"It is very unfortunate when a child, in consequence of a facility of making rhyme, is led to believe herself a poetess,--or, in other words, a prodigy. She is praised and flattered by injudicious friends, till she becomes inflated by vanity and exalted by pride. She wanders idly, without aim or goal, in the flowery paths of poesy, forgetful of the great highway of knowledge, not made alone for the chariot wheels of kings, but the feet of the humblest wayfarer." When he began to address me, he remembered that I was a child, but before he finished the sentence he forgot my age, and his thoughts and language swelled and rose to the comprehension of manhood. But I understood him. Perhaps there was something in my fixed and fascinated glance that made him conscious of my full appreciation. "I have no friends to praise and flatter me," I simply answered. "I have loved to sing in rhyme as the little birds sing, because God gave me the power." He looked pleased. He even laid his hand on my head and smiled. Not the cold smile of yesterday, but quite a genial smile. I could hardly believe it the same face, it softened and transformed it so. I involuntarily drew nearer to him, drawn by that powerful magnetism, which every human heart feels more or less. The great brazen tongue of the town clock rang discordantly on the sweet stillness of the morning hour. The master rose and motioned me to follow him. "Richard Clyde is forgiven. Tell him so. Let the past be forgotten, or remembered only to make us wiser and better." We entered the academy together, to the astonishment of the pupils, who were gathered in little clusters, probably discussing the events of yesterday. Richard Clyde was not there, but he came the next day, and the scene in which we were both such conspicuous actors was soon forgotten. It had, however, an abiding influence on me. A new motive for exertion was born within me,--affection for my master,--and the consequence was, ambition to excel, that I might be rewarded by his approbation. Bid he ever again treat me with harshness and severity? No,--never. I have often wondered why he manifested such unusual and wanton disregard of my feelings then, that one, only time. It is no matter now. It is a single blot on a fair page. Man is a strangely inconsistent being. His soul is the battle ground of the warring angels of good and evil. As one or the other triumphs, he exhibits the passions of a demon or the attributes of a God. Could we see this hidden war field, would it not be grand? What were the plains of Marathon, the pass of Thermopylae, or Cannae paved with golden rings, compared to it?