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.