The Forrest City times., 1895-05-03
MY COUSIN MARY.

At was my sad fortune, from earliest boyhood up, to be failure in all ways. was not so handsome as could have been expected in the son of my beauti- ful mother and the young father who died before 1 was born, and who was also beautiful, was told. I was not brilliant, though both sides of the house showed men and women cf ex- cellent ability, and. worst of all, was not good, though this puzzled me not a little as child, for my intentions were of a magnificent order, and the result ant behavior not nearly so reprehensi- ble as that of many boys knew, less punished.
 But, in some way, the things l meant to do failed of accomplishment, or were found, when accomplished, to have most unhappy consequences; and the things l did under pressure of disci- pline were seldom satisfactory
 Years of reproof and often overheard complaint as to my trying disposition finally convinced me of my unworthi- ness, and in time grew to look at my life as failure, merely an opportunity for as much self-indulgence as.could be procured without too great expense.
 Being of a lazy and luxurious dispo- sition, I early fell into the habit of de- irving an inexhaustible fund of pleas ure from mere imagination of what things might be; to console myself for intellectual struggle to make them such. As little boy I was sent to bed with military precision by my infexible mother, usually with sense of failure and ill-doing in the day behind me, and l used to lie mute and still in my little chamber and make up to myself in royal bursts of imagination for the disappointments of the real life. How often, so lain, and thought to be sound asleep. l have, in spirit, not only es- tablished my preeminent virtues by series of noble acts-so easy to imagine, so difficult to perform in the gray irk- someness of everyday life-but besides this have glutted my infant soul with the sweet vengeance of magnanimity; arranging unparalleled donations and privileges to be conferred by me, me the lamentable and unworthy son, upon
 
 sweetest joy of these fair dreams was that, when should be man, my Cousin Mary, who disliked me for the disagree able boy I was, should love and marry me.
 It was a sore problem with me in those days to decide whether should indeed receive the open gratitude of my benefciaries, revelling gloriously therein; or whether, proudest height of power concealed, l should bestow all benefits in secret, and yet remain con- demned and criticised by the unwit- ting recipients of my bounty. But my Cousin Mary in these dreams always loved me for myself alone, and then afterward-ah. the jewels I showered upon her.
 This habit of internally satisfying myself, of paying back in triumphant magnanimity for all ''the stings and arrows of outrageous fortune" contin- ued with me as grew, and remained my best consolation after had become an unaspiring reporter on great news paper. And still in my solitary cham Der downtown, when I was not so tired as to sleep perforce in what hours re- mained to me, would console myself for all the modification of the day and of all the other days in my unhappy memory. by proud, unhampered visions of what would do under given condi- tions of wealth and power.
 Splendid conditions these, so easily imagined, fitting so smoothly to my shoulders as I planned and adapted them, but ah! so laughably impossible of attainment
 And then, all at once, by chance no stranger, to be sure, than many one l was in the daily habit of recording, there fell into my hands, not talent and beauty and power, indeed, as l had demanded in my boyish dreams. but wealth practically unbounded, such wealth as I could never of myself have