“Ay, little baron! if every dried leaf in his forest path were a coin of burnished gold, he would not stoop to pick one up!”
“Are his ears closed to flattery?”
“As closed as his eyes are to the sun’s rays.”
“Loves he not some savory dish?”
“Fruits and berries content him!”
“Surely a draught of rare old wine, mellow with age, fragrant as crushed roses, purple within the beaker, would warm his heart to quicker beating, and incline him to serve me!”
“Nay, nay, little baron! a gourd full of water from the sparkling rill near his home in the rocks, is sweeter to him than any nectar ever distilled by the hands of man!”
“They say he is learned! Then shall my gift be a score of rare old books, priceless parchments filled with thoughts so noble, so deep, so subtle, that, to read therein, means to live a thousand years in one!”
“Ah, little master,” replied my guide, with a mournful smile, “thou art still astray. This dweller ’mid the rocks, this lover of solitude, the measure of whose life, they say, is full three hundred years, knows no other books than the pages of his own soul! On these he has turned his thoughts so long and so diligently, that the foolish outpourings of so-called authors seem like the merest prattle of childhood.”
“But look, little master, we are drawing near the home of the blind hermit.”