152 MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS. 



them. Thus there must be a most curious conflict between memory and 

 present perception when the Dragon is found to be a creature that can hurt 

 nothing stronger than a Fly, or that the Basilisk is a harmless and pretty 

 little creature — for, although peculiar in shape, it is pretty — that lives upon 

 small vegetable seeds, and neither hurts nor is capable of hurting a single 

 living creature. The reality which addresses itself immediately to the senses 

 must, in the end, get the victory, how hard soever the impression on the me- 

 mory may plead. Thus the fable is discarded, and takes along with it all 

 which it in any way holds linked by association. The school and scholarship, 

 and all that is connected either with the one or the other, come in for their 

 share of the doubt, disbelief, and derision ; and that which, but for the disco- 

 very, would have continued to afford excitement, and therefore pleasure, 

 becomes the foundation of self-humiliation and reproach. Either, therefore, 

 the fable should be given up, or the name which turns it into a mockery 

 should cease to be used. The fable has its use in attracting the mind at an 

 age at which it could not be attracted by reality. Boyhood, when the hopes 

 are full of the joys of years unborn, is a time of romance, and all the utilita- 

 rians that ever lectured will never make it otherwise. And it is well for us 

 that they cannot ; for the reality of life is the painful portion of it, and the 

 romance the pleasurable. Not only so, but that which the utilitarians call 

 the reality is the sensual, the animal, the material part of life ; and the ro- 

 mance is the mental or intellectual part. If the former is made the sole ob- 

 ject of consideration, then the result is misery in this life and no hope here- 

 after. There is consequently an immediate and utter extinction of all that 

 is pleasant in life, of all that is endearing in society ; because there remains 

 no value but money value, and " Thij monetj perish with thee^^ is the denuncia- 

 tion which takes effect both here and hereafter. 



We ai'e not pleading for fables, or attempting to recommend that which is 

 not true at the expense of the truth. But in " the youth of life" it is vain 

 to refer to that which in after life is called " utility," as the only or the chief 

 incentive to study. You cannot, at every step of a boy's education, draw 

 his attention to his book, or his other study, by the allurement of the " price 

 that it will bring him in ;" and if you could, what a mean and sordid crea- 

 ture, nay, what an immoral and dishonest creature, you would make of him ! 

 If we labour to impress upon the young mind the idea that there is no value 

 but in possessions, and no reward but in pecuniary payment, we absolutely, 

 in express terms, teach fraud and theft, destroy all the better feelings of the 

 mind, and make man no better than a beast. We take the very worst view 

 of the worst conduct of human beings as the foundation of character; and 

 then we need not wonder that our pupil ripens into crime : and as the law is 

 not abolished, the feeling which we thus inculcate, that law and justice are 

 evils, because restraints upon utility, renders him obnoxious to punishment. 

 Little romantic extravagancies appear to be as necessary for young minds as 

 they are for young nations, among which they have ever been found ; and 

 though they are only " play" in after-life, both with the one and the other, 

 yet the period when they cease altogether is the dotage of senility— the sad 

 condition from which earthly hope has for ever departed. It is, therefore, 

 always to be regretted when the reality spoils a fable which gives pleasure : 

 and the instructor who preaches truth in this wise is exactly the counterpart 

 of him who should go about to make a man zealous and enterprising in his 



