"My grandmother sent me to school, but I looked at the master, and saw
that he was a smooth, round ferule--or an improper noun--or a vulgar
fraction, and refused to obey him. Or he was a piece of string, a rag,
a willow-wand, and I had a contemptuous pity. But one was a well of
cool, deep water, and looking suddenly in, one day, I saw the stars.
He gave me all my schooling. With him I used to walk by the sea, and,
as we strolled and the waves plunged in long legions before us, I
looked at him through the spectacles, and as his eye dilated with the
boundless view, and his chest heaved with an impossible desire, I saw
Xerxes and his army tossing and glittering, rank upon rank, multitude
upon multitude, out of sight, but ever regularly advancing and with
the confused roar of ceaseless music, prostrating themselves in abject
homage. Or, as with arms outstretched and hair streaming on the wind,
he chanted full lines of the resounding Iliad, I saw Homer pacing the
AEgean sands in the Greek sunsets of forgotten times.
"My grandmother died, and I was thrown into the world without
resources, and with no capital but my spectacles.
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