"You were speaking of the method of your education, my darling."
"Yes, ending in nothing particular. God knows whether the fault is in it or me, but so it strikes me just now. I have a smattering of Greek and Latin, but nothing really tangible, I am afraid; nothing which would warrant me in calling myself a scholar. Say that I were one, a scholar and a man, I do not see (because, perhaps, after all, the fault or the deficiency is in my nature) how I could make a fortune out of it. For you, Nansie."
"I know, my dear," said Nansie, "that you are thinking of me."
"I confess that, if I allowed it to take possession of me, I should be more than perplexed; I should be seriously troubled. But, to go on. I seem not to be able, except in words, to express myself or do myself justice. For instance, I look into the stream, and see a wave of stars. There is a poem there, and I feel it, but I could not write it. Pitiful to reflect, isn't it? because, in our circumstances, it might be sold for--twopence; but even that we might find useful."
"A great deal more, dear, if you could write it."
"If I could! There's the rub. Here, as I look around me, and at every step I have taken, I see pictures; but I could not paint them. Now, how is that?"
"Perhaps, my dear," said Nansie, timidly, "it is because life has never been so serious to you as it is now with me by your side."
"Serious and sweet," said Kingsley; "remember that. We must not have one without the other. The fact is, I dare say, that I never thought of what I was to be, because I did not see the necessity of troubling myself about it. My father was a rich man; everybody spoke of him as a millionaire, and spoke the truth for once; and all my college chums envied me my luck. But for that it may be that I should have applied myself, and ripened into a poet or a painter, or something that would come in useful now. Nothing very superior, perhaps, in any line, because, my dear, you will be surprised when I confess to you that I do not regard myself as an out-of-the-way brilliant fellow. But there's no telling, is there, what may come out of a fellow if he puts his shoulder to the wheel?"
"Something good would be sure to come out of such a head as yours, Kingsley," said Nansie.
"You will flatter me, my dear; but, after all, you may be right. There are no end of clever men who were dull boys at school, and thought to have nothing in them; though, now I think of it, I was not at all a dull boy--rather bright, indeed, really, Nansie--and the fact that dullards often prove themselves geniuses is rather against me. Do you know what I've been told? That there is a lot of stuff in me, but that I lack application; that is, the power of sticking long to one thing. That is true, perhaps, and it is that quality, or failing, or what you like, that makes me fly off at a tangent in the way I am in the habit of doing. I've stuck pretty close to this conversation, haven't I?"