eat minds came to me in kindness. A moment of action in
one's self, however, is worth an age of apprehension through
others; not that our deeds are better, but that they produce
a renewal of our being. I have had more productive moments and
of deeper joy, but never hours of more tranquil pleasure than
those in which these demi-gods visited me,--and with a smile
so familiar, that I imagined the world to be full of such.
They did me good, for by them a standard was early given
of sight and thought, from which I could never go back, and
beneath which I cannot suffer patiently my own life or that of
any friend to fall. They did me harm, too, for the child
fed with meat instead of milk becomes too soon mature.
Expectations and desires were thus early raised, after which I
must long toil before they can be realized. How poor the scene
around, how tame one's own existence, how meagre and faint
every power, with these beings in my mind! Often I must cast
them quite aside in order to grow in my small way, and not
sink into despair. Certainly I do not wish that instead of
these masters I had read baby books, written down to children,
and with such ignorant dulness that they blunt the senses and
corrupt the tastes of the still plastic human being. But I do
wish that I had read no books at all till later,--that I had
lived with toys, and played in the open air. Children should
not cull the fruits of reflection and observation early, but
expand in the sun, and let thoughts come to them. They should
not through books antedate their actual experiences, but
should take them gradually, as sympathy and interpretation are
needed. With me, much of life was devoured in the bud.

FIRST FRIEND.

'For a few months, this bookish and solitary life was invaded
by interest in a living, breathing figure. At church, I used
to look around with a feeling of coldness and disdain, which,
though I now well understand its causes, seems to my wiser
mind as odious as it was unnatural. The puny child sought
everywhere for the Roman or Shakspeare figures, and she was
met by the shrewd, honest eye, the homely decency, or the
smartness of a New England village on Sunday. There was
beauty, but I could not see it then; it was not of the kind I
longed for. In the next pew sat a family who were my especial