of fiction, it is true, has long been eagerly sought by Anglo-Saxon parents; and what Miss Edgeworth, Miss Martineau, and a long line of successors in the writing of moral tales have done, cannot be overestimated. Poetry, in turn,— witness Ann and Jane Taylor and still another host of authors and compilers, has been impressed into the service; but just here, it has seemed to me, was room for the collection whose specific uses will now be explained. Those mothers, and, let me add, those fathers, who have never resigned to servants the privilege of putting their children to bed, know the peculiar value of that hour for confirming filial and parental affection, and for conveying reproof to ears never so attentive or resistless. Sweeter or more impressive relations than those thus established cannot be hoped for in this life. Doubtless in hundreds of happy homes it has occurred to the parent to make a practice of closing the infant day at the bedside with some well-chosen reading, as a prelude to peaceful slumbers. To such, and to all who would do likewise, I offer a volume which will answer this general object, or which can be made directly applicable to the day's conduct. A glance at what I have called the Key to the Moralities will make this latter function clear. Certainly the range of the pieces here grouped together will not suffice for all the defects of disposition or behavior which will arise for correction. No collection could; and this one has been further restricted by a desire to admit only poetry of a rather high order, the remembrance of which will be a joy forever, and a potent factor in the formation not merely of character but of literary taste. There is no particular in which our schools and our textbooks so fall below the mark as in inculcating, early and constantly, that preference for the noble in literature which is one of the surest safeguards against vulgar temptations and associations. The theme invites a long essay—but not in this place. Patient repetition is the secret of all successful training; and the Frenchman who advised persistence in calumny on the ground that something would stick to the object of it, has pointed the way to the employment of similar tactics in a better cause. The parent will soon enough find out that my selections are here and there above the level of the child's comprehension, even if he be well along in his teens. But, frequently conned or recited, even these portions "will stick" till comprehension overtakes the idea. Meanwhile an opportunity is afforded, by explaining such obscurities as they occur, to enlarge the child's notions along with his vocabulary. Finally, a very rational penalty for petty wrong-doing lies in the compulsory memorizing of good models, whether in prose or verse; and this discipline can be enforced beyond the bedside hour. The poems here brought together are not always copied entire. The excuse for this is that natural selection by which our "familiar quotations" are derived without prejudice to what we leave unquoted, or by which the minister deals out a hymn to choir and congregation, omitting this, that and the other stanza, as suits his purpose. That the living poets themselves will, under the circumstances, object to this sort of condensation and abstraction, I have little fear. My thanks are due to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, for their courteous permission to use the copyright poems of Emerson, Holmes, Longfellow, Lowell, and Whittier which grace this collection ; and to Mrs. Kemble for her obliging revision of her Sonnets. Orange, N. J., 1886. W. P. G. KEY TO THE MORALITIES IMAGED IN THE FOLLOWING SELECTIONS, ACCORDING TO THEIR Beauty everywhere in nature, Cowards fear ills to come, 56. Beauty in small as well as great, 44. Beauty in utility, 34. Cowards tell lies, 62. Day of small things, 28, 29, 30, Beauty its own excuse for being, Dead yet not absent, 50. 71. Benefits forgot, 26. Benefits remembered, 6, 14. Birth needs no excuses, 39, 53. Books too much pored over, 69. Charity, 22, 23, 24, 25, 34. Charity soils not white hands, Death a good morning, 48. Deathless name, 33. Death the common portion, 49. Descent from Adam, 38. Child the father of the man, 73. Duty coincident with beauty, 51. Duty leads to glory, 52. Duty new with new occasion, 78. Duty whispers Thou must, 29, 82. Each and all, 31. Goose killed that laid the golden egg, 9. Gratitude superior to offence, 14. Gratitude superior to the threat of death, 12. Earthly greatness mocked by Grave of the good knight, 42. Time, 17. Enemies may instruct us, 64. Family circle not broken by Fatherland, 79, 80, 81. Fidelity, 5, 7, 75. Filial affection, 11. Fitness of things, 1. Forbearance, 71. Greed overreaching itself, 9. Half a loaf better than no bread, 9. Handsome is as handsome does, 34. Heal rather than slay, 20. Help succors the faithful, 75. Forgiveness of harsh reproof, Higher law, 12. 64. Forgiveness of injury, 13, 15. Freedom's fight, 77, 82, 83. Friendship in adversity, 5. Future not to be trusted, 46. Future to be met with courage, 35. Glory of the cause, 77. Glory's way the path of duty, 52. God loves him who loves his fellow-man, 16. God near to man, 82. Goodness its own reward, 43. Home influence, 36. Honest man depicted, 61. Humble instruments of good, Ignorance consigns to obscurity, 37. Imprudence, 3. Independence upon fortune, 59. Integrity put to the test, 10. Joy and woe commingled in life, 32. Kind hearts are more than coronets, 38. Kindness reciprocated, 6. Labor and wait, 46. |