The latest transfusion of blood is always most powerful in effect upon the receiver; and as Thomas' father had died in penury for the sake of an idea, it was in order that the son should be something of a dreamer too.

Poetry is but an expression of life seen through dreams.
His father had been a scholar, risen from the people; his mother had been gentle.

From his seventh year the boy had faced life alone.

He had never gone with the stream but had always found lodgment in the backwaters.

There is no employment quieter, peacefuller than that of a clerk in a haberdashery.