They are simple, picturesque, robust. Their moral is not forced, nor
is the truth veiled with a well-meant but sure-to-fail hypocrisy.
Sometimes they are not moral at all,--only free plays of the fancy
and intellect. These, also, the child needs, just as the infant needs
to stretch its limbs, and grasp at objects it cannot hold. We have
become so fond of the moral, that we forget the nature in which it
must find its root; so fond of instruction, that we forget development.
Where ballads, legends, fairy-tales, are moral, the morality is
heart-felt; if instructive, it is from the healthy common sense of
mankind, and not for the convenience of nursery rule, nor the "peace
of schools and families."
O, that winter, freezing, snow-laden winter, which ushered in our
eighth birthday! There, in the lonely farm-house, the day's work done,
and the bright woodfire all in a glow, we were permitted to slide back
the panel of the cupboard in the wall,--most fascinating object still
in our eyes, with which no stateliest alcoved library can vie,--and
there saw, neatly ranged on its two shelves, not--praised be our natal
star!--_Peter Parley_, nor a History of the Good Little Boy who
never took anything that did not belong to him; but the
_Spectator_, _Telemachus_, _Goldsmith's Animated
Nature_, and the _Iliad_.
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