He was ambitious; but there seemed no open door. There is never an open door to fame or prosperity, except we open it for ourselves. The world is too busy to help others; and assistance usually weakens rather than strengthens us. About this time he received, through request, an autograph from Charles Dickens, then lecturing in this country. The boy of sixteen wrote in his journal: "It was not without a feeling of ambition that I looked upon it; that as he, a humble clerk, had risen to be the guest of a mighty nation, so I, a humble pedagogue, might, by unremitted and arduous intellectual and moral exertion, become a light, a star, among the names of my country. May it be!... I believe all poets are possessed in a greater or less degree of ambition. I think this is never given without a mind of sufficient power to sustain it, and to achieve its lofty object." At seventeen, Bayard's schooling was over. He sketched well, and would gladly have gone to Philadelphia to study engraving; but he had no money. One poem had been published in the "Saturday Evening Post." Those only who have seen their first poem in print can experience his joy. But writing poetry would not earn him a living. He had no liking for teaching, but, as that seemed the only thing at hand, he would try to obtain a school. He did not succeed, however, and apprenticed himself for four years to a printer. He worked faithfully, using all his spare hours in reading and writing poetry. Two years later, he walked to Philadelphia and back--thirty miles each way--to see if fifteen of his poems could not be printed in a book! His ambition evidently had not abated. Of course no publisher would take the book at his own risk. There was no way of securing its publication, therefore, but to visit his friends, and solicit them to buy copies in advance. This was a trying matter for a refined nature; but it was a necessity. He hoped thus to earn a little money for travel, and "to win a name that the person who shall be chosen to share with me the toils of life will not be ashamed to own." This "person" was Mary Agnew, whose love and that of Bayard Taylor form one of the saddest and tenderest pictures in our literature. At last the penniless printer boy had determined to see Europe. For two years he had read every thing he could find upon travels abroad. His good mother mourned over the matter, and his acquaintances prophesied dire results from such a roving disposition. He would go again to Philadelphia, and see if the newspapers did not wish correspondence from Europe. All the editors politely declined the ardent boy's proposals. Probably he did not know that "unknown writers" are not wanted.