"In respectable and cultivated French society, at the time of which we
speak, the amusements, not merely of young people but of their elders
as well, were every whit as crude.

"Madame Celnart, a recognized authority on etiquette, compiled in 1830
a very curious complete manual of society games recommending them as
recreation for _business men_.... 'Their varying movement,' she
says, 'their diversity, the gracious and gay ideas which these games
inspire, the decorous caresses which they permit, all this combines
to give real amusement. These caresses can alarm neither modesty
nor prudence, since a kiss in honor given and taken before numerous
witnesses is often an act of propriety.'"

The old ballads and nursery rhymes doubtless had much of innocence and
freshness in them, but they only come to us nowadays tainted by the
odors of city streets. The pleasure and poetry of the original essence
are gone, and vulgarity reigns triumphant. If you listen to the words
of the games which children play in school yards, on sidewalks, and in
the streets on pleasant evenings, you will find that most of them,
to say the least, border closely on vulgarity; that they are utterly
unsuitable to childhood, notwithstanding that they are played with
great glee; that they are, in fine, common, rude, silly, and boorish.
One can never watch a circle of children going through the vulgar
inanities of "Jenny O'Jones," "Say, daughter, will you get up?" "Green
Gravel," or "Here come two ducks a-roving," without unspeakable
shrinking and moral disgust. These plays are dying out; let them die,
for there is a hint of happier things abroad in the air.

The wisest mind of wise antiquity told the riddle of the Sphinx, if