Agreeably to these doctrines, strange in so learned a father, I thrived and flourished, and learned to spell, and make pothooks, under the joint care of my mother and Dame Primmins. This last was one of an old race fast dying away—the race of old faithful servants—the race of old tale-telling nurses. She had reared my mother before me; but her affection put out new flowers for the new generation. She was a Devonshire woman—and Devonshire women, especially those who have passed their youth near the sea-coast, are generally superstitious. She had a wonderful budget of fables. Before I was six years old, I was erudite in that primitive literature, in which the legends of all nations are traced to a common fountain—_Puss in Boots_, _Tom Thumb_, _Fortunio_, _Fortunatus_, _Jack the Giant-killer_—tales like proverbs, equally familiar, under different versions, to the infant worshipper of Budh and the hardier children of Thor. I may say, without vanity, that in an examination in such works of imagination, I could have taken honours! My dear mother had some little misgivings as to the solid benefit to be derived from such fantastic erudition, and timidly consulted my father therein. “My love,” answered my father, in that tone of voice which always puzzled even my mother, to be sure whether he was in jest or earnest—“in all these fables, certain philosophers could easily discover symbolical significations of the highest morality. I have myself written a treatise to prove that _Puss in Boots_ is an allegory upon the progress of the human understanding, having its origin in the mystical schools of the Egyptian priests, and evidently an illustration of the worship rendered at Thebes and Memphis to those feline quadrupeds, of which they made both religious symbols and elaborate mummies.” “My dear Austin,” said my mother opening her blue eyes, “you don’t think that Sisty will discover all those fine things in _Puss in Boots_!” “My dear Kitty,” answered my father, “you don’t think, when you were good enough to take up with me, that you found in me all the fine things I have learned from books. You knew me only as a harmless creature, who was happy enough to please your fancy. By-and-by you discovered that I was no worse for all the quartos that have transmigrated into ideas within me—ideas that are mysteries even to myself. If Sisty, as you call the child, (plague on that unlucky anachronism! which you do well to abbreviate into a dissyllable,) if Sisty can’t discover all the wisdom of Egypt in _Puss in Boots_, what then? _Puss in Boots_ is harmless, and it pleases his fancy. All that wakes curiosity is wisdom, if innocent—all that pleases the fancy now, turns hereafter to love or to knowledge. And so, my dear, go back to the nursery.”