shop, and hastened back to the fireside. Oh, my ambitions, my hopes! How
surprised and indignant I should have felt had I known of any one who
pitied me!

Nature took revenge now and then. In winter time I had fierce sore
throats, sometimes accompanied by long and savage headaches. Doctoring,
of course, never occurred to me; I just locked my door, and, if I felt
very bad indeed, went to bed--to lie there, without food or drink, till I
was able to look after myself again. I could never ask from a landlady
anything which was not in our bond, and only once or twice did I receive
spontaneous offer of help. Oh, it is wonderful to think of all that
youth can endure! What a poor feeble wretch I now seem to myself, when I
remember thirty years ago!



XI.


Would I live it over again, that life of the garret and the cellar? Not
with the assurance of fifty years' contentment such as I now enjoy to
follow upon it! With man's infinitely pathetic power of resignation, one
sees the thing on its better side, forgets all the worst of it, makes out
a case for the resolute optimist. Oh, but the waste of energy, of zeal,
of youth! In another mood, I could shed tears over that spectacle of
rare vitality condemned to sordid strife. The pity of it! And--if our
conscience mean anything at all--the bitter wrong!

Without seeking for Utopia, think what a man's youth might be. I suppose
not one in every thousand uses half the possibilities of natural joy and