“Not that I was unfeeling to my dear mother, for I loved her devotedly in my wilful worldly way.  It was for her sake that I had been so vexed by the poverty into which my father’s death had plunged us.  For her sake I worried her, by grumbling before her at our narrow lodgings and lost comforts.  For her sake, child, in my madness, I wasted the hours in which I might have soothed, and comforted, and waited on her, in dreaming of wild schemes for making myself famous and rich, and giving her back all and more than she had lost.  For her sake I fancied myself pouring money at her feet, and loading her with luxuries, while she was praying for me to our common Father, and laying up treasure for herself in Heaven.

“One day I remember, when she was remonstrating with me over a bad report which the schoolmaster had given of me (he said I could work, but wouldn’t), my vanity overcame my prudence, and I told her that I thought some fellows were made to ‘fag,’ and some not; that I had been writing a poem in my dictionary the day that I had done so badly, and that I hoped to be a poet long before my master had composed a grammar.  I can see now her sorrowful face as, with tears in her eyes, she told me that all ‘fellows’ alike were made to do their duty ‘before GOD, and Angels, and Men.’  That it was by improving the little events and opportunities of every day that men became great, and not by neglecting them for their own presumptuous fancies.  And she entreated me to strive to do my duty, and to leave the rest with GOD.  I listened, however, impatiently to what I called a ‘jaw’ or a ‘scold,’ and then (knowing the tender interest she took in all I did) I tried to coax her by offering to read my poem.  But she answered with just severity, that what she wished was to see me a good man, not a great one; and that she would rather see my exercises duly written than fifty poems composed at the expense of my neglected duty.  Then she warned me tenderly of the misery which my conceit would bring upon me, and bade me, when I said my evening prayers, to add that prayer of King David, ’Keep Thy servant from presumptuous sins, lest they get the dominion over me.’

“Alas! they had got the dominion over me already, too strongly for her words to take any hold.  ‘She won’t even look at my poem,’ I thought, and hurried proudly from the room, banging one door and leaving another open.  And I silenced my uneasy conscience by fresh dreams of making my fortune and hers.  But the punishment came at last.  One day the doctor took me into a room alone, and told me as gently as he could what everyone but myself knew already—­my mother was dying.  I cannot tell you, child, how the blow fell upon me—­how, at first, I utterly disbelieved its truth!  It seemed impossible that the only hope of my life, the object of all my schemes and fancies, was to be taken away.  But I was awakened at last, and resolved that, GOD helping me, while she did live, I would be a better son.  I can now look back