Martin Eden

ger-ends, and Mr. Morse remarked afterward that he seemed a very clear-headed young man. In his avoidance of slang and his search after right words, Martin was compelled to talk slowly, wh

eased at his mani

," she told her husband. "She has been so singularly backwar

ked at his wi

young sailor to wake h

it," was the answer. "If this young Eden can arouse her

and we must suppose, sometimes, my dear,-suppose

ears older than he, and, besides, it is impossibl

a cyclery on his way home and spent forty dollars for a wheel. It was more than a month's hard-earned wages, and it reduced his stock of money amazingly; but when he added the hundred dollars he was to receive from the Examiner to the four hundred and twenty dollars that was the least The Youth's Companion could pay him, he felt that he had reduced the perplexity the unwonted amount of money had caused him. Nor did he mind, in t

nting article did not dash his spirits. He was at too great a height for that, and having been deaf to a twice-repeated summons, he went without the heavy Sunday dinner with which Mr. Higginbotham invariably graced his table. To Mr. Higginbotham such a dinner was advertisement of his worldly achievement

took the car down to Oakland to the high school. And when, days later, he applied for t

ctacles; "but you know nothing, positively nothing, in the other branches, and your United S

of his own test-tubes. He was professor of physics in the high school, possessor

ehow that the man at the desk in the librar

back to the grammar school fo

s shocked expression when he told her Professor Hilton's advice. Her disappoint

the discipline of study, such as only skilled teachers can give you. You must be thoroughly grounded. Professor Hilton is right, and if I were you, I'd go to night school. A year and a half of it might enable y

hool, when am I going to see you?-was Martin's first though

ut I don't think it will pay. I can do the work quicker than they can teach me. It would be a loss of time-" h

and chemistry-you can't do them without laboratory study; and you'll find algebra and geometry almost hopel

ng about for the least vainglorio

it kindly, like a duck to water. You see yourself what I did with grammar. And I've learned much of other things-you would never dream how much. And I'm only getting started. Wai

ay 'size up,'"

on things," he

nything in correct E

red for a

that I'm beginning to

he forebore,

y. The teachers are guides to the chart-room, that's all. It's not something that they have in their own heads. They don't make it up, don't create it. It's all in the chart-room and they know their w

y 'where

am. But where am I at-I mean, where am I? O

," she c

want to refer to, what coasts I want to explore. And from the way I line it up, I'll explore a whole lot more quickly by myself. The speed of a fleet, you know, is the speed of the slowest ship

est who travels alone

caught at the hem of the secret. It was the very thing that the great writers and master-poets did. That was why they were giants. They knew how to express what they thought, and felt, and saw. Dogs asleep in the sun often whined and barked, but they were unable to tell what they saw that made them whine and bark. He had often wondered what it was. And that was all he was, a dog asleep in the sun. He saw noble and beautiful visions, but he could only whine and bark at Ruth. But he would cease sleeping in the sun. He would stand up, with open eyes, and he

was it. That explained it. He had never tried. But Swinburne had, and Tennyson, and Kipling, and all the other poets. His mind flashed on to his "Pearl-diving." He had never dared the big things, the spirit of the beauty that was a fire in him. That article would be a different thing when he was done with it. He was appalled by the vastness of the bea

athed it aloud. The blood surged into his face, wave upon wave, mastering the bronze

on," he stammered.

as the first time she had heard an oath from the lips of a man she knew, and she was shocked, not merely as a matter o

ng, too. It never entered her head that there could be any other reason for her being kindly disposed toward him. She was tenderly disposed toward him, but she did not know it. She had no way of knowing it.