fabric of a vision,
Left not a wreck behind."

He raised his eyes, swimming with all his native goodness, towards the
wise man, and dropped them gratefully on the face of the infant
peacemaker. Then he turned away his head and fairly wept. The Parson was
right: "O ye poor, have charity for the rich; O ye rich, respect the
poor."

CHAPTER VII.

Now from that day the humble Lenny and the regal Violante became great
friends. With what pride he taught her to distinguish between celery and
weeds--and how proud too was she when she learned that she was _useful_!
There is not a greater pleasure you can give to children, especially
female children, than to make them feel they are already of value in the
world, and serviceable as well as protected. Weeks and months rolled
away, and Lenny still read, not only the books lent him by the Doctor,
but those he bought of Mr. Sprott. As for the bombs and shells against
religion which the Tinker carried in his bag, Lenny was not induced to
blow himself up with them. He had been reared from his cradle in simple
love and reverence for the Divine Father, and the tender Saviour, whose
life, beyond all records of human goodness, whose death, beyond all
epics of mortal heroism, no being whose infancy has been taught to
supplicate the Merciful and adore the Holy, yea, even though his later
life may be entangled amidst the thorns of some desolate pyrrhonism, can
ever hear reviled and scoffed without a shock to the conscience and a
revolt of the heart. As the deer recoils by instinct from the tiger, as
the very look of the scorpion deters you from handling it, though you
never saw a scorpion before, so the very first line in some ribald
profanity on which the Tinker put his black finger, made Lenny's blood
run cold. Safe, too, was the peasant boy from any temptation in works of
a gross and licentious nature, not only because of the happy ignorance
of his rural life, but because of a more enduring safeguard--genius!
Genius, that, manly, robust, healthful as it be, is long before it loses
its instinctive Dorian modesty; shamefaced, because so susceptible to
glory--genius, that loves indeed to dream, but on the violet bank, not
the dung-hill. Wherefore, even in the error of the senses, it seeks to
escape from the sensual into worlds of fancy, subtle and refined. But
apart from the passions, true genius is the most practical of all human
gifts. Like the Apollo, whom the Greek worshipped as i