She spoke, and Mercury, the winged messenger of Jove, stood before her. "Mortal!" said he, "return with Joy to thy hearth! He who wieldeth the sceptre of Fate hath heard thy petition; and the Child shall be as thou hast asked." In time the Mother bore a Son. His form rivalled that of the boy-god Cupid. And she rejoiced to think he was the blest of Jupiter. A year passed on, and the proud Mother saw the Infant bud blossom into the Child. But the second year came and went, and the Boy increased not in Stature. The third year stole away, and still the little thing grew not. The fourth—the fifth—the sixth rolled by, and yet the Child remained in figure as at the end of the first. Albeit the Mother murmured not, for she remembered the promise of him who wieldeth the sceptre of Fate, and hoped in patience. But when twelve summers had gone, and the anxious Matron beheld her Boy still a Babe in form though a Youth in years, Hope and Patience left her; and thus she complained:— "Oh Jupiter! Jupiter! have the promises of the Gods become as those of Men? Didst thou not in thy bounty vouchsafe unto me a Boy that should be the most admired of all thy Children? And what hast thou sent me? A little thing to whom even the shape of Manhood is denied! and at whose stunted figure the world gapes with pitying wonder. Oh Jupiter! Jupiter! for what mysterious good hast thou thus visited me?" The cloud-compelling Jove heard the Mother's murmurs and thus from on high rebuked her:— [Illustration] BORN A GENIUS AND BORN A DWARF. "Why, Child of Clay! dost thou question the goodness of the Gods? Thy petition was heard, and has been granted. What more wouldst thou have had? Didst thou not beseech me that thy Boy should be the richest and happiest of Men?" "I did, Great Jove!" replied the trembling Mother; "but thou, in thy strange bounty, hast given to me a Child with limbs too small and weak to earn even the scantiest subsistence; and whose wretched deformity must make his life a burthen to him and me." "And what, blind Mortal! wouldst thou that I had done?" exclaimed the God. "Oh that thou hadst blest him with a form of Power, and a mind of Genius!" cried the heavy-hearted parent; "then would Wealth and Joy have gladdened his days." "Fool that thou art!" said the Sovereign of the Skies; "listen and learn how I have blest, and thou wouldst have curst, thy Child! Had I conferred on him the Genius thou sighest after he would have felt but Want and Neglect in the world. Had I quickened him with a sense of the Beautiful, his Life would have been a Misery—his Death a Crime. For know that Mind alone can sympathize with Mind; and mindless Man enriches those who minister rather to the luxury of his Senses than to the refinement of his Intellect." "Oh, all-wise Jove!" exclaimed the abashed Mother.