ready a tear? True enough, "we could never have loved the earth so
well if we had had no childhood in it.... What novelty is worth that
sweet monotony where everything is known and loved because it is
known?"

This autobiographical babble is excusable for one reason only.

It is in remembering what books greatly moved us in earlier days; what
books wakened strong and healthy desires, enlarged the horizon of our
understanding, and inspired us to generous action, that we get
some clue to the books with which to surround our children; and a
reminiscence of this kind becomes a sort of psychological observation.
The moment we realize clearly that the books we read in childhood and
youth make a profound impression that can never be repeated later
(save in some rare crisis of heart and soul, where a printed page
marks an epoch in one's mental or spiritual life), then we become
reinforced in our opinion that it makes a deal of difference what
children read and how they read it.

Agnes Repplier says: "It is part of the irony of life that our
discriminating taste for books should be built up on the ashes of an
extinct enjoyment."

A book is such a fact to children, its people are so alive and so
heartily loved and hated, its scenes so absolutely real! Prone on the
hearth-rug before the fire, or curled in the window seat, they forget
everything but the story. The shadows deepen, until they can read
no longer; but they do not much care, for the window looks into an
enchanted region peopled with brilliant fancies. The old garden
is sometimes the Forest of Arden, sometimes the Land of Lilliput,
sometimes the Border. The gray rock on the river bank is now the cave
of Monte Cristo, and now a castle defended by scores of armed knights
who peep one by one from the alder-bushes, while Fair Ellen and the
lovely Undine float together on the quiet stream.

For forming a truly admirable literary taste, I cannot indeed say much
in favor of my own motley collection of books just mentioned, for I
was simply tumbled in among them and left to browse, in accordance
with Charles Lamb's whimsical plan for Bridget Elia. More might have
been added, and some taken away; but they had in them a world of
instruction and illumination which children miss who read too
exclusively those books written with rigid determination down to their
level, neglecting certain old classics for which we fondly believe
there are no substitutes. You cannot always persu