discretion; and when he read to her she was wont, he says, to make him
"pause upon those passages which expressed generous and worthy
sentiments"--a most happy method of education, and a most effective one
in the case of an impressionable boy. A little later, when he passed
from the educational care of his mother to that of a tutor, his
relations to literature changed, as the following passage from his
autobiography will show: "My tutor thought it almost a sin to open a
profane play or poem; and my mother had no longer the opportunity to
hear me read poetry as formerly. I found, however, in her dressing-room,
where I slept at one time, some odd volumes of Shakespeare; nor can I
easily forget the rapture with which I sat up in my shirt reading them
by the light of a fire in her apartment, until the bustle of the family
rising from supper warned me that it was time to creep back to my bed,
where I was supposed to have been safely deposited since 9 o'clock."
This is a suggestive, as well as frank, story. Supposing for a moment
that instead of Shakespeare the room had contained some of the volumes
of verse and romance which, though denying alike the natural and the
supernatural virtues, are to be found in many a Christian home, how
easily might he have suffered a contamination of mind.


DOMESTIC LOVE AND SOCIAL DUTY.


It has been proudly said of Sir Walter as an author that he never forgot
the sanctities of domestic love and social duty in all that he wrote;
and considering how much he did write, and how vast has been the
influence of his work on mankind, we can scarcely overestimate the
importance of the fact. Yet it might have been all wrecked by one little
parental imprudence in this matter of books. And what excuse is there,