In my short course through life (says he in confidence to a friend at one-and-twenty), I have never feared an enemy, or failed a friend; and I live in the hope I never shall.  For the rest, I have written my heart in my poems; and rude and unfinished and hasty as they are, it can be read there.

*****

From seven years of age to this very hour, I have been dependent only on my own head and hands for everything—­for very bread.  Long years ago—­ay, even in childhood—­adversity made me think, and feel, and suffer; and would pride allow me, I could tell the world many a deep tragedy enacted in the heart of a poor, forgotten, uncared-for boy . . .  But I thank God, that though I felt and suffered, the scathing blast neither blunted my perceptions of natural and moral beauty, nor, by withering the affections of my heart, made me a selfish man.  Often when I look back I wonder how I bore the burden—­how I did not end the evil day at once and for ever.

Such, is the man, in his normal state; and as was to be expected, God’s blessing rests on him.  Whatever he sets his hand to succeeds.  Within a few weeks of his taking the editorship of The Leeds Times its circulation begins to rise rapidly, as was to be expected with an honest man to guide it.  For Nicoll’s political creed, though perhaps neither very deep nor wide, lies clear and single before him, as everything else which he does.  He believes naturally enough in ultra-Radicalism according to the fashions of the Reform Bill era.  That is the right thing; and for that he will work day and night, body and soul, and if needs be, die.  There, in the editor’s den at Leeds, he “begins to see the truth of what you told me about the world’s unworthiness; but stop a little.  I am not sad as yet. . . .  If I am hindered from feeling the soul of poetry among woods and fields, I yet trust I am struggling for something worth prizing—­ something of which I am not ashamed, and need not be.  If there be aught on earth worth aspiring to, it is the lot of him who is enabled to do something for his miserable and suffering fellow-men; and this you and I will try to do at least.”

His friend is put to work a ministerial paper, with orders “not to be rash, but to elevate the population gradually;” and finding those orders to imply a considerable leaning towards the By-ends, Lukewarm, and Facing-both-ways school, kicks over the traces, wisely, in Nicoll’s eyes, and breaks loose.

Keep up your spirits (says honest Nicoll).  You are higher at this moment in my estimation, in your own, and that of every honest man, than you ever were before.  Tait’s advice was just such as I should have expected of him; honest as honesty itself.  You must never again accept a paper but where you can tell the whole truth without fear or favour. . . . .  Tell E. (the broken-loose editor’s lady-love), from me to estimate as she ought the nobility and determination of the man who has dared to act as you have done.  Prudent men will say that you are hasty:  but you have done right, whatever may be the consequences.