Coleridge's Ancient Mariner (he himself was very fond of that poem),
and many other things, and I cannot overestimate the good they did me.
His talks to me during our walks gave me, under the guise of
pleasantry, not so much specific information concerning things (though
that was not wanting), but--character; that is, the questions he put
to me, the remarks and comments he made, the stories he told, were all
calculated to give me a high idea of human duties and aspirations; to
encourage generosity, charity, courage, patriotism, and independence.
From the reading of The Faerie Queene and of Don Quixote I conceived a
vehement infatuation for mediaeval chivalry and knight-errantry; I
adopted the motto of the order, "Be faithful, brave, and true in deed
and word"; and I indulged in waking dreams of heroic adventures in
quest of fair renown, and to succor the oppressed. All this he
encouraged and abetted, though always, too, with a sort of twinkle of
the eye, lest I should take myself too seriously and wax priggish. He
permitted me to have a breastplate and a helmet with a golden dragon
crest (made by our nurse out of pasteboard covered with tinsel-paper),
and he bought me a real steel sword with a brass hilt wrought in
open-work; I used to spend hours polishing it, and picturing to myself
the giants and ogres I would slay with it. Finally--with that
humorous arching of the eyebrow of his--he bade me kneel down, and
with my sword smote me on the shoulder, and dubbed me knight, saying,
"Rise up, Sir Julian!" It was worth many set moral homilies to me. He
knew the advantage of leading a boy to regard the practice of boyish
and manly virtues not as a burden but as a privilege and boon, and of
making the boy's own conscience his judge. His handling of the matter
was, of course, modified so as to reach the inner springs of my
particular nature and temperament, which he thoroughly understood.
Withal, he never failed to hold up to ridicule anything showing a
tendency to the sentimental; he would test me on this point in various