the surf rolling in incessantly upon the beach, and infinitely the smallest
part of the effect is the day's gratification which you have given her.
That is comparatively nothing. You have made a life-long change, if not in
the very structure, at least in the permanent furnishing of her mind, and
performed a work that can never by any possibility be undone. The images
which have been awakened in her mind, the emotions connected with them, and
the effect of these images and emotions upon her faculties of imagination
and conception, will infuse a life into them which will make her, in
respect to this aspect of her spiritual nature, a different being as long
as she lives.

_The Nature and Origin of general Ideas_.

It is the same substantially in respect to all those abstract and general
ideas on moral or other kindred subjects which constitute the mental
furnishing of the adult man, and have so great an influence in the
formation of his habits of thought and of his character. They are chiefly
formed from combinations of the impressions made in childhood. A person's
idea of justice, for instance, or of goodness, is a generalization of the
various instances of justice or goodness which ever came to his knowledge;
and of course, among the materials of this generalization those instances
that were brought to his mind during the impressible years of childhood
must have taken a very prominent part. Every story, therefore, which you
relate to a child to exemplify the principles of justice or goodness takes
its place, or, rather, the impression which it makes takes its place, as
one of the elements out of which the ideas that are to govern his future
life are formed.

_Vast Importance and Influence of this mental Furnishing,_