up a craggy steep, to see him walk away without looking behind. Walter
felt a difference between them.

He had to give up his lodgings. Sullivan took him into his, and shared
his bed with him--doing all he could in return for his father's
kindness.

Where now was Walter's poetry? Naturally, vanished. He was man enough to
work, but not man enough to continue a poet._ His_ poetry!--how could
such a jade stand the spur!

But to bestir himself was better than to make verses; and indeed of all
the labors for a livelihood in which a man may cultivate verse, that of
literature is the last he should choose. Compare the literary efforts of
Burns with the songs he wrote when home from his plow!

Walter's hope had begun to faint outright, when Sullivan came in one
evening as he lay on the floor, and told him that the editor of a new
periodical, whom he had met at a friend's house, would make a place for
him. The remuneration could suffice only to a grinding economy, but it
was bread!--more, it was work, and an opening to possibilities! Walter
felt himself equal to any endurance short of incapacitating hunger, and
gladly accepted the offer. His duty was the merest agglomeration; but
even in that he might show faculty, and who could tell what might
follow! It was wearisome but not arduous, and above all, it left him
time!