The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1867-03-28
hook. ofFiction For ClliIsiren.

The London quarterly REVIEW
remarks .The mind of a child"
says wise thinker, dislike the acorn !;
its powers are folded up, they do not
yet appear, but they are all there. The
memory, the Judgment, the invention,
the feeling of right and wrong, are all
in his mind, even of an infant just
born. One by one they awake. !" His
imagination-one of the earliest pow
sers thatawakens within him, even be-
fore he has passed through themyste-
ries of pap and found out that being
naughty differs from being good
must be fed. And fed it will be; eth
er on the make believe talk Of his SIS
ter Mary nursing her doll, the idle
stories of Betsey the nursemaid when
heis naughty about "bogey' and the
ssblack man. who carries ofbad boys !;
sor about the golden fairy who is to
give him tafey and gingerbread
when he is good. By-and-by, as he
grows older, his sister Mary reads to
him, and at last he learns to read for
himself, the charming adventures of
the "Fox end the Crow s'Billy goat
Gruff,' ''Sindbad the Sailor" or "Di-
almonds and Pearls" the delicious
history of "Puss in Boots" the TRACE
dy of 'sBlue Beard,'' or the heroic dra-
ma of slack the Giant killer"
But whichever of these Or hundred
other such delightful pages, it be, his
faith is bolndless. Happiest of NOR
tails, for time at least, he can believe
all he reads; with the one happy pro-
viso that if it is not true it ought to be,
ay, AMI is, because his sister says so.
While he is absorbed in the misfor-
tunes Of the "Tin Soldier" or the
''Ugly Duck" the breakfast bell is
unheard, and dinner unheeded; he is
feasting in Dreamland, on stirabout in
the Giants Castle, Or ON those famous
cheesecakes of Queen Scheherezade,
whose vital charm was pepper. Not
that he is forgetful Of fact, even while
in the full pursuit of fiction. Indeed
he is always burning for facts. He
wishes to know what glass is, where
Robinson Crusoe was buried, how
much gold takes to make the inside OF
a watch, why the sun sets later in June
than December, what thunder is, if the
end of the rainbow touches the ground,
why firing off of canon once made
a man deaf, what sage is, and thous-
and other things, which papa, not be-
ing walking encyclopedia, is not al
ways ready to tell him. And whatever
answer he can obtain he is ready to
believe implicitly, as long as he is dealt
fairly with.
"Yet though st. George and the
Dragon, Ali Bahia and Robinson Cru
roe, are in one sense, as true to him as
the history of England, there are shades
and degrees of belief in his own mind,
both as regards the domains of fact
and fiction, which he cannot, perhaps,
define, and of which he is scarcely SEN
sible, yet on which he unconsciously
acts; setting each narrative or story,
tale or fable. romance or chronicle, in
it's own due place, and giving to each
his own royal favor and approval as
good, bad or Indifferent A child in
good sound health, is insatiably curl
Gus, his thirst for fiction of one shape
or other, is quenchless, and if he new
er asks questions, and cares nothing
for "Jack and the Bean stalk or the
clad who went to the North Wind,
there is a screw loose somewhere or
other; he is in a morbid, unhealthy
state of body Or mind, probably of
both; his natural growth and tastes,
as child, are becoming stunted and
diseased; forced into some narrow,
petty channel, where ignorance or big
otry will soon blot out the freshness,
grace and light, that are childhood's
most precious possessions"