"You believe that human strength is unequal to such demands. It is natural to think so; and yet I speak the truth. My parents, Mr Walpole, humble and poor, but good and loving, sent me to Paris with all the money they could afford for my education. I was ambitious, and deemed it more than enough for my purpose. When half my time was spent here, unhappily for me both father and mother were carried off by a malignant fever. It was heavy blow, and threatened my destruction; threatened it, however, but for a moment. I had determined to arrive at eminence; and when does the determination give way in the breast of him who feels and knows his power equal to his aim? I had a brother, to whom I wrote, telling him of my situation, and asking him for the loan of a few louis-d'or until my studies were completed, when I promised to repay the debt with interest. He sent me the quarter of the sum for which I had begged, with a long cold letter of remonstrance, bidding me give up my profession, and apply myself to the humbler pursuits of my family. I returned to my brother both money and letter, and the day on which I did so saw me without a meal. I had not a farthing in the world. Had not a woman who lodged in a room below given me a crust of bread, I must have committed crime to assuage the cries of nature. How I existed for days, I no longer remember. But I remember well hearing of a rich nobleman, renowned for his wealth and piety, and for all the virtues which the world confers upon the possessor of vast estates. In a moment of enthusiasm and mistaken reliance, I sat down and penned a petition to this great personage. I spoke as an intellectual man to an intellectual man; as one working his difficult way through obscurity and trouble to usefulness and honour--and requiring only a few crumbs from the rich man's table to be at ease, and happy at his toil. I begged in abject humility for those crumbs, and received a lying and cold-blooded excuse instead of them. I crouched at his gate with a spirit worn by anxiety and apprehension, and his slaves hunted me away from it. You have passed through that same gate with me; you were witness of my triumph at the bedside of his child!" "You mean his excellency--the operation?" "I do." "How little the rich," said I, "know of the misery, the privations, endured by those who in poverty acquire the knowledge that is to benefit mankind so largely. How ignorant are they of their trials!"