When a young fellow like him, cool and clever, makes up his mind to bring down his bird, it is no joke, but a very serious and a tolerably certain piece of business.

Not being made a fool of by any boyish nonsense,--passion and all that,--he has a great advantage.

Many a woman rejects a man because he is in love with her, and accepts another because he is not.

The first is thinking too much of himself and his emotions,--the other makes a study of her and her friends, and learns what ropes to pull.

But then it must be remembered that Murray Bradshaw had a poet for his rival, to say nothing of the brother of a bosom friend.
The qualities of a young poet are so exceptional, and such interesting objects of study, that a narrative like this can well afford to linger awhile in the delineation of this most envied of all the forms of genius.