The unexpectedly favorable reception of the poetical compilation entitled "Child Life" has induced its publishers to call for the preparation of a companion volume of prose stories and sketches, gathered, like the former, from the literature of widely separated nationalities and periods. Illness, preoccupation, and the inertia of unelastic years would have deterred me from the undertaking, but for the assistance which I have had from the lady whose services are acknowledged in the preface to "Child Life." I beg my young readers, therefore, to understand that I claim little credit for my share in the work, since whatever merit it may have is largely due to her taste and judgment. It may be well to admit, in the outset, that the book is as much for child-lovers, who have not outgrown their child-heartedness in becoming mere men and women, as for children themselves; that it is as much about childhood, as for it. If not the wisest, it appears to me that the happiest people in the world are those who still retain something of the child's creative faculty of imagination, which makes atmosphere and color, sun and shadow, and boundless horizons, out of what seems to prosaic wisdom most inadequate material,—a tuft of grass, a mossy rock, the rain-pools of a passing shower, a glimpse of sky and cloud, a waft of west-wind, a bird's flutter and song. For the child is always something of a poet; if he cannot analyze, like Wordsworth and Tennyson, the emotions which expand his being, even as the fulness of life bursts open the petals of a flower, he finds with them all Nature plastic to his eye and hand. The soul of genius and the heart of childhood are one.

Not irreverently has Jean Paul said, "I love God and little children. Ye stand nearest to Him, ye little ones." From the Infinite Heart a sacred Presence has gone forth and filled the earth with the sweetness of immortal infancy. Not once in history alone, but every day and always, Christ sets the little child in the midst of us as the truest reminder of himself, teaching us the secret of happiness, and leading us into the kingdom by the way of humility and tenderness.

In truth, all the sympathies of our nature combine to render childhood an object of powerful interest. Its beauty, innocence, dependence, and possibilities of destiny, strongly appeal to our sensibilities, not only in real life, but in fiction and poetry. How sweetly, amidst the questionable personages who give small occasion of respect for manhood or womanhood as they waltz and wander through the story of Wilhelm Meister, rises the child-figure of Mignon! How we turn from the light dames and faithless cavaliers of Boccaccio to contemplate his exquisite picture of the little Florentine, Beatrice, that fair girl of eight summers, so "pretty in her childish ways, so ladylike and pleasing, with her delicate features and fair proportions, of such dignity and charm of manner as to be looked upon as a little angel!" And of all the creations of her illustrious lover's genius, whether in the world of mortals or in the uninviting splendors of his Paradise, what is there so beautiful as the glimpse we have of him in his Vita Nuova, a boy of nine years, amidst the bloom and greenness of the Spring Festival of Florence, checking his noisy merry-making in rapt admiration of the little Beatrice, who seemed to him "not the daughter of mortal man, but of God"? Who does not thank John Brown, of Edinburgh, for the story of Marjorie Fleming, the fascinating child-woman, laughing beneath the plaid of Walter Scott, and gathering at her feet the wit and genius of Scotland? The labored essays from which St. Pierre hoped for immortality, his philosophies, sentimentalisms, and theories of tides, have all quietly passed into the limbo of unreadable things; while a simple story of childhood keeps his memory green as the tropic island in which the scene is laid, and his lovely creations remain to walk hand in hand beneath the palms of Mauritius so long as children shall be born and the hearts of youths and maidens cleave to each other. If the after story of the poet-king and warrior of Israel sometimes saddens and pains us, who does not love to think of him as a shepherd boy, "ruddy and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look upon," singing to his flocks on the hill-slopes of Bethlehem?

In the compilation of this volume the chief embarrassment has arisen from the very richness and abundance of materials. As a matter of course, the limitations prescribed by its publishers have compelled the omission of much that, in point of merit, may compare favorably with the selections. Dickens's great family of ideal children, Little Nell, Tiny Tim, and the Marchioness; Harriet Beecher Stowe's Eva and Topsy; George MacDonald's quaint and charming child-dreamers; and last, but not least, John Brown's Pet Marjorie,—are only a few of the pictures for which no place has been found. The book, of necessity, but imperfectly reflects that child-world which fortunately is always about us, more beautiful in its living realities than it has ever been painted.

It has been my wish to make a readable book of such literary merit as not to offend the cultivated taste of parents, while it amused their children. I may confess in this connection, that, while aiming at simple and not unhealthful amusement, I have been glad to find the light tissue of these selections occasionally shot through with threads of pious or moral suggestion. At the same time, I have not felt it right to sadden my child-readers with gloomy narratives and painful reflections upon the life before them. The lessons taught are those of Love, rather than Fear. "I can bear," said Richter, "to look upon a melancholy man, but I cannot look upon a melancholy child. Fancy a butterfly crawling like a caterpillar with his four wings pulled off!"

It is possible that the language and thought of some portions of the book may be considered beyond the comprehension of the class for which it is intended. Admitting that there may be truth in the objection, I believe with Coventry Patmore, in his preface to a child's book, that the charm of such a volume is increased, rather than lessened, by the surmised existence of an unknown amount of power, meaning, and beauty. I well remember how, at a very early age, the solemn organ-roll of Gray's Elegy and the lyric sweep and pathos of Cowper's Lament for the Royal George moved and fascinated me with a sense of mystery and power felt, rather than understood. "A spirit passed before my face, but the form thereof was not discerned." Freighted with unguessed meanings, these poems spake to me, in an unknown tongue indeed, but, like the wind in the pines or the waves on the beach, awakening faint echoes and responses, and vaguely prophesying of wonders yet to be revealed. John Woolman tells us, in his autobiography, that, when a small child, he read from that sacred prose poem, the Book of Revelation, which has so perplexed critics and commentators, these words, "He showed me a river of the waters of life clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and the Lamb," and that his mind was drawn thereby to seek after that wonderful purity, and that the place where he sat and the sweetness of that child-yearning remained still fresh in his memory in after life. The spirit of that mystical anthem which Milton speaks of as "a seven-fold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies," hidden so often from the wise and prudent students of the letter, was felt, if not comprehended, by the simple heart of the child.

It will be seen that a considerable portion of the volume is devoted to autobiographical sketches of infancy and childhood. It seemed to me that it might be interesting to know how the dim gray dawn and golden sunrise of life looked to poets and philosophers; and to review with them the memories upon which the reflected light of their genius has fallen.

I leave the little collection, not without some misgivings, to the critical, but I hope not unkindly, regard of its young readers. They will, I am sure, believe me when I tell them that if my own paternal claims, like those of Elia, are limited to "dream children," I have catered for the real ones with cordial sympathy and tender solicitude for their well-being and happiness.

J. G. W.

Amesbury, 1873.