The divine spark is undying, and though circumstances may smother the flame it enkindles, it glows in the bosom with unquenchable fire.
I remember very well what the master said, instead of the imagined words I have written.
"Poetry, is it ?--or something you meant to be called by that name?
Nonsense, child--folly--moon-beam hallucination! Child! do you know that this is an unpardonable waste of time?
Do you remember that opportunities of improvement are given you to enable you hereafter to secure an honorable independence?
This accounts for your reveries over the blackboard, your indifference to mathematics, that grand and glorious science! Poetry! ha, ha! I began to think you did not understand the use of capitals,--ha, ha!" Did you ever imagine how a tender loaf of bread must feel when cut into slices by the sharpened knife?
How the young bark feels when the iron wedge is driven through it with cleaving force?
I think _I_ can, by the experience of that hour.

I stood with quivering lip, burning cheek, and panting breast,--my eyes riveted on the paper which he flourished in his left hand, pointing _at_ it with the forefinger of his right.
"He shall not go on,"-- said I to myself, exasperation giving me boldness,--"he shall not read what I have written of my mother.

I will die sooner.

He may insult _my_ poverty but hers shall be sacred, and her sorrows too." I sprang forward, forgetting every thing in the fear of hearing _her_ name associated with derision, and attempted to get possession of the manuscript.

A fly might as well attempt to wring the trunk of the elephant.
"Really, little poetess, you are getting bold.