ETHEL CHURCHILL.
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CHAPTER XVII
A SECRETARYSHIP.
Alas! and must this be the fate
That all too often will await
The gifted hand, which shall awake
The poet's lute? and, for its sake,
All but its own sweet self resign,
Thou loved lute, to be only thine!
For what is genius, but deep feeling,
Wakening to glorious revealing?
And what is feeling, but to be
Alive to every misery?
"I fear," said Mr. Courtenaye, as he entered Walter Maynard's room, "that you must almost have forgotten me; but I have not been well, indeed: to-morrow, I am going down to the country; but I could not leave London without coming to see you, and I have something, I hope agreeable, to say."
