You see that noble oak from the window.

If the Chinese had brought it up, it would have been a tree in miniature at five years old, and at a hundred, you would have set it in a flowerpot on your table, no bigger than it was at five,--a curiosity for its maturity at one age; a show for its diminutiveness at the other.

No! the ordeal for talent is school; restore the stunted mannikin to the growing child, and then let the child, if it can, healthily, hardily, naturally, work its slow way up into greatness.

If greatness be denied it, it will at least be a man; and that is better than to be a little Johnny Styles all its life,--an oak in a pill-box." At that moment I rushed into the room, glowing and panting, health on my cheek, vigor in my limbs, all childhood at my heart.

"Oh, mamma, I have got up the kite--so high Come and see.