The fatal afternoon came. I displayed the penknife. The chase began. The bully and his chosen friends threw themselves upon me. The moment had come; I thrust the knife upward; the big boy uttered a howl, and ran, still howling. I looked for blood, but there was none visible; I came to the conclusion, with satisfaction, that he was bleeding internally. I spent a gloomy evening at home uttering dire predictions which were incomprehensible to the members of my family, and reread Brutus, in the "Lives."
The next morning I went to school with lessons unstudied and awaited events. The mother of the bully appeared, and entered into an excited colloquy with the very placid and dignified teacher. I announced to the boy next to me, "My time has come." I was called up to the awful desk. "Is he dead?" I asked. "Did he bleed internally?" "You little wretch," the mother of the tyrant said, "you cut such fearful holes in my son's coat,
that he is afraid to come to school to-day!" Then I said, regretfully, "Oh, I hoped that I had killed him." There was a sensation; my character was blackened. I was set down as a victim of total depravity; I endured it all, but I knew in my heart that it was "Plutarch." This is the effect that "Plutarch" had on the mind of a good Christian child.
The effects of "Plutarch" on my character were never discovered at home, and as I grew older and learned one or two wrestling tricks, the bully let me alone. Besides, my murderous intention, which had leaked out, gave me such a reputation that I became a dictator myself, and made terms for the small boys, in the name of freedom, which were sometimes rather despotic.
It was also during these days that I remember carrying confusion into the family when a patronizing, intellectual lady called and said, "I hope that this dear little boy is reading the Rollo books?" "No," I answered quickly and indiscreetly, "I am reading 'The New Magdalen,' by Wilkie Collins." I did not think much of Wilkie Collins until I read "The Moonstone." It seemed that "The New Magdalen" had been purchased
inadvertently by my father, in a packet of "classics."
My father generally arrived at home late in the afternoon, when he read the evening paper. After a very high tea, he stretched himself on a long horsehair-covered sofa, and bade me read to him, generally from the novels of George Eliot, or from certain romances running through the New York Ledger by Sylvanus Cobb, Jr. These were generally stories of the times of the Irish Kings, in which gallowglasses and lovely and aristocratic Celtic maidens disported themselves. My mother, after her conversion, disapproved of the New York Ledger. In fact, there were families in Philadelphia whose heads regarded it with real horror! In our house, there was a large stack of this interesting periodical, which, with many volumes of Godey's Lady's Book, were packed in the attic.
It happened that a young man, in whom my father had a great interest, was threatened with tuberculosis. An awful rumour was set abroad that he was about to die. He sent over a messenger asking my father for the back numbers of the New York Ledger containing a long serial story by Mrs. Anna Cora Mowatt. As I remember,
it was a story of the French Revolution, and the last number that I was allowed to read ended with a description of a dance in an old château, when the Marquise, who was floating through the minuet, suddenly discovered blood on the white-kid glove of her right hand! I was never permitted to discover where the blood came from; I should like to find out now if I could find the novel. I remember that my mother was terribly shocked when my father sent the numbers of the New York Ledger to the apparently dying man. "It's a horrible thing," my mother said, "to think of any Christian person reading the New York Ledger at the point of death." The young man, however, did not die; and I rather think my father attributed his recovery to the exhilarating effect of one of his favourite stories.
There were certain other serial stories I was ordered to read; they were stories of the Irish Brigade in France. My mother, I remember, disapproved of them because Madame de Pompadour was frequently mentioned, and she thought that my father regarded the lady in question too tolerantly. These romances were, I think, written by a certain Myles O'Reilly who was in some way con