the end of his life, he read aloud
to us in the evenings many of the classics of literature. Spenser's The
Faerie Queene, the Don Quixote of Cervantes, the poems and novels of
Scott, Grimm's and Andersen's Fairy Tales, much of Defoe and Swift,
Goldsmith's Vicar of Wake field, 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 ways, and always
betrayed pleasure when he found me quick to detect the sentimental or
mawkish taint in literature or life. I breathed a