“Shame, and a natural desire to retrieve myself, operated to make me renew my efforts. I need not go through the processes by which I endeavored to acquire the necessary degree of hardihood. In vain did I recall the fact that my competitors were notoriously persons far inferior to me in knowledge of the topics; far inferior in the capacity to analyze them; rude and coarse in expression; unfamiliar with the language--mere delvers and diggers in a science in which I secretly felt that I should be a master. In vain did I recall to mind the fact that I knew the community before which I was likely to speak; I knew its deficiencies; knew the inferiority of its idols, and could and should have no sort of fear of its criticism. But it was myself that I feared. I had mistaken the true censor. It was my own standards of judgment that distressed and made me tremble. It was what I expected of myself--what I thought should be expected of me--that made my weak soul recoil in terror from the conviction that I must fail in its endeavor to reach the point which my ambitious soul strove to attain. The fear, in such cases, produced the very disaster, from the anticipated dread of which it had arisen. I again failed--failed egregiously--failed utterly and for ever! I never again attempted the fearful trial. I gave up the contest, yielded the field to my inferiors, better-nerved, though inferior, and, with all my learning, all my eloquence, my voice, my manner; my resources of study, thought, and utterance, fled from sight--fled here--to bury myself in the wilderness, and descend to the less ambitious, but less dangerous vocation of schooling--I trust, to better uses--the minds of others. I had done nothing with my own.” “Oh, sir, do not say so. Though you may have failed in one department of human performance, you have succeeded in others. You have lost none of the knowledge which you then acquired. You possess all the gifts of eloquence, of manner, of voice, of education, of thought.” “But of what use, my son? Remember, we do not toil for these possessions to lock them up--to content ourselves, as the miserable miser, with the consciousness that we possess a treasure known to ourselves only--useless to all others as to ourselves! Learning, like love, like money, derives its true value from its circulation.” “And you circulate yours, my dear sir. What do we not owe you in Charlemont? What do I not owe you, over all?” “Love, my son--love only. Pay me that. Do not desert me in my old age. Do not leave me utterly alone!” “I will not, sir--I never thought to do so.”