monomania; when you think because Heaven has denied you this or that on
which you had set your heart that all your life must be a blank,--oh!
then diet yourself well on biography, the biography of good and great
men. See how little a space one sorrow really makes in life. See
scarce a page, perhaps, given to some grief similar to your own; and how
triumphantly the life sails on beyond it! You thought the wing was
broken! Tut, tut, it was but a bruised feather! See what life leaves
behind it when all is done!--a summary of positive facts far out of the
region of sorrow and suffering, linking themselves with the being of the
world. Yes, biography is the medicine here! Roland, you said you would
try my prescription,--here it is;" and my father took up a book and
reached it to the Captain.

My uncle looked over it,--"Life of the Reverend Robert Hall."

"Brother, he was a Dissenter; and, thank Heaven! I am a Church-and-
State man to the backbone!"

"Robert Hall was a brave man and a true soldier under the Great
Commander," said my father, artfully.

The Captain mechanically carried his forefinger to his forehead in
military fashion, and saluted the book respectfully.

"I have another copy for you, Pisistratus,--that is mine which I have
lent Roland. This, which I bought for you to-day, you will keep."

"Thank you, sir," said I listlessly, not seeing what great good the
"Life of Robert Hall" could do me, or why the same medicine should suit
the old weather-beaten uncle and the nephew yet in his teens.