“Just because it is different. A thing not so good may have a different goodness. A man may not be so good as another man, and yet have some good things in him the other has not. That implies that not every change he made was for the better. And where he has put a better phrase, or passage, the former may yet be good. So you see a new form may be much better, and yet the old form remain much too good to be parted with. In any case it is intensely interesting to see how and why he changed a thing or its shape, and to ponder wherein it is for the better or the worse. That is to take it like a study in natural history. In that we learn how an animal grows different to meet a difference in the supply of its needs; in the varying editions of a poem we see how it alters to meet a new requirement of the poet's mind. I don't mean the cases are parallel, but they correspond somehow. If I were a schoolmaster, I should make my pupils compare different forms of the same poem, and find out why the poet made the changes. That would do far more for them, I think, than comparing poets with each other. The better poets are--that is, the more original they are--the less there is in them to compare.” “But I want to hear the rest of the story. Never mind the differences in the telling of it.” “I'm afraid I can't get into the current of it now.” “You can look at the book! It must be somewhere among all these!” “No doubt. But I haven't time to look for it now.” “It won't take you a minute to find it.” “I must not leave my work.” “It wouldn't cost you more than one tiny minute!” pleaded Barbara like a child. “Let me explain to you, miss:--I find the only way to be _sure_ I don't cheat, is to know I haven't stopped an instant to do anything for myself. Sometimes I have stopped for a while; and then when I wanted to make up the time, I couldn't be quite sure how much I owed, and that made me give more than I needed--which I didn't like when I would gladly have been doing something else. When the time is my own, it is of far more value to me for the insides than to my employer for the outsides of the books. So you see, for my own sake as well as his, I cannot stop till my time is up.” “That _is_ being honest!” “Who can consent to be dishonest! It is the meanest thing to undertake work and then imagine you show spirit by shirking what you can of it. There's a lot of fellows like that! I would as soon pick a pocket as undertake and not do!” Barbara begged no more. “But I can talk while I work, miss,” Richard went on; “and I will try again to remember.” “Please, please do.” Richard thought a little, and presently resuming the poem, went on to the end of the first part. As he finished the last stanza-- God save thee, ancient Mariner, From the fiends that plague thee thus!-- Why look'st thou so?--With my cross-bow I shot the _Albatross!_'”--