I do not ask pardon for what there is of untruth in such verses, considered strictly as matters of fact.

It is enough if, being true and consistent in spirit, they move and teach in a manner not unworthy of a Poet's calling.
431.

*_Personal Talk_.

[XIII.] Written at Town-End.

The last line but two stood at first, better and more characteristically, thus: 'By my half-kitchen and half-parlour fire.' My sister and I were in the habit of having the teakettle in our little sitting-room; and we toasted the bread ourselves, which reminds me of a little circumstance not unworthy of being set down among these minutiae.
Happening both of us to be engaged a few minutes one morning, when we had a young prig of a Scotch lawyer to breakfast with us, my dear sister, with her usual simplicity, put the toasting-fork with a slice of bread into the hands of this Edinburgh genius.