Ernest Linwood | Page 2

my bosom 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 dropped blood,--then glancing from me to the
living rows of benches with such a cold, sarcastic smile.
"What a barbarous, unfeeling monster!" perhaps I hear some one
exclaim.
No, he was not. He could be very kind and indulgent. He had been kind
and generous to me. He gave me my tuition, and had taken unwearied

pains with my lessons. He could forgive great offences, but had no
toleration for little follies. He really thought it a sinful waste of time to
write poetry in school. He had given me a subject for composition, a
useful, practical one, but not at all to my taste, and I had ventured to
disregard it. I had jumped over the rock, and climbed up to the flowers
that grew above it. He was a thorough mathematician, a celebrated
grammarian, a renowned geographer and linguist, but I then thought he
had no more ear for poetry or music, no more eye for painting,--the
painting of God, or man,--than the stalled ox, or the Greenland seal. I
did him injustice, and he was unjust to me. I had not intended to slight
or scorn the selection he had made, but I could not write upon it,--I
could not help my thoughts flowing into rhyme.
Can the stream help gliding and rippling through its flowery margins?
Can the bird help singing and warbling upward into the deep blue sky,
sending down a silver shower of melody as it flies?
Perhaps some may think I am swelling small things into great; but
incidents and actions are to be judged by their results, by their
influence in the formation of character, and the hues they reflect on
futurity. Had I received encouragement instead of rebuke, praise
instead of ridicule,--had he taken me by the hand and spoken some such
kindly words as these:--
"This is very well for a little girl like you. Lift up that downcast face,
nor blush and tremble, as if detected in a guilty act. You must not spend
too much time in the reveries of imagination, for this is a working-day
world, my child. Even the birds have to build their nests, and the coral
insect is a mighty laborer. The gift of song is sweet, and may be made
an instrument of the Creator's glory. The first notes of the lark are
feeble,