But I have ample gifts to bestow upon thee if thou wilt abandon the hope that gnaws thy heart, and the realization of which even I have not the power to foresee.

Be thine ambition human, and I can gratify it to the full.

Men desire four things in life,--love, wealth, fame, power.

The first I cannot give thee,--no matter why; the rest are at my disposal.

Select which of them thou wilt, and let us part in peace." "Such are not the gifts I covet: I choose knowledge, which indeed, as the schoolman said, is power, and the loftiest; that knowledge must be thine own.