Does it not seem to you as to me,
that I begin to have the right to enroll myself among the devotees
of these two sublime arts, after having followed them so long and so humbly,
and through so much bitterness?"
==
What could his father do but yield? And what could he do
during the following years of his son's fight for standing-room on the planet
but help? But for that help, generously given by his father and brother,
as their ability allowed, at the critical times of utter prostration,
the end would not have been long delayed. For the little
that was necessary to give his household a humble support
it was not easy for the most strenuous young author to win by his pen
in the intervals between his hemorrhages. He asked for very little,
only the supply of absolute necessities, what it would be easy
for a well man to earn, but what it was very hard for a man to earn
scarce able to leave his bed, dependent on the chance income had
from poems and articles in magazines that would take them, or from courses
of lectures in schools. Often for months together he could do no work.
He was driven to Texas, to Florida, to Pennsylvania, to North Carolina,
to try to recover health from pine breaths and clover blossoms.
Supported by the implicit faith of one heart, which fully believed
in his genius, and was willing to wait if he could only find his opportunity,
his courage never failed.
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