sea, and, as we strolled and the waves plunged in long legions before
us, I looked at him through the spectacles, and as his eyes dilated
with the boundless view, and his chest heaved with an impossible
desire, I saw Xerxes and his army, tossed and glittering, rank upon
rank, multitude upon multitude, out of sight, but ever regularly
advancing, and with confused roar of ceaseless music, prostrating
themselves in abject homage. Or, as with arms outstretched and hair
streaming on the wind, he chanted full lines of the resounding Iliad,
I saw Homer pacing the Aegean sands of the Greek sunsets of forgotten
times.

"My grandmother died, and I was thrown into the world without
resources, and with no capital but my spectacles. I tried to find
employment, but everybody was shy of me. There was a vague suspicion
that I was either a little crazed, or a good deal in league with the
prince of darkness. My companions, who would persist in calling a
piece of painted muslin, a fair and fragrant flower, had no
difficulty; success waited for them around every corner, and arrived
in every ship.

"I tried to teach, for I loved children. But if anything excited a
suspicion of my pupils, and putting on my spectacles, I saw that I was
fondling a snake, or smelling at a bud with a worm in it, I sprang up
in horror and ran away; or, if it seemed to me through the glasses,
that a cherub smiled upon me, or a rose was blooming in my
button-hole, then I felt myself imperfect and impure, not fit to be
leading and training what was so essentially superior to myself, and I
kissed the children and left them weeping and wondering.

"In despair I went to a great merchant on the island, and asked him to