fe, fortifying them
against the glacial cold of selfish science, and preparing them
submissively, and with no bitterness of astonishment, to behold, in
later years, the mystery--divinely appointed to remain such to all human
thought--of the fates that happen alike to the evil and the good.

128. And the effect of the endeavor to make stories moral upon the
literary merit of the work itself, is as harmful as the motive of the
effort is false. For every fairy tale worth recording at all is the
remnant of a tradition possessing true historical value;--historical, at
least in so far as it has naturally arisen out of the mind of a people
under special circumstances, and risen not without meaning, nor removed
altogether from their sphere of religious faith. It sustains afterwards
natural changes from the sincere action of the fear or fancy of
successive generations; it takes new color from their manner of life,
and new form from their changing moral tempers. As long as these changes
are natural and effortless, accidental and inevitable, the story remains
essentially true, altering its form, indeed, like a flying cloud, but
remaining a sign of the sky; a shadowy image, as truly a part of the
great firmament of the human mind as the light of reason which it seems
to interrupt. But the fair deceit and innocent error of it cannot be
interpreted nor restrained by a willful purpose, and all additions to it
by act do but defile, as the shepherd disturbs the flakes of morning
mist with smoke from his fire of dead leaves.

129. There is also a deeper collateral mischief in this indulgence of
licentious change and retouching of stories to suit particular tastes,
or inculcate favorite doctrines. It directly destroys the child's power
of rendering any such belief as it would otherwise have been in his
nature to give to an imaginative vision. How far it is expedient to
occupy his mind with ideal forms at all may be questionable to many,
though not to me; but it is quite beyond question that if we do allow of
the fictitious representation, that representation should be calm and
complete, possessed to the full, and read down its utmost depth. The
little reader's attention should never be confused or disturbed, whether
he is possessing himself of fairy tale or history. Let him know his
fairy tale accurately, and have perfect joy or awe in the conception of
it as if it were real; thus he will always be exercising his power of
grasping realit