He could not eat it without shedding tears.

All the poetry in his sensitive nature was in sympathy with the gracious vegetable.

With the earliest pipe of dawn he sought his patch, and when the curtaining night drove him from it he shut himself up with his books and garnered statistics till sleep overcame him.

On rainy days he sat and talked hours together with his mother about turnips.

When company came, he made it his loving duty to put aside everything else and converse with them all the day long of his great joy in the turnip.
"And yet, was this joy rounded and complete?
Was there no secret alloy of unhappiness in it?
Alas, there was.