exclaimed the aged Seeker , bitterly . `` I hope for no enjoyment from it : that folly has past long ago . I keep up the search for this accursed stone because the vain ambition of my youth has become a fate upon me in old age . The pursuit alone is my strength , the energy of my soul , the warmth of my blood and the pith and marrow of my bones . Were I to turn my back upon it , I should fall down dead on the hither side of the notch which is the gateway of this mountain-region . Yet not to have my wasted lifetime back again would I give up my hopes of is deemed little better than a traffic with the evil one . Now , think ye that I would have done this grievous wrong to my soul , body , reputation and estate without a reasonable chance of profit ? '' `` Not I , pious Master Pigsnort , '' said the man with the spectacles . `` I never laid such a great folly to thy charge . '' `` Truly , I hope not , '' said the merchant . `` Now , as touching this Great Carbuncle , I am free to own that I have never had a glimpse of it , but , be it only the hundredth part so bright as people tell , it will surely outvalue the Great Mogul 's best diamond , which he holds at an incalculable sum ; wherefore I am minded to put the Great Carbuncle on shipboard and voyage with it to England , France , Spain , Italy , or into heathendom if Providence should send me thither , and , in a word , dispose of the gem to the best bidder among the potentates of the earth , that he may place it among his crown-jewels . If any of ye have a wiser plan , let him expound it . '' `` That have I , thou sordid man ! '' exclaimed the poet . `` Dost thou desire nothing brighter than gold , that thou wouldst transmute all this ethereal lustre into such dross as thou wallowest in already ? For myself , hiding the jewel under my cloak , I shall hie me back to my attic-chamber in one of the darksome alleys of London . There night and day will I gaze upon it . My soul shall drink its radiance ; it shall be diffused throughout my intellectual powers and gleam brightly in every line of poesy that I indite . Thus long ages after I am gone the splendor of the Great Carbuncle will blaze around my name . '' `` Well said , Master Poet ! ''
cried he XXXXX the spectacles .
If because in into of on than throughout to under