376 THE POOR SCHOOL-BOY'S SOLILOQUY. Envied by some, admired by all, St. Leon raised his kindling eye, "Whose image never may depart,— "To one, whose love for me shall last, To one, whose love hath longer dwelt, Each guest upstarted at the word, ' And Stanley said: "We crave the name, St. Leon paused, as if he would Then bent his noble head, as though THE POOR SCHOOL-BOY'S SOLILOQUY.-FANNY Fern. "IT T is very strange my teacher never says a kind word to me. I am quite sure I say my lessons well. I hav'n't had an 'error' since I came to school, six months ago. I hav'n't been 'delinquent' or 'tardy.' I have never broken a rule. Now, there's Harry Gray, that fat boy yonder, with the dull eyes and frilled THE POOR SCHOOL-BOY'S SOLILOQUY. 377 shirt-collar, who never can say his lesson without some fellow prompts him. He comes in half an hour after school begins, and goes home an hour before it is done, and eats peanuts all the time he stays; he has all the medals; and the master is always patting him on the head, and smiling at him, and asking him 'if the room is warm enough,' and all that; I don't see through it." My dear, honest, conscientious, unsophisticated little Moses! if you only knew what a rich man Harry Gray's father is; what nice old wine he keeps in his cellar; how easy his carriage cushions are; what nice nectarines and grapes ripen in his hot-house; and how much" the Master" is comforted in his inner and outer man thereby, you'd understand how the son of such a nabob couldn't be anything but an embryo "Clay," or "Calhoun," or "Webster," though he didn't know "B from a Buzzard." Are you aware, my boy, that your clothes, though clean and neat, are threadbare and patched; that your mother is a poor widow whom nobody knows? that no 66 servant-man ever brought your satchel to school for you; that you have positively been seen carrying a loaf of bread home from the grocer's; and that "New Year's" passed by without your appropriating any of your mother's hard earnings to make" a present" to your disinterested and discriminating teacher! How can you do anything but be the dullest and stupidest boy in the school? It is a marvel to me that "the Master" condescends to hear you recite at all. Stay a bit, Moses; don't cry; hold on awhile; if your forehead tells the truth, you'll be President of the United States, bye-and-bye. Then, "the Master" (quite oblivious of Harry Gray), will go strutting round, telling all creation and his cousin that "he had the honor of first teaching your young ideas how to shoot!" Won't that be fun? Oh, I tell you, Moses, Fanny has seen some strange specimens of human nature; still she tells you (with tears in her eyes) that the Master above is "the friend of the friendless;" and you must believe it too, my little darling, and wait, and trust. 378 I FREE-LOVE. FREE-LOVE. AINT a doin' nothin' else But walkin' paths that's thorny, And now I'm left to bear the brunt Of life with Hiram Moses;- He eats an' drinks, an' works an' sleeps, But nectur's all the same to him As so much beer an' cider. I hate this way of doin' life My spiritral natur's innard sense I keep a grasping after things That's neither here nor yander, I know we'll meet in spirit yet,— And if it's true" all flesh is grass," Was greenin' in the pickle now He aint got no ideal life, An' "pivotal revolvin' SUCCESS. He don't begin to comprehend I sometimes wish my views of things To makin' bread an' punkin pies, An' then I shouldn't feel so bad I wonder when the time will come, A studyin' of the beautiful, I'll follow my vocation. 379 I SUCCESS. VICTOR HUGO. MUST say that success is a hideous thing. Its counterfeit of merit deceives men. To the mass, success has almost the same appearance as supremacy. Success; that is the theory. Prosperity supposes capacity. Win in the lottery, and you are an able man. The victor is venerated. Have but luck, and you will have the rest; be fortunate, and you will be thought great. Gilt is gold. To be a chance comer is no drawback, provided you have improved your chances. The common herd is an old Narcissus, who adores himself, and who applauds the common. That mighty genius, by which one becomes a Moses, an Eschylus, a Dante, a Michael Angelo, a Napoleon, the multitude assigns at once and by acclamation to whoever succeeds in his object, whatever it may be. Let a notary rise to be a deputy; let a sham Corneille write Tiridate; let a military Prudhomme accidentally win the decisive battle of an epoch; let an apothecary invent pasteboard soles for army shoes, and lay up, by selling this pasteboard instead of leather for the army, four hundred thousand livres in the funds; let a pack-pedlar espouse usury and accumulate seven or eight millions; let the steward of a good house become so rich on leaving service that he 380 A MODEST WIT. is made Minister of Finance;-men call that genius, just as they call the face of Mousqueton, beauty, and the bearing of Claude, majesty. They confound the radiance of the stars of heaven with the radiations which a duck's foot leaves in the mud. A MODEST WIT. SUPERCILIOUS nabob of the East Haughty, being great-purse-proud, being rich A governor, or general, at the least, I have forgotten which Had in his family a humble youth, Who went from England in his patron's suite, An unassuming boy, and in truth A lad of decent parts, and good repute. This youth had sense and spirit; But yet, with all his sense, Excessive diffidence Obscured his merit. One day, at table, flushed with pride and wine, Conceived it would be vastly fine 66 To crack a joke upon his secretary. 'Young man," he said, " by what art, craft, or trade, Did your good father gain a livelihood?"- "He was a saddler, sir," Modestus said, "And in his time was reckon'd good." "A saddler, eh! and taught you Greek, Each parasite, then, as in duty bound, |