Perhaps some may think I am swelling small things into great; but incidents and actions are to be judged by their results, by their influence in the formation of character, and the hues they reflect on futurity. Had I received encouragement instead of rebuke, praise instead of ridicule,—had he taken me by the hand and spoken some such kindly words as these:—
"This is very well for a little girl like you. Lift up that downcast face, nor blush and tremble, as if detected in a guilty act. You must not spend too much time in the reveries of imagination, for this is a working-day world, my child. Even the birds have to build their nests, and the coral insect is a mighty laborer. The gift of song is sweet, and may be made an instrument of the Creator's glory. The first notes of the lark are feeble, compared to his heaven-high strains. The fainter dawn precedes the risen day."
Oh! had he addressed me in indulgent words as these, who knows but that, like burning Sappho, I might have sang as well as loved? Who knows but that the golden gates of the Eden of immortality might have opened to admit the wandering Peri to her long-lost home? I might have been the priestess of a shrine of Delphic celebrity, and the world have offered burning incense at my altar. I might have won the laurel crown, and found, perchance, thorns hidden under its triumphant leaves. I might,—but it matters not. The divine spark is undying, and though circumstances may smother the flame it enkindles, it glows in the bosom with unquenchable fire.
I remember very well what the master said, instead of the imagined words I have written.
"Poetry, is it?—or something you meant to be called by that name? Nonsense, child—folly—moon-beam hallucination! Child! do you know that this is an unpardonable waste of time? Do you remember that opportunities of improvement are given you to enable you hereafter to secure an honorable independence? This accounts for your reveries over the blackboard, your indifference to mathematics, that grand and glorious science! Poetry! ha, ha! I began to think you did not understand the use of capitals,—ha, ha!"
Did you ever imagine how a tender loaf of bread must feel when cut into slices by the sharpened knife? How the young bark feels when the iron wedge is driven through it with cleaving force? I think I can, by the experience of that hour. I stood with quivering lip, burning cheek, and panting breast,—my eyes riveted on the paper which he flourished in his left hand, pointing at it with the forefinger of his right.
"He shall not go on,"—said I to myself, exasperation giving me boldness,—"he shall not read what I have written of my mother. I will die sooner. He may insult my poverty but hers shall be sacred, and her sorrows too."
I sprang forward, forgetting every thing in the fear of hearing her name associated with derision, and attempted to get possession of the manuscript. A fly might as well attempt to wring the trunk of the elephant.
"Really, little poetess, you are getting bold. I should like to see you try that again. You had better keep quiet."
A resolute glance of the keen, black eye, resolute, yet twinkling with secret merriment, and he was about to commence another stanza.