Harley took up the various papers before him and read them through leisurely. Certainly he was no critic. He was not accustomed to analyze what pleased or displeased him; but his perceptions were quick, and his taste exquisite. As he read, his countenance, always so genuinely expressive, exhibited now doubt, and now admiration. He was soon struck by the contrast in the boy's writings; between the pieces that sported with fancy, and those that grappled with thought. In the first, the young poet seemed so unconscious of his own individuality. His imagination, afar and aloft from the scenes of his suffering, ran riot amidst a paradise of happy golden creations. But in the last, the THINKER stood out alone and mournful, questioning, in troubled sorrow, the hard world on which he gazed. All in the thought was unsettled, tumultuous; all in the fancy serene and peaceful. The genius seemed divided into twain shapes; the one bathing its wings amidst the starry dews of heaven; the other wandering "melancholy, slow," amidst desolate and boundless sands. Harley gently laid down the paper and mused a little while. Then he rose and walked to Leonard, gazing on his countenance as he neared the boy, with a new and deeper interest.
"I have read your papers," he said, "and recognize in them two men, belonging to two worlds, essentially distinct."
Leonard started, and murmured, "True, true!"
"I apprehend," resumed Harley, "that one of these men must either destroy the other, or that the two must become fused and harmonized into a single existence. Get your hat, mount my groom's horse, and come with me to London; we will converse by the way. Look you, I believe you and I agree in this, that the first object of every noble spirit is independence. It is toward this independence that I alone presume to assist you; and this is a service which the proudest man can receive without a blush."
Leonard lifted his eyes toward Harley's, and those eyes swam with grateful tears; but his heart was too full to answer.
"I am not one of those," said Harley, when they were on the road, "who think that because a young man writes poetry he is fit for nothing else, and that he must be a poet or a pauper. I have said that in you there seems to me to be two men, the man of the Ideal world, the man of the Actual. To each of these men I can offer a separate career. The first is, perhaps, the more tempting. It is the interest of the state to draw into its service all the talent and industry it can obtain; and under his native state every citizen of a free country should be proud to take service. I have a friend who is a minister, and who is known to encourage talent—Audley Egerton. I have but to say to him, 'There is a young man who will well repay to the government whatever the government bestows on him;' and you will rise to-morrow independent in means, and with fair occasions to attain to fortune and distinction. This is one offer, what say you to it?"
Leonard thought bitterly of his interview with Audley Egerton, and the minister's proffered crown-piece. He shook his head, and replied:
"Oh, my lord, how have I deserved such kindness? Do with me what you will; but if I have the option, I would rather follow my own calling. This is not the ambition that inflames me."
"Hear, then, the other offer. I have a friend with whom I am less intimate than Egerton, and who has nothing in his gift to bestow. I speak of a man of letters—Henry Norreys—of whom you have doubtless heard, who, I should say, conceived an interest in you when he observed you reading at the book-stall. I have often heard him say, that literature, as a profession, is misunderstood, and that rightly followed, with the same pains and the same prudence which are brought to bear on other professions, a competence, at least, can be always ultimately obtained. But the way may be long and tedious—and it leads to no power but over thought; it rarely attains to wealth; and, though reputation may be certain, Fame, such as poets dream of, is the lot of few. What say you to this course?"
"My lord, I decide," said Leonard, firmly; and then his young face lighting up with enthusiasm, he exclaimed, "Yes, if, as you say, there be two men within me, I feel, that were I condemned wholly to the mechanical and practical world, one would indeed destroy the other. And the conqueror would be the ruder and the coarser. Let me pursue those ideas that, though they have but flitted across me vague and formless—have ever soared toward the sunlight. No matter whether or not they lead to fortune or to fame, at least they will lead me upward! Knowledge for itself I desire—what care I, if it be not power!"