stacles that hinder the action of
my friends and acquaintances? Am I the easy chair that gives them bodily
comfort, the good fire that dispels the cold and makes them comfortable
and free to act?

Do I try always to make everyone at ease and at home?

Am I

--tender toward the bashful?

--gentle toward those who are cold and reserved?

--merciful to those whose actions draw ridicule upon themselves?

In conversation, do I recollect those to whom I am speaking, avoid
irritating them, keep myself in the background, talk little myself and
listen attentively to them?

If I can put to myself each of the tests Cardinal Newman offers in these
few pages and can feel myself ring true under each, then may I hope to
call myself a gentleman.

_Adventures in Lilliput_

(Volume V, page 8)

In _Gulliver's Travels_ Swift has given us a wonderful work in
constructive imagination. As has been said elsewhere, the imagination
works with the ideas which are present in the mind. It creates nothing,
but it may enlarge, diminish or recombine ideas with an infinity of
form. In _Adventures in Lilliput_ Swift has used largely the reducing
power of his imagination. If he has been accurate, he has reduced
everything in the same proportion. An interesting study of this phase of
the story may be made by means of questions, which may be answered by
reading the text, or by reasoning from the facts given.

In the following exercise, questions and comments are combined in such a
way as to assist a boy or girl to verify or disprove the accuracy of
Swift's work. A similar exercise, to illustrate the opposite extreme,
may be based upon _Adventures in Brobdingnag_ (page 54). It is hoped,
too, that the questions may suggest a method for interpreting other
selections.

When Gulliver awoke and found himself bound (page 10), he felt something
alive moving on his body. Bending his eyes downward as much as he could
he saw it was a human creature not six inches high. We are at liberty to
suppose that Gulliver was a man of ordinary height, that is to say, not
six feet high. If the Lilliputian was "not six inches high," what was
the ratio of height between Gulliver and his miniature captors? If,
then, Gulliver is twelve times the size of one of his captors, we have a
standard of comparison.

How long a bow would a man use? How long would be the arrow that fitted
that bow? How long would the bows and arrows of the Lilliputians be?
Would an arrow th