GREAT MYSTERIES

AND LITTLE PLAGUES.

BY JOHN NEAL.

BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
1870.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by
ROBERTS BROTHERS,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Dist. of
Massachusetts.

STEREOTYPED BY REGAN & LEADBEATER,
55 Water Street.

CHILDREN—WHAT ARE THEY GOOD FOR?
"I'll give oo a kith if oo want one!"

PREFACE.

I hate prefaces; and the older I grow, the more I hate them, and the more unwilling I am to transgress—in that way—with my eyes open.

But something must be said, I suppose, if only by way of an advertisement, or warning.

When I had finished what one of my daughters persists in calling my "Naughty-Biography," and the other, "Personalities"—while my hair has grown visibly thinner, I will not say under what kind of domestic remonstrance from another quarter, and a very amiable, though witty somebody writes it "Maundering Recollections"—I had an idea that, if I went further, I might be found "painting the lily, gilding refined gold," etc., etc., and so I pulled up—for the present.

But this little book was already under way. I had promised it, and such promises I always keep—and for the best of reasons: I cannot afford to break them.

When I turned out the original of "Children—What are they good for?" some forty years ago, or thereabouts, I had never met with, nor heard of, anything in that way. Children were overlooked. Their droppings were unheeded—out of the nursery. But now, and in fact very soon after my little essay appeared in the "Atlantic Souvenir," if I do not mistake, the papers and magazines, both abroad and at home, were continually brightened up with diamond-sparks and with Down-easterly or "Orient pearls, at random strung," which seemed to have been picked up in play-grounds, or adrift, or along the highway; and itemizers were seen dodging round among the little folks, wherever they were congregated, or following them as the Chinese follow a stranger, if they see him make wry faces.

For amusement only, and to keep myself out of mischief—I hope I have succeeded—just after the fire, not having much to do beyond twirling my thumbs, and trying to whistle "I cares for nobody, and nobody cares for me," I began collecting such as fell in my way.

My first idea was to call them "Kindling-Stuff," or

"Oven-Wood," as characteristic, if not of them, at least of the compiler; but finding the collection grew upon me, and myself growing serious, I adopted "Pickings and Stealings," which, on the whole, I think still more characteristic, beside being both suggestive and descriptive.

"Goody Gracious, a Fairy Story," I wrote for the purpose of showing—and proving—that fairy stories need not be crowded with extravagant impossibilities, to engage the attention of our little folks; and that if they are so contrived as to seem true, or at least possible, they need not be unwholesome. Am I wrong?

And furthermore saith not, as Jacob Barker used to write, at the bottom of his letters,

"Your respected friend,"

J. N.

CONTENTS.

PREFACE.
I.—CHILDREN—WHAT ARE THEY GOOD FOR?
II.—GOODY GRACIOUS!
III.—PICKINGS AND STEALINGS.

CHILDREN—WHAT ARE THEY GOOD FOR?

The child is father of the man. Men are but children of a larger growth. How often do we meet with this array of words! Yet how insensible we are to the profound philosophy they enwrap. Sublime and astonishing truths! Uttered every day in our hearing, set before our eyes at every step of our journey through life, written over all the monuments of Earth, upon the pages and banners of all History, upon the temples and the pyramids, the palaces and the sepulchres of departed Nations, upon all the doings of the Past and the Present, as with unextinguishable fire, and sounding forever and ever in the unapproachable solitudes of the Future! Yet heard with indifference, read without emotion, and repeated from mouth to mouth, day after day and year after year, without a suspicion of their deep meaning, of their transcendent importance, of their imperishable beauty. And why? The language is too familiar, the apparent signification too simple and natural for the excited understandings of the multitude. There is no curtain to be lifted, no veil to be rent as with the hands of giants, no zone to be loosened, no mystery to be expounded afar off, as in the language of another world, nothing to be guessed at, or deciphered, nothing but what anybody might understand if he would; and, therefore, nothing to be remembered or cared for.

But, in simple truth, a more sublime interrogation could not be propounded than that which may appear to be answered by the language referred to. What are children? Step to the window with me. The street is full of them. Yonder a school is let loose; and here, just within reach of our observation, are two or three noisy little fellows; and there another party mustering for play. Some are whispering together, and plotting so loudly and so earnestly, as to attract everybody's attention; while others are holding themselves aloof, with their satchels gaping so as to betray a part of their plans for to-morrow afternoon, or laying their heads together in pairs, for a trip to the islands. Look at them, weigh the question I have put to you, and then answer it, as it deserves to be answered. What are children? To which you reply at once, without any sort of hesitation perhaps,—"Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined"; or, "Men are but children of a larger growth"; or, peradventure, "The child is father of the man." And then, perhaps, you leave me, perfectly satisfied with yourself and with your answer, having "plucked out the heart of the mystery," and uttered, without knowing it, a string of glorious truths,—pearls of great price.

But, instead of answering you as another might, instead of saying, Very true, what if I were to call you back to the window with words like these: Do you know what you have said? do you know the meaning of the language you have employed? or, in other words, do you know your own meaning? what would you think of me? That I was playing the philosopher, perhaps, that I wanted to puzzle you with a childish question, that I thought I was thinking, or at best that I was a little out of my senses. Yet, if you were a man of understanding, I should have paid you a high compliment; a searcher after truth, I should have done you a great favor; a statesman, a lawgiver, a philanthropist, a patriot, or a father who deserved to be a father, I should have laid you under everlasting obligations, I should have opened a boundless treasury