Mr.Stirn had met him on the high road, touched his hat, and hoped that "he bore no malice." All this, I say, was the first sweetness of fame; and if Leonard Fairfield comes to be a great man, he will never find such sweets in the after fruit.

It was this success which had determined the parson on the step which he had just taken, and which he had long before anxiously meditated.

For, during the last year or so, he had renewed his old intimacy with the widow and the boy; and he had noticed, with great hope and great fear, the rapid growth of an intellect, which now stood out from the lowly circumstances that surrounded it in bold and unharmonizing relief.
It was the evening after his return home that the parson strolled up to the Casino.

He put Leonard Fairfield's Prize Essay in his pocket; for he felt that he could not let the young man go forth into the world without a preparatory lecture, and he intended to scourge poor Merit with the very laurel wreath which it had received from Apollo.

But in this he wanted Riccabocca's assistance; or rather he feared that, if he did not get the philosopher on his side, the philosopher might undo all the work of the parson..