i8o THE GARDEN OF A 



sex should be asserted in books at a time when 

 the readers are the most sexless, and then quite 

 disappear as the readers themselves develop ! Books 

 are written for girls and boys, " The Boy's Own Book," 

 " The Girl's Toymaker," but never " A Novel for a 

 Woman," or " A History for a Man " appears. 



The first period of reading stood by itself and 

 ranged from Grimm's and Laboulaye's " Fairy 

 Tales," " The Wilds of Africa," " Tommy Try and 

 What He Did in Science," " Robinson Crusoe," an 

 expurgated Gulliver, " Alice's Adventures " and "Hia- 

 watha," from which I made a play wholly my own, 

 to certain famous histories and biographies that may 

 be read from childhood to old age, each reading 

 yielding new meaning according to the development 

 of the reader. 



Girlhood began with Clarke's " Shakespeare's 

 Heroines," Strickland's " Queens," " Ivanhoe," " The 

 Pathfinder," and " Little Women," a combination 

 of the literary, martial, and domestic, that was much 

 to my taste. Then for a long time history in all its 

 branches, especially that of the Anglo-Saxon race, 

 reigned supreme, and with it came folklore. In a 

 single year, according to the dates written on the 

 neat record book-plates father had given me, I be- 

 came possessed of Brand's "Popular Antiquities," 



