Page:Books and men.djvu/111

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THE DECAY OF SENTIMENT.
101

impressed me with sorrow and indignation. I came away weeping over this death, and hating the wicked men who had brought it about. How many hours have I spent devising means for saving Louis, the queen, and the whole hapless family,—if I only had lived in their day. But after much calculating and contriving, no promising measure presented itself, and I was forced, very reluctantly, to leave the prisoners where they were. My compassion was more especially excited for the beautiful little Dauphin, the poor child pent up between walls, and unable to play in freedom. I used to carry him off in fancy, and keep him safely hidden at Cayla, and Heaven only knows the delight of running about our fields with a prince."

Here at least we see the imaginative faculty playing a vigorous and wholesome part in a child's mental training. The little solitary French girl who filled up her lonely hours with such pretty musings as these, could scarcely fail to attain that rare distinction of mind which all true critics have been so prompt to recognize and love. It was with her the natural outgrowth of an intelligence,