"And how, sir, have there ever been poets? Had they other callings?"
"Read their biography, and then envy them!"
Leonard was silent a moment; but, lifting his head, answered loud and quickly,—"I have read their biography. True, their lot poverty—perhaps hunger. Sir, I envy them!"
"Poverty and hunger are small evils," answered the bookseller, with a grave kind smile. "There are worse,—debt and degradation, and—despair."
"No, sir, no—you exaggerate; these last are not the lot of all poets."
"Right, for most of our greatest poets had some private means of their own. And for others, why, all who have put into a lottery have not drawn blanks. But who could advise another man to set his whole hope of fortune on the chance of a prize in a lottery? And such a lottery!" groaned the publisher, glancing towards sheets and reams of dead authors lying like lead upon his shelves.
Leonard clutched his MSS. to his heart, and hurried away.
"Yes," he muttered, as Helen clung to him and tried to console—"yes, you were right: London is very vast, very strong, and very cruel;" and his head sank lower and lower yet upon his bosom.
The door was flung widely open, and in, unannounced, walked Dr Morgan.
The child turned to him, and at the sight of his face she remembered her father; and the tears that, for Leonard's sake, she had been trying to suppress, found way.