h of a novel, but the notes were full of amazing Egyptian
mysteries, which seemed quite as splendid as the machinery in the
"Arabian Nights." The notes to "Lalla Rookh" smelled of roses, and I
remember as a labour of love copying out all the allusions to roses in
these notes with the intention of writing about them when I grew up. My
mother objected to the translations from Anacreon; she said they were
"improper"; but my father said that he had been assured on competent
authority that they were "classic," and of course that settled it. There
was no story in them, and they seemed to me to be stupid.

Just about this time, one of the book auctions yielded up a copy of the
"Complete Works of Miss Mitford." You perhaps can imagine how a city
boy, who was allowed to spend two weeks each year at the most on the
arid New Jersey seacoast, fell upon "Our Village." It became an
incentive for long walks, in the hope of finding some country lanes and
something resembling the English primroses. I read and reread "Our
Village" until I could close my eyes at any time and see the little
world in which Miss Mitford lived. I tried to read her tragedy, "The Two
Foscari." A tragedy had a faint interest; but, being exiled to the attic
for some offense against the conventionalities demanded of a
Philadelphia child, with no book but Miss Mitford's, I spent my time
looking up all the references to roses in her tragedies. These I
combined with the knowledge acquired from Tom Moore, and made notes for
a paper to be printed in some great periodical in the future. Why roses?
Why Miss Mitford and roses? Why Tom Moore and roses? I do not know,
but, when I was sixteen years of age, I printed the paper in _Appleton's
Journal_, where it may still be found. My parents, who did not look on
my literary attempts, at the expense of mathematics, with favour,
suggested that I was a plagiarist, but as I had no time to look up the
meaning of the word in the dictionary, I let it go. It simply struck me
as one of those evidences of misunderstanding which every honest artist
must be content to accept.

My mother, evidently fearing the influence of "classical" literature,
gave me one day "The Parent's Assistant," by Miss Edgeworth. I think
that it was in this book that I discovered "Rosamond; or The Purple Jar"
and the story of the good boy or girl who never cut the bit of string
that tied a package; I sedulously devoted myself to the imitation of
this economic ch