som casket. I had lisped in
rhyme,--I had improvised in rhyme,--I had dreamed in poetry, when the
moon and stars were looking down on me with benignant lustre;--I had
_thought_ poetry at the sunset hour, amid twilight shadows and midnight
darkness. I had scribbled it at early morn in my own little room, at
noonday recess at my solitary desk; but no human being, save my mother,
knew of the young dream-girl's poetic raptures.

One of those irresistible promptings of the spirit which all have felt,
and to which many have yielded, induced me at this era to break loose
from my shell and come forth, as I imagined, a beautiful and brilliant
butterfly, soaring up above the gaze of my astonished and admiring
companions. Yes; with all my diffidence I anticipated a scene of
triumph, a dramatic scene, which would terminate perhaps in a crown of
laurel, or a public ovation.

Lowly self-estimation is by no means a constant accompaniment of
diffidence. The consciousness of possessing great powers and deep
sensibility often creates bashfulness. It is their veil and guard while
maturing and strengthening. It is the flower-sheath, that folds the
corolla, till prepared to encounter the sun's burning rays.

"Read!"

I did read,--one stanza. I could not go on though the scaffold were the
doom of my silence.

"What foolery is this! Give it to me."

The paper was pulled from my clinging fingers. Clearing his throat with
a loud and prolonged hem,--then giving a flourish of his ruler on the
desk, he read, in a tone of withering derision, the warm breathings of a
child's heart and soul, struggling after immortality,--the spirit and
trembling utterance of long cherished, long imprisoned yearnings.

Now, when after years of reflection I look back on that
never-to-be-forgotten moment, I can form a true estimate of the poem
subjected to that fiery ordeal, I wonder the paper did not scorch and
shrivel up like a burning scroll. It did not deserve ridicule. The
thoughts were fresh and glowing, the measure correct, the versification
melodious. It was the genuine offspring of a young imagination, urged by
the "strong necessity" of giving utterance to its bright idealities, the
sighings of a heart looking beyond its lowly and lonely destiny. Ah! Mr.
Regulus, you were cruel then.

Methinks I see him,--hear him now, weighing in the iron scales of
criticism every springing, winged idea, cutting and slashing the words
till it seemed to me they dropp