habits of unrestrained intercourse, the
indulgence of petty selfishness not acknowledged to ourselves,--these
are seeds of evil quick to germinate in a virgin soil. No iteration of
pedagogical maxims can annul the influence of some little mean or
graceless act. Let every parent take heed lest, through his own weakness
and folly, he lose the divine privilege of obedience through confidence.
In the world, obedience through discipline must indeed come; but let it
be unknown in the family as long as it may. And of "mouth-religion" what
fatal abundance! To a child, it is no more than the creaking and
rattling of a vehicle, which is of a certain worth, doubtless, to the
weary, sinful adult,--but to one who feels his life in every limb,
incomprehensible, and an offence. Of the vulgar superstition which would
confuse the nursery with creeds and vain prayer-repetitions of the
heathen there is far too much. We have known parents, reputed pious and
church-going, who delighted to pour crushing enigmas into infant ears,
and then to make a sorry household jest of the feeble one's grotesque
attempts to extend or limit the Unspeakable. As the highest concerns of
man can be known only by the spirit, so they can be taught only by the
spirit. It is not the words we repeat, but the temper in which we daily
live, that moulds the family to honor or dishonor. It is the spirit of
the father and mother which produces results mistaken for intuitions by
the superficial. And, truly, youth, thus warmly rooted in generosity and
nobility, will, in its own good time, stretch tender leaves up to the
Higher Light. And when Nature is ready for worship, mark how wisely
Richter directs it:--"The sublime is a step to the temple of religion,
as the stars are to that of infinity. Let the name of God be heard by
the child in connection with all that is great in Nature,--the storm,
the thunder, the starry heavens, and death,--a great misfortune,--a
great piece of good-fortune,--a great crime,--a greatly noble action:
these are the sites on which to build the wandering church of
childhood."

In conclusion, we can only repeat, that the greatest charm of "Levana"
is its suggestion of a possible household, from what the reader feels
was once an actual household. The cheap sentimentalism of parental
relations has often been a favorite property with men of imaginative
genius. Rousseau and Byron knew how to use it as a fictitious background
before which they might pos