hou art my father," and to the
worm, "Thou art my mother and my sister." They dealt largely in graves
and corpses, and the loves of skeletons, and the sweet virtues of sin,
and the joys of despair and dyspepsia. They taught that there is no
truth but paradox. Mr. Blanchet read his contributions with great
effect: in a voice now wailing, now threatening, now storming fiercely,
now creeping along in tones of the lowest hoarseness. What amazed Minola
was, to find that any man could have so little sense of the ridiculous
as to be able to go through such a performance in a small room before
three people. In a crowd there might be courage; but before three! It
was wonderful. She felt horribly inclined to laugh; but the gleaming
eyes of the poet alighted on hers and fastened them every now and then;
and poor Mary too, she knew, was watching her.

It was very trying to her. She endeavored to fill her mind with serious
and sad thoughts; and she could not keep herself from thinking of the
scene in Richter's "Flegeljahre" where the kin of the eccentric testator
are trying in fierce rivalry who shall be the first to shed a tear for
his loss, in presence of the notary and the witnesses, and thereby earn
the legacy to which that exasperating condition was attached. After all
it is probably easier to restrain a laugh than to pump up a tear,
especially when the coming of the tear must bring the drying glow of a
glad success with it. Minola's condition was bearable; and indeed, when
she saw the genuine earnestness of the poet, her inclination to laugh
all died away, and she became filled with pity and pain. Then she tried
hard to admire the verses, and could not. At first the conceits and
paradoxes were a little startling, and even shocking, and they made one
listen. But the mind soon became attuned to them and settled down, and
was stirred no more. Once you knew that Mr. Blanchet liked corpses, his
peculiarity became of no greater interest than if his liking had been
for babies. When it was made clear that what other people called
hideousness he called beauty, it did not seem to matter much more than
honest Faulconbridge's determination, if a man's name be John, to call
him Peter.

The poet sometimes closed his eyes for a minute together, and pressed
his hand upon his brow, while drops of perspiration stood distinctly on
his livid forehead. But he took breath again, and went on. He evidently
thought his audience could not have enough