"
But Nature, looking graver, lays her hand upon his arm.
"Put by your purse, boy," she says, "my price is not a price in
reason, nor is gold the metal that I deal in. There are many shops
in various streets where your bank-notes will be accepted. But if
you will take an old woman's advice, you will not go to them. The
thing they will sell you will bring sorrow and do evil to you. It
is cheap enough, but, like all things cheap, it is not worth the
buying. No man purchases it, only the fool."
"And what is the cost of the thing YOU sell then?" asks the lad.
"Self-forgetfulness, tenderness, strength," answers the old Dame;
"the love of all things that are of good repute, the hate of all
things evil--courage, sympathy, self-respect, these things purchase
love. Put by your purse, lad, it will serve you in other ways, but
it will not buy for you the goods upon my shelves."
"Then am I no better off than the poor man?" demands the lad.
"I know not wealth or poverty as you understand it," answers Nature.
"Here I exchange realities only for realities. You ask for my
treasures, I ask for your brain and heart in exchange--yours, boy,
not your father's, not another's."
"And this price," he argues, "how shall I obtain it?"
"Go about the world," replies the great Lady.
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