THE HERO. DR. TRUMAN was educated in the school of severe discipline. His parents, unfortunately, were led to exercise over his youthful mind an authority, whose strictness did not arise from any deficiency in that perfectly unselfish affection, proper to their endearing relationship, but from an over fondness and an anxiety which only defeated its own purpose, and would almost at times make themselves miserable. Dr. Truman, when a boy, possessed a mind which few children could boast of, and a heart generous as it was kind. The restraint which was put upon his actions at an early age, not only tended to curb, but endangered breaking his high and manly spirit. The sunshine of the bosom was overcast, the first vintage of his newly acquired senses of perception and imagination was in a manner laid waste. And how often do we find this to be the case! How many children at that epoch, which should be the happiest of human existence, when the mind is beginning to expand, are thwarted and thrust aside from their innocent desires by the caprice of their chartered elders? How many are punished and galled with the iron yoke of despotism, when advice and quiet reasoning would have been sufficient? How many noble natures blighted in their bud by the over-zealous parent or the cruel schoolmaster? Alas! we fear too many. Whoever has inquired diligently into the annals of childhood, knows well, that at that immature period of life, there are more unheeded offerings of a broken heart before the dark shrine of death, than occur after dear bought experience has convinced the majority of mankind of the futility and hollowness of this empty world. Although the mind of our hero received many a rude shock from his natural guardians, and although it bent almost to breaking, beneath the hand of the preceptor, to whose care he was consigned, still did it rise above all these disadvantages. It never succumbed in any humiliation. It never shrunk to tyranny. It proved itself equal to all inflictions. Il peut prendre son parti. Dismayed, trampled on, curbed, he yet nerved himself to endurance; with a pale smile after every rebuff, would he recover his self-complacency; and after having been struck to the heart, his spirit would rebound with an elasticity, almost indiscribable. Notwithstanding this treatment, for many years in the dawn of life, which would seem to have inferred the ruin of his intellectual energies, our noble hero grew up to manhood, gradually fulfilling in the gaze of an admiring world the rich promise of his boyhood. Among all classes was he beloved. The master spirits of the age acknowledged his superior attainments, confessed his talents and erudition, and were proud to associate with him on a system of equality. By the haughty and overbearing he was held in awe and apprehension, whilst his natural benevolence and kind feelings ever |