GIFTS OF GENIUS: A Miscellany OF PROSE AND POETRY, BY AMERICAN AUTHORS. NEW YORK: PRINTED FOR C. A. DAVENPORT. HARVARD UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 18701 bommutation me 231 for a fine. ENTERED according to Act of Congress in the year 1859, by in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. MY SECRET. (From the French.) BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, THE BABY AND THE BOY MUSICIAN. BY LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY, 197 THE ERL-KING. (From the German of Goethe.) BY MRS. E. F. ELLET, 199 A STORY OF VENICE. BY GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS, THE TORTURE CHAMBER. BY WILLIAM ALLEN BUtler, TO THE PUBLIC. Ar the desire of MISS DAVENPORT, for whose benefit this collection of original Miscellanies by American authors has been made, I write this brief Preface, without having had time to read the contributions which it is designed to introduce. The names of the writers, however, many of which are among the most distinguished in our literature, and are honored wherever our language is spoken, will suffice to recommend the volume to the attention of the reading world. If this were not enough, an inducement of another kind is to be found in the circumstances of the lady in whose behalf the contents of this volume have been so freely contributed. A few years since, she was a teacher in our schools, active, useful, and esteemed for her skillful communication of knowledge. At that time it was one of her favorite occupations to make sketches and drawings from nature, an art in which she instructed her pupils. A severe illness interrupted her duties, during which her sight became impaired, and finally losvenportind of twilight came over it, which gradually darke Sheto utter night, shutting out the face of nature in which she had so much delighted, and leaving her, without |