I am told that some parents object to their children reading Fairy Tales because they are so palpably unreal and untruthful. But what is there in literature that is perfectly truthful, and exactly and really so? Even Quentin Durward never really lived, and it is doubtful if any Ulysses of flesh and blood did ever actually sail the seas. Shall these also be debarred from the reading of childhood? It is very reasonable to argue that no creation of human fancy could last as fairy tales have lasted through no one knows how many hundreds and thousands of years unless it was very good. For that which is not good and not sound must surely die, and only that which is good and sound shall last through the grinding of the ages. So I believe that parents should fill their if they would make those imaginations children's imaginations full of fairy tales strong and healthy. As for that man or woman who has not these bright and joyous things of fancy flying like golden bees through the dim recesses of his memory, I can only say that I think his or her parents must have been neglectful of the earlier training of their child, and that I am sorry for that poor soul who has lost so much. pleasure out of its life. Lines suggested by a picture of a New England landscape in winter. UNSET and shadow through the woodland grey, SUN Sunset and golden glow on russet leaves; A glint of rose that stills the passing day, The fitful wind that through bare treetops grieves! Upon the darkening air the breath of snow, The purpling phantoms of the gaunt, bare trees; Hushed in the deepening night, the charm has fled. Darkness and night on woodland solitude; Through gaunt, bare limbs where toyed the summer's breeze The fitful winds sweep on in fiercer mood, Burdened with winter's sylvan mysteries. A faint chimed rapture thrills the leaden sky, Like far-rung silver chimes, or crystal spires With a burst of weird, strange melodies. A wraith of the sombre, wintering sky, While the garlanded trees in welcome sway. And, chanting a sweet, low song to the trees, Far fling their crystal traceries To veil the gleam of her rapturous form. Far down the glen She lingering goes, And lulls the stream in her mantle of white, The Christmas Spirit of Charles W Lamb and Thackeray By John Russell Hayes HY do I love the memory of Charles Lamb and wish to be enrolled as Phil-Elia among the ever-growing band of devotees at the shrine of "Saint Charles," as Thackeray called him? I think it is because he speaks so affectionately of life's deeper happinesses,-of sun and sky and breeze, of solitary walks and summer holidays, of fair children, of ancient sun dials and old memoried gardens, of the cool aisles of country churches and the sacred quietude of Quaker meetings. These and a hundred other objects of Elia's love draw us to the man irresistibly, and sweeten every hour of reverie with images from his beloved and incomparable pages. Ah, these are the things that do most "arride and solace" your true lover of Elia! Can a writer who frankly avowed his passion for "my midnight darlings, my Folios;" whose schooling was gotten amid mediæval cloisters and in company with "S. T. C.," the inspired charity-boy to whose accents the walls of the old Grey Friars re-echoed deep and sweet intonations; who browsed at will in happy childhood upon the fair and wholesome pasturage of good old English reading;who found in books a healing influence to soothe and to abstract:-can such a writer escape the liking of any book-lover of us all? Nay, I cannot think it. That very admiration which Charles Lamb owned for the "healthy, natural mind and cheerful, innocent tone of conversation" of his delightfully quaint friend George Dyer, seems but an unconscious portrayal of Elia's own lovable qualities of heart. What a wonderfully good companion Charles Lamb must have been of a winter evening! The candlelight and fireside conversation, the innocent vanities and |