ic effect are destroyed; and
as to the moral, no safe conclusion for conduct can be drawn from
any circumstances which have not frequently happened, and which are
not likely often to recur. In proportion as events are
extraordinary, they are useless or unsafe as foundations for
prudential reasoning.

'Besides all this, there are usually some small concurrent
circumstances connected with extraordinary facts, which we like and
admit as evidences of the truth, but which the rules of composition
and taste forbid the introducing into fiction; so that the writer is
reduced to the difficulty either of omitting the evidence on which
the belief of reality rests, or of introducing what may be contrary
to good taste, incongruous, out of proportion to the rest of the
story, delaying its progress or destructive of its unity. In short,
it is dangerous to put a patch of truth into a fiction, for the
truth is too strong for the fiction, and on all sides pulls it
asunder.'

To live with Edgeworth must have been to enjoy a constant mental
stimulus; he could not bear his companions to use words without
attaching ideas to them; he did not want talk to consist of a fluent
utterance of second-hand thoughts, but always encouraged the
expression of genuine opinion.

To show how willing Edgeworth was to help a child in understanding a
word which was new to it, I will quote from one of his letters to
Maria:

'Give my love to little F, and tell her that I had not time to
explain a section to her. I therefore beg that, with as little
explanation as possible, you will bisect a lemon before her, and
point out the appearance of the rind, of the cavities, and seeds;
and afterwards, at your leisure, get a small cylinder of wood turned
for her, and cut it into a transverse section and into a
longitudinal section.'

It is curious to note the difference in tone which there is between
the children's books written by him and Maria and those of the
second half of the nineteenth century. Our duty to our neighbour is
the Edgeworth watchword, while our duty to God is the watchword of
Miss Yonge and her school of writers. The swing of the pendulum is
constantly passing from morality to religion and back again, because
both are required for the perfect life.

Among the experiments which Edgeworth made in the management of his
children was that: 'Formerly' (Maria writes)' from having observed
how apt children are to dispute and quarrel when they are left