Sensitive, soon he was wounded to death.

After a week of sleeplessness, he arose one morning to find a bright red spot upon his handkerchief.

"That is arterial blood," said he; "that drop is my death-warrant; I shall die." And so, when he was one-and-twenty, friends lifted above the boy's dust a marble slab, upon which was written: "Here lies one whose name was writ in water." Now his name shines like a star, while low down and bespattered with mud are the names of those whose cruel criticisms helped to kill the boy and whose only claim to immortality is their brutality.
Witness also the contempt our age once visited upon Browning, whose mind is slowly becoming recognized as one of the rich-gold minds of our century.

Witness the sport over Ruskin's "Munera Pulveris," and the scornful reception given Carlyle's "Sartor Resartus." Now that a few years have passed, those who once reviled are teaching their children the pathway to the graves of the great.

The harshness of the world's treatment of its greatest teachers makes one of the most pathetic chapters in history.