Certain it is, at all events, that comprehension is not necessary to the appreciation of masterpieces. In an age less remote than Dr. Johnson's, although still antediluvian with respect to the now prevailing flood of juvenile literature, children often read and liked what they did not understand. There were fairy-tales, to be sure, even then, and tales popular and moral, also a few such books as "Amy Herbert" and "Laneton Parsonage," but children who were fond of reading soon had those by heart, and would then browse, perchance, in their elders' pastures, by which means it happened that one child used to derive no little satisfaction from the "True Account of the Apparition of Mrs. Veal to Mrs. Barlow." Told as it is with Defoe's inimitable circumstantiality, she was so far from understanding it as to rather more than half believe it. She knew well that ghosts at night-time, robed in white, were fabulous and never to be thought of, especially when one was alone in the dark; but a ghost that paid visits in broad daylight, dressed in bonnet and shawl like anybody else, and whose proceedings were gravely chronicled for grown persons and labelled true,—what were you to think of that? It may be remembered that when Mrs. Barlow asks Mrs. Veal any question the answering of which would seem to be inconsistent with her ghostly state, Defoe says, "However, she waived that;" and, waive not being at that time in the vocabulary of the young reader, she always imagined Mrs. Veal putting the question away from her, as it were, with a motion of her hand, and gazing the while in stony silence at Mrs. Barlow. This dramatic situation was calculated to have a certain effect upon the nerves, and in fact it was then that the profound silence of the room, accentuated by the ticking of the clock, used to seem fraught with the possibility of a ghost abroad with her visiting-list, who might presently be waiving such courtesies as even an unwilling hostess would feel constrained to offer.
Rather unhealthy reading, one would say, but yet not so bad as it sounds; for the book was no sooner shut than the whole impression dissolved, though it might be renewed at will, as it often was. It was in the same family that all the children at an early age took possession of "Oliver Twist" as a juvenile book. They wept over little Dick's farewell to Oliver, and shuddered when Nancy saw coffins, enjoying it all extremely, and taking in so little of it that it has appeared to them since as not one of the least of Dickens's glories that he could write a book about the scum of London which children may read and re-read well into their young girlhood without receiving even the shadow of an impression of any evil beyond pocket-picking and house-breaking and general hard-heartedness.
And so it might not be far from the truth to say that children can read anything. They can, and do, even now when they have a literature of their own; for persons who would be shocked at the idea of turning a child loose in an adult library, where things unsuitable might pass harmlessly over its head, think nothing of taking a book off a counter and presenting it to their little ones, they themselves knowing no more than the man in the moon what it contains, although certain that the contents, whatever they may be, will be readily assimilated by the youthful mind. Suppose simply that such a book is full of slang and bad grammar, the antediluvians had an advantage there: if you want that sort of thing to amuse children with, the language of thieves is peculiarly suitable, in so far that if ever the young people who devoured "Oliver Twist" had over among themselves any of the Dodger's and Charley Bates's racy expressions it was with a wholesome sense of its being highly improper; whereas one cannot imagine the little folk of to-day seeing any impropriety in an equally debased decoction of English—albeit somewhat more mildly drawn—when put into the mouths of children like themselves. Then, again, the ancient young people used to read Scott's and Cooper's novels, and found there much that was entirely beyond them, which they knew was only for grown persons, and therefore, though they read of love, courtship, and marriage, they remained as unsophisticated as before. But how is a child to be unsophisticated nowadays, when all these topics are manipulated for its especial benefit?—when there is a devoted boy in the story, and, in due course of time, proposal, engagement, and the wedding? In the same way one can affirm without fear of contradiction that the lads who formerly enjoyed pirates and Red Rovers from their parents' book-shelves had a healthier mental food than those who at present are provided with Rovers of their own, carefully adapted to their mental capacity, in the shape of small boys who meet the world single-handed and make their way to fame and fortune. Then, finally, were not the kings and courtiers, the Crusaders and Saracens, the Indians and pioneers of former days better training for the imagination than descriptions of picnics, skating-parties, and children's balls, enlivened with such small squabbles or adventures as are incident thereto? Realism has invaded even the children's department, and to that extent that there seems to be nothing left for fancy but to go off on a tangent in frantic imitation of Jules Verne or feeble copies of "Alice in Wonderland."
Of course this is not to deny that there are gems in children's literature which they may be thankful to possess and we may be glad to share with them: indeed, the foregoing observations should be taken simply to the effect that there is room for a choice among juvenile books, and very little choosing. We started out with the happy idea that reading-lessons cost nothing, and are come round to the conviction that it is a pity they are not expensive, that there is not some one who, for a consideration, would take the children in hand,—not only those who are expected to read by and by, but also the born readers,—and, through a judicious selection of what is within their range, gradually educate them up to a correct literary taste. For there is something sadder even than being totally unable to read, and that is reading a great deal and never anything worth while. What is worth while includes, naturally, much besides novels; but, then, a person who appreciates a good novel usually reads other good things; and, at all events, children must begin with fiction, and, even were they to end there, that this should be excellent of its kind is a step in the right direction. It would not be a bad aim to have in view that they should come by degrees to a just appreciation of Thackeray and his compeers. And where parents are unwilling—or, by reason of being themselves no readers, unable—to plan a course of reading to that effect, why, in all seriousness, should they not place the matter in the hands of some sound-minded family counsellor, who would thenceforward look after the children's literary taste, as the dentist looks after their teeth?
That would put an end to the singular anomaly by which parents, who doubtless mean to guard their sons and daughters from evil society as they would from the plague, know, as a matter of fact, nothing at all of their inmost companions. When the novel-devouring period is reached, this is especially remarkable: a mother may then look at her young daughter sitting apart, silent, entranced, drinking in what she takes for the true philosophy of life from some romance of modern society which has been recommended to her as "splendid" by the girls at school, and find no more appropriate reflection to make upon this spectacle than that "Mary is never so happy as when she is buried in a book." But one imagines the family counsellor, under similar circumstances, interesting himself or herself to discover what sort of a book it is that Mary is buried in, and, if it should prove to be a tissue of false sentiment, false pathos, and even false morals from beginning to end, directing her attention to that fact, and giving her as an antidote something which, whether grave or gay, amusing or affecting, should be written in good English and in sound taste.
Grace H. Peirce.
MITHRA.
What comes with sound of stately trumpets pealing,
With flash of torches, flaring out the stars?
What majesty, what splendor slow revealing,
What mystery through the night's unfolding bars,
In gloom, cloud-multiform, delaying long,
Bursts into flower of flame and shower of song?
What march of multitudes in rhythmic motion,
What thunder of innumerable feet,
What mighty diapasons like the ocean,
Reverberating turbulently sweet
Through far dissolving silences, are blown
Worldward upon the winds' low monotone?
The mountains hear the warning and awaken,
In hushed processional issuing from the night,
Like Druid priests with mystic white robes shaken,
Communing in some immemorial rite:
Round their old brows burns what pale augury,
What benison, what ancient prophecy?
The sea has heard; through all its caverns under
Whither its giant broods have fled dismayed,
There goes a voice of wailing and of wonder:
"He comes, with gleaming spears and ranks arrayed,
And clang of chariot-wheels, and fire of spray:
We hear, we fear, we tremble and obey."
The earth has heard it, and, arising breathless,
Sets wide her doors and leans with beckoning palms
Over the quickening east: "Resistless, deathless
Father of worlds and lord of storms and calms,
Thou at whose will the seasons bloom and fail,
Dispenser and destroyer, hail, all hail!"
What are these prophecies and preludes golden,
Legends of light, and clarions that blow?
What is this secret of the skies, long holden
In star-girt solitudes, disclosing now?
'Tis manifest—'tis here; the doubt is done:
The day-heart leaps and throbs—behold the sun!
Charles L. Hildreth.