The letters he received from home, especially those of his friend sir Gibbie, who not unfrequently wrote also for Donal's father and mother, were a great nourishment to him.
As the cold and the nights grew, the water-level rose in Donal's well, and the poetry began to flow.

When we have no summer without, we must supply it from within.

Those must have comfort in themselves who are sent to help others.

Up in his aerie, like an eagle above the low affairs of the earth, he led a keener life, breathed the breath of a more genuine existence than the rest of the house.

No doubt the old cobbler, seated at his last over a mouldy shoe, breathed a yet higher air than Donal weaving his verse, or reading grand old Greek, in his tower; but Donal was on the same path, the only path with an infinite end--the divine destiny.
He had often thought of trying the old man with some of the best poetry he knew, desirous of knowing what receptivity he might have for it; but always when with him had hitherto forgot his proposed inquiry, and thought of it again only after he had left him: the original flow of the cobbler's life put the thought of testing it out of his mind.
One afternoon, when the last of the leaves had fallen, and the country was bare as the heart of an old man who has lived to himself, Donal, seated before a great fire of coal and boat-logs, fell a thinking of the old garden, vanished with the summer, but living in the memory of its delight.