I could not go on though the scaffold were the doom of my silence.
"What foolery is this! Give it to me." The paper was pulled from my clinging fingers.

Clearing his throat with a loud and prolonged hem,--then giving a flourish of his ruler on the desk, he read, in a tone of withering derision, the warm breathings of a child's heart and soul, struggling after immortality,--the spirit and trembling utterance of long cherished, long imprisoned yearnings.
Now, when after years of reflection I look back on that never-to-be-forgotten moment, I can form a true estimate of the poem subjected to that fiery ordeal, I wonder the paper did not scorch and shrivel up like a burning scroll.

It did not deserve ridicule.

The thoughts were fresh and glowing, the measure correct, the versification melodious.

It was the genuine offspring of a young imagination, urged by the "strong necessity" of giving utterance to its bright idealities, the sighings of a heart looking beyond its lowly and lonely destiny.