thought the defects in mine.

Confirm

Confirm my vision by beholding it, heighten my joy by sharing it, fortify by your mental regeneration my hope of a time when all men shall seek that piety of the intellect which is no less essential to true living than piety of the heart and will.

LETTER VI.

THE REVELATION TO SENSE.

TASTE SONG.

As each new life is given to the world,

The senses-like a door that swings two ways-
Stand ever 'twixt its inner, waiting self

And that environment with which its lot
Awhile is cast.

A door that swings two ways:
Inward at first it turns, while Nature speaks,
To greet her guest and bid him to her feast,
And tell him of all things in her domain,
The good or ill of each, and how to use;
Then outward, to set free an answering thought.
And so, swift messages fly back and forth
Without surcease-until, behold! she, who

Like gracious host received a timid guest,
Owns in that guest at length her rightful lord,

And gladly serves him, asking no reward!

This parable, dear mother, is for you,

Whom God has made his steward for your child.

All Nature is a unit in herself,

Yet but a part of a far greater whole.

Little by little you may teach your child

To know her ways, and live in harmony

With her; and then, in turn, help him through her

To find those verities within himself,

Of which all outward things are but the type.

So when he passes from your sheltering care

To walk the ways of men, his soul shall be
Knit to all things that are, and still most free!
And of him shall be writ at last this word,
"At peace with Nature, with himself, and God."
HENRIETTA R. ELIOT.

TASTE SONG.

Here's a berry ripe and sweet
Taste, my darling, taste and eat.

Now this sour fruit instead,—
Ah! my baby shakes his head.

Here's an almond, taste it, pet,
Bitter things we sometimes get.

Bitter, sour, sweet, he tries,
Tasting makes my baby wise!

Sweets we must not always choose

Sour, bitter, too, we use.

Fruits unripe we'll let alone

Till they fully ripe have grown.

EMILIE POULSSON.

DEAR: Nowhere in the Mother-Play does the connection between revealing example and principle revealed seem at first sight so obscure as in the Song of Taste. On the one hand we are shown the mother playfully inciting her baby to distinguish between the sweet, the sour, and the bitter; on the other our thought is impetuously hurled toward that eminence from which all material objects are seen to be afire with spirit, and the sensible world is revealed as a bodily and visible gospel Our inward eyes are too weak to gaze undazzled

upon the view which expands before them, so we shut them tight and declare there is nothing to be

seen.

Forget for a while, dear friend, the baffling vision, and sit down humbly and patiently at the feet of your own maternal memories. You have sent me notes affirming that on the fourth day of his life Harold stoutly refused cow's milk diluted with water until a few grains of sugar had made it acceptable to his taste,* and that aged seven weeks he made a wry face and a gesture of refusal at the mere sight of a bitter medicine,† a single dose of which had previously been given him. You remember your terror at the way he used to pick up pins and carry them into his mouth, and the many devices by which you tried to break up this habit. You know that even when he was seventeen months old he insisted upon tasting the hyacinth you had given him to smell, and you will recall your own delight when, a month later, he began to put the sweet-smelling flower to his

*The Senses and the Will, Preyer, p. 124.

Perez, the First Three Years of Childhood, translated by Alice M. Christie.

The Senses and the Will, Preyer, p. 135.

nose, keeping his mouth meantime tightly shut. You are inwardly aware of the fact that, impelled by instinct, you did all the things which Froebel pictures you as doing, and since I, the mere onlooker, remember, you, the mother, can not have forgotten with what joy you assured yourself by repeated experiments that Harold associated with the words sweet, sour, bitter, the sensations to which they refer.

To interpret your pleasure recall what Froebel says in his commentary on Play with the Limbs, that "developing activity is the oil which feeds the sacred flame of mother love." (When Harold refused unsweetened milk it was a sure sign to you that he was sensitive to differences of taste. His wry face at sight of bitter medicine showed that he remembered an earlier sensation of taste; while the habit of carrying all things to his month told you that he had begun to use it as a "test organ by which to ascertain the qualities of objects." When he ceased to put sweet-smelling flowers into his mouth you knew that he had learned to distinguish between sensations of smell and sensations of taste, and to refer each to its appropriate organ. Finally, when he responded intelligently to the words sweet,