more tragic because never sounded. Sam had learning, diligence,
piety, a completely honest mind; he had never caused her an hour's
reasonable anxiety; only--to this eldest son she had not transmitted
his father's genius, that one divine spark which the Epworth
household claimed for its sons as a birthright. An exorbitant, a
colossal claim! Yet these Wesleys made it as a matter of course.
Did the father know that one of his sons had disappointed it?
Sam knew, at any rate; and Sam's mother knew; and each, aware of the
other's knowledge, tried pitifully to ignore it.

Matthew Wesley bounced from his chair, unlocked the glazed doors of a
bookcase behind him and pulled forth a small volume.

"Here you have it, sir, '_Maggots: by a Scholar_'--that's my brother.
'_Poems on Several Subjects never before Handled,_'--that's the man
all over. You may wager that if any man of sense had ever hit on
these subjects, my brother had never come within a mile of 'em.
Listen: 'The Grunting of a Hog,' 'To my Gingerbread Mistress,'
'A Box like an Egg,' 'Two Soldiers killing one another for a Groat,'
'A Pair of Breeches,' 'A Cow's Tail'--there's titles for you!
Cow's tail, indeed! And here, look you, is the author's portrait for
a frontispiece, with a laurel-wreath in his hair and a maggot in
place of a parting! 'Maggots'! He began with 'em and he'll end with
'em. Maggots!" He slammed the two covers of the book together and
tossed it across the table.

Mr. Garrett Wesley, during this tirade, had fallen back upon the
attitude of a well-bred man who has dropped in upon a painful family
quarrel and cannot well escape. He had taken his hat and stood with
his gaze for the most part fastened on the carpet, but lifted now and