uin at once. He went back to the
office and his work quite crest-fallen.

"What has happened now?" inquired James, noticing that Benjamin looked
somewhat less smiling.

"Father doesn't think much of my printing and selling verses of my
own," replied Benjamin. "He has been giving me a real lecture, so that
I am almost ashamed of myself."

"How is that," said James, "does he dislike your pieces?"

"Yes; and he will not allow that they have any merit. He read them
over in his way, and counted faults enough to show that there is very
little poetry in me. A beggar and a poet mean about the same thing to
him."

"He ought to remember that you are young," answered James, "and may
improve wonderfully in future. You can't expect to write either prose
or poetry well without beginning and trying."

"All the trying in the world can do nothing for me, I should judge
from father's talk," added Benjamin, rather seriously.

Perhaps it was a good thing for Benjamin to meet with this obstacle in
his path to success. According to his own confession, his vanity was
inflated by the sale of his ballads, and he might have been puffed up
to his future injury, had not his father thus unceremoniously taken
the wind out of his sails. There was little danger now, however.
After such a severe handling, he was not likely to overrate his
poetical talents. It had the effect also to turn his attention to
prose writing, which is more substantial and remunerative than poetry,
and in this he became distinguished, as we shall see hereafter.

The practice of writing down one's thoughts, called in our schools
"composition," is excellent, and ought not to be so generally
neglected by the young as it is. It proved a valuable exercise to
Benjamin, even before he became renowned in the service of his
country. In several instances, while he was yet a youth, it enabled
him to secure business, when otherwise he might have been in extreme
want. It gave him the ability to conduct his brother's paper, when
only sixteen years of age, at a time when the government of the
Province incarcerated James, so that the paper would have been crushed
but for the ability of Benjamin. When he first commenced business in
Philadelphia, also, it enabled him to produce articles for the
"Pennsylvania Gazette," which attracted general notice, and opened the
way for his becoming both proprietor and editor of the same. And a
little later he was able to write a pamphlet on the "_Na