23. "If, instead of trusting so boldly to your good resolutions, you had
entered upon your duties with an humble mind, and resolved to _try_ to
do right,--if you had apportioned your time with some degree of
regularity,--you might have performed all that was required of you,
enjoyed all your amusements, and gratified every kindly feeling, without
a single self-reproach.
24. "As it is, you feel sensible of having failed in everything,--of
having exposed yourself to great peril, and subjected your mother to
great anxiety, simply from your disposition to loiter, when you should
labor.
25. "I trust that, in the solitude of your sick chamber, 'the still
small voice' of your many wasted hours has made itself heard, and that
hereafter you will not so utterly fail to make good use of your time."
LESSON XXXI.
_Verse, or Poetry._
1. All the lessons in this book which you have thus far read have been
in prose. I intend to give you some lessons in verse, or, as it is
sometimes, but improperly called, poetry.
2. There is a great deal of difference between verse and poetry; but as
this book is intended for those who are not quite old enough to
understand all these differences, I shall not attempt at present to
point them out to you.
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