THE EAGLE AND THE CANARY 



One week-day morning, following a crowd of 

 well-dressed people, I presently found myself in a 

 large church or chapel, where I spent an hour 

 very pleasantly, listening to a great man's pulpit 

 eloquence. He preached about genius. The sub- 

 ject was not suggested by the text, nor did it 

 have any close relation with the other parts of 

 his discourse; it was simply a digression, and, to 

 my mind, a very delightful one. He began about 

 the restrictions to which we are all more or less 

 subject, the aspirations that are never destined 

 to be fulfilled, but are mocked by life's brevity. 

 And it was at this point that — probably thinking 

 of his own case — he branched off into the subject 

 of genius; and proceeded to show that a man 

 possessing that divine quality finds existence a 



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