wake of those who have already reaped the harvest of amorous song, and
have carried away the corn:--

And I come after, gleaning here and there,
And am full glad if I can find an ear
Of any goodly word that ye have left.

Modesty of this stamp is perfectly compatible with a certain self-
consciousness which is hardly ever absent from greatness, and which at all
events supplies a stimulus not easily dispensed with except by sustained
effort on the part of a poet. The two qualities seem naturally to combine
into that self-containedness (very different from self-contentedness)
which distinguishes Chaucer, and which helps to give to his writings a
manliness of tone, the direct opposite of the irretentive querulousness
found in so great a number of poets in all times. He cannot indeed be
said to maintain an absolute reserve concerning himself and his affairs in
his writings; but as he grows older, he seems to become less and less
inclined to take the public into his confidence, or to speak of himself
except in a pleasantly light and incidental fashion. And in the same
spirit he seems, without ever folding his hands in his lap, or ceasing to
be a busy man and an assiduous author, to have grown indifferent to the
lack of brilliant success in life, whether as a man of letters or
otherwise. So at least one seems justified in interpreting a remarkable
passage in the "House of Fame," the poem in which perhaps Chaucer allows
us to see more deeply into his mind than in any other. After surveying
the various company of those who had come as suitors for the favours of
Fame, he tells us how it seemed to him (in his long December dream) that
some one spoke to him in a kindly way,

And saide: "Friend, what is thy name?