excel! However, I forced my way, so far as was then
most essential to me, the sufficing breadmaker for those I loved; and in
my holidays of song and ramble I found a delight that atoned for all the
rest. But still the desire of fame, once conceived in childhood, once
nourished through youth, never dies but in our grave. Foot and hoof may
tread it down, bud, leaf, stalk; its root is too deep below the surface
for them to reach, and year after year stalk and leaf and bud re-emerge.
Love may depart from our mortal life: we console our