My Dreams Were All My Own; I

The Modern Masters Promise Very Little

It Is A Strange Feeling For A Girl When First She Finds The Power Put Into Her Hand Of Influencing The Destiny Of Another To Happiness Or Misery. She Is Like A Magician Holding For The First Time A Fairy Wand, Not Having Yet Had Experience Of Its Potency.

The Day Of My Departure At Length Arrived. Clerval Spent The Last Evening With Us. He Had Endeavoured To Persuade His Father To Permit Him To Accompany Me And To Become My Fellow Student, But In Vain. His Father Was A Narrow-minded Trader, And Saw Idleness And Ruin In The Aspirations And Ambition Of His Son. Henry Deeply Felt The Misfortune Of Being Debarred From A Liberal Education. He Said Little, But When He Spoke I Read In His Kindling Eye And In His Animated Glance A Restrained But Firm Resolve Not To Be Chained To The Miserable Details Of Commerce.

I Also Became A Poet, And For One Year Lived In A Paradise Of My Own Creation; I Imagined That I Also Might Obtain A Niche In The Temple Where The Names Of Homer And Shakespeare Are Consecrated.

Allow Me Now To Return To The Cottagers, Whose Story Excited In Me Such Various Feelings Of Indignation, Delight, And Wonder, But Which All Terminated In Additional Love And Reverence For My Protectors (for So I Loved, In An Innocent, Half Painful Self-deceit, To Call Them).