Ernest Linwood | Page 2

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, compared to his heaven-high strains. The fainter dawn precedes the risen day."
Oh! had he addressed me in indulgent words as these, who knows but that, like burning Sappho, I might have sang as well as loved? Who knows but that the golden gates of the