unbroken order of kindling flower and shadowy leaf; and for many
and many a year to come--until, indeed, the whole of life became
autumn to me--my chief prayer for the kindness of Heaven, in its
flowerful seasons, was that the frost might not touch the
almond-blossom."

His mother, who was a very religious woman, used to oblige him to learn
long chapters of the Bible by heart at a very early age, and his
favorite chapters were always from the Psalms, where there is so much of
grand and glowing poetry. It was a fine diet for such a child as he, or,
indeed, for any child; and he attributes his taste for the grand things
in literature to his early knowledge of the matchless poetry of the
Bible. Doubtless it gave also that devotional bent to his mind which has
been one of his many striking characteristics through life. He is as
essentially religious as one of the old Hebrew prophets, and has brought
forward his religious precepts in season and out of season ever since he
began to write.

He was taken on his travels when but a boy, and saw many of the beauties
of Europe before he went to Oxford. He made acquaintance at that early
age with most of the beautiful buildings about which he has since
written so eloquently. The old Gothic buildings pleased him most of
all,--even the rugged Gothic of the North. He spent much time in Italy
and in Switzerland, which he says is a country to be visited and not
lived in. He thinks that such sublimity of scenery should only be looked
upon reverently, and that those who view it habitually lose their
reverence, and, indeed, do not appreciate it at any time.

At Oxford he produced a prize poem; but he has never been heard of as a
poet since, although there is more of poetry in his prose than in the
verse of many of his contemporary poetical brethren, and if any man of
his time has been endowed with the true poetic temperament, it is surely
he.

His constitution has always been feeble, and he can bear no excitement,
and has been known to sink into such exhaustion from a little
over-tension of the nerves that it has been very difficult to bring him
back to consciousness.

A person of this nature was probably very romantic in his youth, and he
fell very violently in love with a Scottish lady when quite young. He
says that never having been indulged with much affection in youth, or
been allowed to bestow a great deal even upon his parents, when in later
life love did