It took him some time to recover from the shock which his self-esteem had received from Mr. Dulcimer’s candour. At first it seemed to him that if he could not be a poet he could be nothing else. Those other fields of intellectual labour in which the Vicar invited him to work, offered no attraction. They were all dry and barren; he saw no flowers to be gathered there. Ambition seemed dead within him, now that a judge in whom he believed had told him that he was not an incipient Byron. ‘You never write of an evening now, Emmanuel,’ his mother said to him, when the shortening days of September brought them together by their cheerful fireside. ‘I hope you haven’t grown tired of your pen?’ ‘I have,’ he answered. ‘What’s the use of writing trash?’ ‘Oh, Emmanuel, how can you talk so? I’m sure I never read sweeter verses than yours.’ ‘Yes, mother, you think them sweet because I am your son. You wouldn’t care a straw for them if they were written by a stranger. Come, I’ll read you a bit of real poetry, and you’ll see the difference.’ He opened his well-used Milton, and read the hymn on the Nativity. He knew those noble verses by heart, and declaimed them well. ‘What do you think of that mother?’ he asked, when he had finished. ‘I don’t understand it all, dear,’ she answered meekly, ‘there are so many heathen idols in it. But it’s poetry that rings like a great brazen bell, and there’s more words in it than in yours.’ ‘Yes, mother, that’s it. The man who wrote that was a born poet. He could do what he liked with the language, and make it ring like sound metal. My verse is like a poor little cracked sheep-bell, and sounds no better than tin. And I haven’t above a quarter of the English language in my vocabulary. I’ve read a great deal, but the words don’t come to my finger ends in all their wealth and variety, as they did to Shelley and Keats. No, mother, I’m no poet. Mr. Dulcimer is a good judge. If I write anything it must be prose.’ ‘I hope Mr. Dulcimer hasn’t been putting you out of conceit with yourself, Emmanuel.’ ‘He has only told me the truth, mother. That’s always good for a man to know, though it takes him aback sometimes to hear it.’ ‘I should be very sorry to see you give up your pen, dear,’ said the mother, persistently. ‘I should be so proud if I could live to see you an author.’ ‘Well, mother, I will try to write a book, if it is only to please you. I will write something for my pupils—a book that may be useful and popular in schools all over England. The English history my boys read seems to me very dull and dry. I think I’ll try my hand at a boy’s history of England. I fancy I could make it interesting.’ ‘I’m sure you could,’ said the mother, fondly. Here at least in this quiet schoolhouse parlour was happiness almost perfect. It was a delight to Cyril Culverhouse, when he dropped in for half an hour on his homeward way, to see how well this one good work of his had prospered.