st-rate boys, mother; and they go to sea and
study, and sail round the world, having great larks all the way."

"I have read about them, Geordie, and though they are better than the
others, I am not satisfied with these optical delusions, as I call
them. Now, I put it to you, boys, is it natural for lads from fifteen
to eighteen to command ships, defeat pirates, outwit smugglers, and
so cover themselves with glory, that Admiral Farragut invites them to
dinner, saying, 'Noble boy, you are an honour to your country!' Or,
if the hero is in the army, he has hair-breadth escapes and adventures
enough in one small volume to turn his hair white, and in the end
he goes to Washington at the express desire of the President or
Commander-in-chief to be promoted to no end of stars and bars. Even if
the hero is merely an honest boy trying to get his living, he is not
permitted to do so in a natural way, by hard work and years of patient
effort, but is suddenly adopted by a millionaire whose pocket-book he
has returned; or a rich uncle appears from sea just in the nick of time;
or the remarkable boy earns a few dollars, speculates in pea-nuts or
neckties, and grows rich so rapidly that Sinbad in the diamond valley is
a pauper compared to him. Isn't it so, boys?"

"Well, the fellows in these books are mighty lucky, and very smart, I
must say," answered Will, surveying an illustration on the open page
before him, where a small but virtuous youth is upsetting a tipsy giant
in a bar-room, and under it the elegant inscription, "Dick Dauntless
punches the head of Sam Soaker."

"It gives boys such wrong ideas of life and business; shows them so
much evil and vulgarity that they need not know about, and makes the
one success worth having a fortune, a lord's daughter, or some worldly
honour, often not worth the time it takes to win. It does seem to me
that some one might write stories that should be lively, natural and
helpful tales in which the English should be good, the morals pure, and
the characters such as we can love in spite of the faults that all may
have. I can't bear to see such crowds of eager little fellows at the
libraries reading such trash; weak, when it is not wicked, and totally
unfit to feed the hungry minds that feast on it for want of something
better. There! my lecture is done; now I should like to hear what you
gentlemen have to say," and Aunt Jessie subsided with a pretty flush on
the face that was full of motherly an