, even their jaded
elders enjoyed the sparkling reflex of what they called life, as seen
by an outsider; for they were thereby enabled to feel for a moment a
slight interest in themselves objectively, along with a galvanized
sense of existence as the producers of history. These sketches did more
for the paper than the editor was willing to know or acknowledge.

But "The Firefly" produced also a little art on its own account--not
always very original, but, at least, not a sucking of life from the
labor of others, as is most of that parasitic thing miscalled
criticism. In this branch Tom had a share, in the shape of verse. A
ready faculty was his, but one seldom roused by immediate interest, and
never by insight. It was not things themselves, but the reflection of
things in the art of others, that moved him to produce. Coleridge, I
think, says of Dryden, that he took fire with the running of his own
wheels: so did Tom; but it was the running of the wheels of others that
set his wheels running. He was like some young preachers who spend a
part of the Saturday in reading this or that author, in order to _get
up_ the mental condition favorable to preaching on the Sunday. He was
really fond of poetry; delighted in the study of its external elements
for the sake of his craft; possessed not only a good but cultivated ear
for verse, which is a rare thing out of the craft; had true pleasure in
a fine phrase, in a strong or brilliant word; last and chief, had a
special faculty for imitation; from which gifts, graces, and
acquirements, it came, that he could write almost in any style that
moved him--so far, at least, as to remind one who knew it, of that
style; and that every now and then appeared verses of his in "The
Firefly."

As often as this took place, Letty was in the third heaven of delight.
For was not Tom's poetry unquestionably superior to anything else the
age could produce? was the poetry Cousin Godfrey made her read once to
be compared to Tom's? and was not Tom her own husband? Happy woman she!

But, by the time at which my narrative has arrived, the first mist of a
coming fog had begun to gather faintly dim in her heart. When Tom would
come home happy, but talk perplexingly; when he would drop asleep in
the middle of a story she could make nothing of; when he would burst
out and go on laughing, and refuse to explain the motive--how was she
to avoid the conclusion forced upon her, that he had taken too much
strong