"I wish I could give it to them," she said, opening her hands. "I wish I could give it to them, but I am so stupid, and weak, and poor;—you can."
"I?" stammered the poet.
She looked at him, with bright eyes.
"You have the gift," she said. "You can at any rate minister to their dreams."
"But nobody reads poetry, and I—I do not write for the crowd."
She shook her head.
"I think everybody reads poetry," she said, "and I think, in every house, if one could but find it, there is some line or thought or dream, if you will, cut out, long since, and guarded secretly—and more, read—read often, as a memory, perhaps only as a dream, but, for all that, a very present help—I would like to be the writer of such a poem."
"It would certainly be gratifying," assented the poet.
"It would be worth living for."