“There's one way to conquer it. Don't be broodin' on what's within. Don't be magnifyin' your evil fortunes to your own heart till you come to think the world all little, and yourself all great. Go out to your daily labor, whatever it be, with a stout spirit to do your best, and a thankful, grateful heart that you are able to do it. Never let it out of your mind that if there's many a one your inferior, winnin' his way up to fame and fortune before you, there's just as many better than you toilin' away unseen and unnoticed, wearin' out genius in a garret, and carryin' off a Godlike intellect to an obscure grave!” “You talk to me as though my crying sin were an overweening vanity,” said the youth, half angrily. “Well, it's one of them,” said Billy; and the blunt frankness of the avowal threw the boy into a fit of laughing. “You certainly do not intend to spoil me, Billy,” said he, still laughing. “Why would I do what so many is ready to do for nothing? What does the crowd that praise the work of a young man of genius care where they 're leading him to? It's like people callin' out to a strong swimmer, 'Go out farther and farther,--out to the open say, where the waves is rollin' big, and the billows is roughest; that's worthy of you, in your strong might and your stout limbs. Lave the still water and the shallows to the weak and the puny. _Your_ course is on the mountain wave, over the bottomless ocean.' It's little they think if he's ever to get back again. 'T is their boast and their pride that they said, 'Go on;' and when his cold corpse comes washed to shore, all they have is a word of derision and scorn for one who ventured beyond his powers.” “How you cool down one's ardor; with what pleasure you check every impulse that nerves one's heart for high daring!” said the youth, bitterly. “These eternal warnings--these never-ending forebodings of failure--are sorry stimulants to energy.” “Is n't it better for you to have all your reverses at the hands of a crayture as humble as me?” said Billy, while the tears glistened in his eyes. “What good am I, except for this?” In a moment the boy's arms were around him, while he cried out,--