I felt somewhat revengeful, and I almost longed to try if I could not make the boasting little beauty know something of the power she scoffed at. But just then Mr. Thornton came up, and began jesting with his fair relation upon her morning reveries beside the stream. "I saw you, Bessy," he said; "and if I had met with Mr. Howard, I should have sent him down to try if he could not break up your visions." "I dare say he would have succeeded," she answered; "for he has been amusing me here with some of the driest subjects in the world." "Of what kind, little hypocrite?" asked Mr. Thornton. "Arithmetic--arithmetic," she replied gaily. "As, for example, how many ganders' heads are required to make one goose's. But, here comes Mr. Hubbard slowly down stairs; and there is Mr. Alsiger's back at the end of the passage; so I had better go in to get breakfast ready, for Lou won't be down this hour." And away she ran, casting her parasol into a cane seat in the hall. Mr. Thornton paused, and fell into a reverie for a moment or two, which he concluded by saying, as if to himself,-- "The poets are wrong." I knew not what he meant, of course; and whether those few words directed his and my thoughts, or not, I cannot tell; but at breakfast we got into a discussion of poets and poetry. "It is wonderful," Mr. Thornton observed, after a few other remarks upon the subject, "that with all the superabundant energies which this country possesses, and all the imagination which she expends upon other themes, we have, as yet, produced no very remarkable poet." I ventured to say that I did not think it wonderful; and, of course, there was a call for my reasons. "In the first place," I replied, "the energies of the people have other objects, and those principally material. In the next place, the imaginative faculty finds other occupation." "How so, how so?" asked Mr. Hubbard. "In orations, speeches, declamations," I answered, and then continued, with a smile, "perhaps I might add, in finding causes for offence in the acts of other nations; and without offence, let me say, Mr. Alsiger, in religious exercises which perhaps touch the fancy rather than inform the heart." "Too true, too true!" said the good clergyman, with a sigh. "Then again," I continued, "poetry is generally the offspring of leisure. Now, there is--at least it seems so to me--no such thing as leisure in America, and----" "Excuse me," interrupted Mr. Thornton, laughing; "we have plenty of leisure in Virginia, if we did but know what to do with it. But you were going to add something." "I was merely going to remark, as a matter of history, that poetry rarely flourishes in republics. Monarchies are its congenial soil. It is a flower that requires a hot-house." "Oh, heresy, heresy!" cried Bessy Davenport. "What! can such noble and inspiring things as freedom and independence have no power to awaken great thoughts, or even to clothe them in immortal verse?"