3. Do you gain from the whole selection the idea that all lies,
even the polite lies of society and the common and apparently
harmless lies of business life, are always and wholly wrong?

FOOTNOTES:

[406-1] _The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table_ is the most famous and the
best of the prose works of Oliver Wendell Holmes. It consists of a
series of rambling talks on a great variety of subjects, addressed to
the people who sit at his table in a boarding house. Holmes himself is
the "Autocrat," and his sparkling talks are full of wit and wisdom.
Among those who regularly sit at the Autocrat's table is a schoolboy,
whom he calls Benjamin Franklin, and to whom he tells this beautiful
story of the Cubes of Truth.

[406-2] When the old Greek hero, Hercules, was a youth, and nearing
manhood, two women appeared to him, both offering beautiful gifts. One
of the women was Duty, the other Pleasure. Hercules chose to accept the
gifts of Duty and to follow her. The opportunity to make this choice did
not come till he was old enough to understand. In Holmes' beautiful
allegory the cubes and spheres are presented long before that time, even
in early childhood.

[407-3] The schoolmistress is one of the most lovable of the characters
introduced by Mr. Holmes into _The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table_. At
first she appears only at intervals, but in the book her love story and
her marriage to the Autocrat afford the chief interest.

THE LOST CHILD

_By_ JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

I wandered down the sunny glade
And ever mused, my love, of thee;
My thoughts, like little children, played,
As gayly and as guilelessly.

[Illustration: DOWN THE SUNNY GLADE]

If any chanced to go astray,
Moaning in fear of coming harms,
Hope brought the wanderer back alway,
Safe nestled in her snowy arms.

From that soft nest the happy one
Looked up at me and calmly smiled;
Its hair shone golden in the sun,
And made it seem a heavenly child.

Dear Hope's blue eyes smiled mildly down.
And blest it with a love so deep,
That, like a nursling of her own,
It clasped her neck and fell asleep.

[Illustration]

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

_By_ GRACE E. SELLON

Down the street, about a mile from the center of Cambridge,
Massachusetts, stands a square, three-story colonial dwelling house,
sheltered by pines and great English elms and surrounded by flow