The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-06-16
BOOBIES AND NE'ER-DO-
 WELLS.
Lippincott,s Magazine for June.

The opinions of friends and neigh bors as to mans powers are rarely of any value. Sometimes they ridicu- lously overrate him and push some donkey forward into a conspicuous position where the length of his ears, as defined against the background of the horizon, may be accurately and publicly ascertained. But more fre- quently-and especially in the case of a man of real genius-they are in- clined to undervalue one whom they have come to regard as one of them selves.
 Montaigne tells us in his "Essays'' that his attempt to become an author was laughed at in his own presence, and, even after he had won his fame, he found that "at home he was obliged to purchase printers, while at distance printers purchased him." Balzac's family were sarcastically in- dignant at his presuming to believe that he could write, and visited three failures with the usual exasperating "l told you so." When Swift intro- duced Parnell to Lord Bolingbroke and to the world he made this entry in the journal "It is pleasant to see one who hardly passes for nything in Ireland make his way here with a little friendly forwarding" Daniel Webster in the very height of his fame, just after his famous Bunker Hill speech, took a run down to his native village, which he had not wis., ited in so many years that he was not recognized by his former cronies. Accosting an old friend of the Web sters, he gradually, after due discus sion of the weather and the crops, turned the conversation upon his own family. Thereupon his companion burst out into enthusiastic encomiums upon the virtues and abilities of Dan- iel's elder brother, Ebenezer, who had died young and whose early death he fittingly deplorcd. Daniel slipped in modest query as to whether there was not a brother named Dan. "He never was much account" said the old gentleman, with shake of his head. "I believe he went up to Boston and became some kind of a lawyer or 'nother."
 Andersen has allegorized his own forlorn and unappreciated youth in the story of the "Ugly Duckling" which turned out to be swan. This story is a favorite with Bismarck. "I was an ugly duckling myself" he once told friend; "my poor old mother never would believe that there was any good in me-" Isaac Barrow's parents conceived so mean an opinion of his temper and parts when he was boy at the Charter house school, that his father used to say, if it pleased God to take away from him any of his children, he hoped it might be Isaac, the least promising. Adam Clarke's father was equally uncomplimentary to his own flesh and blood when he pro- claimed his son to be Ga grievous dunce." Sheridan's mother presented him to new tutor as 'an incorrigible dunce."
 Poe at West Point was a laughing stock to his schoolmates. Byron at Harrow was in no wise distinguished above his fellows. Napoleon and Wellington in their school days were distinguished only for dullness. The mother of the latter must be added to our list of complimentary parents. Arthur was good for nothing, she thought, save as food for powder. Robert Clive's family were thor oughly disgusted with him by the time he was eighteen years old. his reputation for stupidity being then only equaled by his rep- utation for general wickedness, and, gladly accepting an Indian clerkship for him, they shipped him off to Mad ras, ato make fortune CT die of B yellow fever." Goldsmith, up to the time of the publication of "The Tray- eler," was looked upon as an idiot by almost all who knew him. Afterward he was dubbed an inspired idiot. Burns was dull boy, good only at athletic exercises. Sir Humphrey Davy was by no means esteemed a brilliant boy. "While he was with me. D says his teacher, David Gilbert, q could not discern the faculties by which he was.so much distinguished. 1" And be sure that the good burghers of strstf5rd-on-Avon saw nothing in VII Shakespeare, the butchers boy, but wild harum-scaru scattar- brain, whose only chance of future <levAtion lay in the chance open to all Nguss on the gallowa Indeed, the ks< MT -, who was pastor in the