"But you don't regret having made the sacrifice to get the education, do you?" "You over-rate my learning. I don't know anything thoroughly. I sailed through with the class and put myself in a position to learn, that's about all. But I have acquired one great piece of knowledge, which, had I not received a regular training, might have seemed to me as the arrogance of ignorance, and that is the fact that profound knowledge hurts the imagination. Of course I had read this--but ascribed it to prejudice. I know now, however, that it is true; and I would take care not to over-educate the boy with an instinct for art. His technique would destroy his creation. And take it in the matter of writing. I believe in correctness, but it is a fact that when a writer becomes a purist he conforms but does not create. After all, I believe that what's within a man will come out regardless of his training. There may be mute, inglorious Miltons, but Art struggles for expression. The German woman worked in a field and had no books, but she brought tears to the eyes of the Empress, with a little poem, dug up out of the ground." "That sounds all right enough," said Warren, "but I don't know about its truth. It strikes me--and I like to think about it--that, if Nancy had been schooled and all that, she could have written about the sweetest poetry that ever was sent out." Lyman smiled at his friend. "Education would undoubtedly assist her in the writing of verses," said he. "The log school-house would have given her the expression for poetry."