We have an instance of this characteristic of genius in Rousseau. Every study he took up he pursued with intense ardor. A friend shows him how to play at chess. He suddenly becomes wholly engrossed by it, shuts himself up in his room, and spends days and nights in studying all the varieties of the game. The same ardor and intense application he threw into everything he undertook. He brought it to bear on his botanical studies, his musical compositions, and his literary pursuits. He tells us that he composed the greater part of some of his works in bed, in the hours of the night when sleep deserted him. “I meditated,” says he, “in my bed with my eyes closed, and in my mind turned over and over again my periods with incredible labor and care. The moment they were finished to my satisfaction I deposited them in my memory until I had an opportunity of committing them to paper.” Such was his ardor in pursuit of knowledge that he used always to carry books about with him, and while at work in the garden he was constantly conning pieces over and getting them by heart. This ardor, this intense application to the subject in hand, which is characteristic of men of genius, may account for their liability to what is called absence of mind. They are notoriously subject to this infirmity. Hence it is that a Sir Isaac Newton, lost in thought, sits still while his boot is burning before the fire, and after a while calls in the servant remove the fire, instead of himself removing his foot. Hence it is that an Adam Smith, absorbed in his own thoughts, sallies forth in his dressing-gown, and walks miles and miles into the country, unconscious of his strange attire and of the ridiculous figure he cuts. This is called absence of mind, but it implies great activity of mind. Some writers there are who can shift lightly from one subject to another, attending to various studies at various hours of the day. There are such men, and men too of no mean capacity, though not, it would seem, of the most ardent genius. Macaulay somewhere speaks of Southey as having an aptitude for applying his mind to several subjects in succession—a piece of poetry in the morning, history in the forenoon, a review in the evening. He confesses that for himself he had no such power. Whatever he took up he must apply his whole mind to until he finished it. That one subject was for the time all-absorbing; and who knows but to this he may have owed much of his success as a brilliant writer! THE SONG OF THE ROBIN. By MISS A. M. STARKWEATHER. _A poem for the children._ A robin to her young ones said, As she flew home with food: “You look so cunning in your bed— You are a handsome brood. “But I must teach you how to fly, You darling little elves; I think you’re old enough to try To look out for yourselves.