204 BULLETIN OP THE 



described as the natural misgivings of a " creature moving about 

 in worlds not realized." "Delight and liberty," as was natural 

 to a bright boy in the full flush of his animal spirits, still remained 

 the simple creed of his childhood, until one day his pet rabbit 

 escaped from its warren, and ran into an opening in the founda- 

 tion of the village church. Finding the hole sufficiently large 

 to admit of pushing his person through it, he followed on all fours 

 in eager pursuit of the fugitive, when his eyes were attracted in 

 a certain direction by a glimmer of light, and groping his way 

 towards it, beneath the church, he discovered that it proceeded 

 from a crevice which led into the vestibule of the building, and 

 which opened immediately behind a bookcase that had been 

 placed in the vestibule, as the depository of the village library. 

 Working his way to the front of the bookcase, he found himself 

 in the presence of all the literature stored on its shelves, and on 

 his taking down the first book which struck his eye, it proved to 

 be Brooke's Fool of Quality, a work of fiction in which views of 

 practical life and traits of mystical piety are artfully blended, in- 

 somuch that even John Wesley was inclined to except it from the 

 auto-da-fe, which, after the manner of the curate and barber in 

 the story of Don Qui.xote, he would have gladly performed upon 

 the less edifying products of the novel-writing imagination. 

 Poring over the pages of this fascinating volume, young Henry 

 forgot the rabbit in quest of which he had crept beneath the 

 church. It was the first book he had ever read with zest, be- 

 cause it was the first book he had ever read at the impulse of his 

 "own sweet will." Mrs. Browning has told us that we get no 

 good from a book by being ungenerous with it, by calculating 

 profits — "so much help by so much reading." 



" It is rather when 



We gloriously forget ourselves, and pluncft 

 Soul-forward, h«^ad-long, into a book's profound, 

 Impassioued for its beauty and salt of truth — 

 ' Tis then we get the right good from a book." 



Such was the "soul-forward, head-long plunge" which the 

 boyish Henry now first took in the waters of romance, rendered 

 only the sweeter to him, it may be, because, without affront to 

 innocence, they took the flavor of " stolen waters" from the stealth 

 with which they were imbibed. From that time forth he made 

 frequent visits to this library, by the same tortuous and under- 



