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 elo- 
quence. He preached about genius. The subject 
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 pro- 
ceeded to show that a man possessing that divine 
quality finds existence a much sadder affair than 
the ordinary man ; the reason being that his 
aspirations are so much loftier than those of 
other minds, the difference between his ideal and 
reality must be correspondingly greater in his case. 
K 
