ales of chivalry simply gave him
"Le Morte D'Arthur"; there was no "children's edition" of it, no "Boy's
King Arthur," no "Tales of the Round Table." The father whose little
girl desired to read for herself the stories of Greece he had told her
put into her hands Bulfinch's "Age of Fable"; he could not, as can
fathers to-day, give her Kingsley's rendering, or Hawthorne's, or Miss
Josephine Preston Peabody's. Like the father of Aurora Leigh,--

"He wrapt his little daughter in his large
Man's doublet, careless did it fit or no."

At the present time we do not often see a child wrapped in a large man's
doublet of a book; even more seldom do we see a father careless if it
fit or no. What we plainly behold is that doublet, cut down, and most
painstakingly fitted to the child's little mind.

Unquestionably the children lose something by this. The great books of
the world do not lend themselves well to making over. "Tales from
Shakespeare" are apt to leave out Shakespeare's genius, and "Stories
from Homer" are not Homer. In cutting the doublet to fit, the most
precious part of the fabric is in danger of being sacrificed.

But whatever the children lose when they are small, they find again when
they come to a larger growth. Most significant of all, when they find
it, they recognize it. A little girl who is a friend of mine had read
Lambs' "Tales." The book had been given to her when she was eight years
old. She is nine now. One day, not long ago, she was lingering before my
bookcases, taking out and glancing through various volumes. Suddenly she
came running to me, a copy of "As You Like It" in her hand. "This story
is in one of my books!" she cried.

"Yes," I said; "your book was written from this book, and some of those
other little red books there with it in the bookcase."

The child went back to the bookcase. She took down all the other volumes
of Shakespeare, and, sitting on the rug with them, she spent an utterly
absorbed hour in turning over their leaves. Finally she scrambled to her
feet and set the books back in their places. "I've found which stories
in these books are in my book, too," she remarked. "Mine are easier to
read," she added; "but yours have lovely talk in them!"

Had she not read Lambs' "Tales" at eight I am not certain she would have
ventured into the wide realms of Shakespeare at nine, and tarried there
long enough to discover that in those realms there is "lovely talk."

Occasionally, to be su