oung person for
a while), who "wreaks" it, to borrow Byron's word, on conversation as
the natural outlet of his sensibilities and spiritual activities, is
likely to talk better than the poet, who plays on the instrument of
verse. A great pianist or violinist is rarely a great singer. To write
a poem is to expend the vital force which would have made one brilliant
for an hour or two, and to expend it on an instrument with more pipes,
reeds, keys, stops, and pedals than the Great Organ that shakes New
England every time it is played in full blast.

Do you mean that it is hard work to write a poem?--said the old
Master.--I had an idea that a poem wrote itself, as it were, very
often; that it came by influx, without voluntary effort; indeed, you
have spoken of it as an inspiration rather than a result of volition.

--Did you ever see a great ballet-dancer?--I asked him.

--I have seen Taglioni,--he answered.--She used to take her steps
rather prettily. I have seen the woman that danced the capstone on to
Bunker Hill Monument, as Orpheus moved the rocks by music, the Elssler
woman,--Fanny Elssler. She would dance you a rigadoon or cut a pigeon's
wing for you very respectably.

(Confound this old college book-worm,---he has seen everything!)

Well, did these two ladies dance as if it was hard work to them?

--Why no, I should say they danced as if they liked it and couldn't help
dancing; they looked as if they felt so "corky" it was hard to keep them
down.

--And yet they had been through such work to get their limbs strong and
flexible and obedient, that a cart-horse lives an easy life compared to
theirs while they were in training.

--The Master cut in just here--I had sprung the trap of a reminiscence.

--When I was a boy,--he said,--some of the mothers in our small town,
who meant that their children should know what was what as well as other
people's children, laid their heads together and got a dancing-master to
come out from the city and give instruction at a few dollars a quarter
to the young folks of condition in the village. Some of their husbands
were ministers and some were deacons, but the mothers knew what they
were about, and they did n't see any reason why ministers' and deacons'
wives' children shouldn't have as easy manners as the sons and daughters
of Belial. So, as I tell you, they got a dancing-master to come out to
our place,--a man of good repute, a most respectable man,--madam (to
the Landlad