soon be acknowledged that this is a noble
and important service, and one that any man
might be glad to enter."

I never knew my dear Columbus go on as
he did on this particular evening. It was a
positive relief to me when at last we got up
to go. Even then, however, he had not done;
for, taking up a little book that lay upon the
table and looking at it while I was getting
on my bonnet, he unfortunately found out a
new grievance in this small volume, and was
off again in no time.

"Now this," he exclaimed, " is what is
supposed to be a child's book; yet I hold it
an insult to children to call it so. This little
.Master Basil, whose virtues the tale is
intended to illustrate, is as arrant a little
humbug as you will often meet with, and his
career is about as unchildlike; and,
consequently thank Heaven as unnatural as it
could well be made. These mawkish and
effeminate works are not fit food for children's
minds, depend on it; and such heroic and
faultless infants as are described in them are,
I am happy to say, impossibilities. It takes,"
added my brother, looking up with a patient
smile that I know and love, " it takes many
years of discipline, and long periods of priceless
suffering, to engender the heroism and
self-control, the quiet submission and the
long endurance which sit so well on those of
riper years, but which are not to be expected
or desired in babies. Children are naturally
selfish," continued Columbus—here was a
sentiment — " children are naturally selfish,
and immense nonsense is talked about their
goodness and innocence. Their innocence is
the result of ignorance and incapacity only.
and all the evil they know of, or are able to
practise, they do. I am bad enough now"—
what a dreadful story, I thought—" but not
half so atrocious as I was when a child, not
half so selfish, so vindictive, so greedy, so
passionate, nor, by fifty degrees, so great a
humbug. Trust me, ma'am," said my brother,
taking off the hat which he had just put on,
and turning to Mrs. Dunny, "you will find it
better to let your little ones amuse themselves
with works that are not written down to
them, than with these allegories about little
Christian knights and consumptive choristers.
Let your children get into a corner, and see
what they can make of Robinson Crusoe, of
the Pilgrim's Progress, of Don Quixote, and
of Walter Scott, that chosen friend and
benefactor of my own boyish days, whom then I
loved from instinct, but now from reason;
and because I can see the sunshine of his
good and noble heart radiant in every page
he wrote."

Well, it was time to go after this; but I
heard Miss Saint Crypt, who had been one
of the tea-party, muttering something in the
distance about Scott and want of earnestness,
which Columbus did not seem to think it
necessary to answer.

I have mentioned but a few of my brother's
wild ideas, and yet I feel as if I had already
said more than I ought. One word explaining
why I have sent them specially to you,
Mr. Editor, and then I think I have done.
I have, then, applied to you in this matter,
because I have already observed in the
periodical which you conduct certain articles
which show me that you are ever ready to
receive new ideas if they have any show of
reason in them, and not to reject them because
they are new. I remember that opinions
have been put forward in this journal startling
enough to have come from the brain of
my dear brother himself, and so like the
views which I have heard him express, that
I could almost fancy he had written them
with his own hand. I remember, as an
especial instance of this, an article in which
it was contended that beards would not
grow upon people's faces if they were intended
to be shaved off; and another equally remarkable
on the subject of evening parties; in
which it was argued, that because the
population has immensely increased, and that the
size of our dwelling rooms has not expanded
in a commensurate degree—because the
ladies' dresses are, in existing arrangements,
torn to pieces on their backs—because the
attention of the dancers is entirely taken up
with ineffectual efforts to get out of each
other's way, and consequently, that any
enjoyment in dancing is utterly out of the
question—because of these things, I repeat,
it was actually argued that it would be a
good and desirable thing if people would hire
a large room for the night when they want
to give a party, instead of making use of
their own small and inconvenient houses.

Now, there is in all this much that reminds
me of my brother's manner of reasoning, and
I feel convinced that you who have not
hesitated to give such ideas as I have just
mentioned to the world, will not pronounce my
dear Columbus to be irrational in his views
unless he really is so, and that if you declare
him to be of unsound judgment, he must be
mad indeed. Feeling, then, that you will
take the most lenient view of the condition
of my dear brother's brain, which may
consist with truth, I leave the case for your
decision, without going on at present to tell
you his opinions on costume, on the naming
of streets, on door-knockers, on education,
and a variety of other matters equally
important. This last topic, by the bye, of
education, is a favourite one of his, and his ideas
on the subject of the bringing up of young
ladies especially, and the importance he
attaches to their being well instructed in all
household arrangements, to their being
compelled to take quantities of air and exercise,
and of immense attention being given to their
bodily growth and development— these things
would fill another letter, and would surely
be deemed by everybody to be of all his wild
ideas—the wildest.

And now, with many many apologies for