"Read them yourself to them without any air of mystery; tell them that what you omit is not worth reading, and then the omissions will not excite but stifle curiosity. The books to which I allude are those where the principle is sound and the tendency blameless, and where the few faults consist rather in coarseness than in corruption. "But to return; she fancied that these inexperienced creatures, who had never tried the world, and whose young imaginations had perhaps painted it in all the brilliant colors with which erring fancy gilds the scenes it has never beheld, and the pleasure it has never tried, could renounce it as completely as herself, who had exhausted what it has to give, and was weary of it. She thought they could live contentedly in their closets, without considering that she had neglected to furnish their minds with that knowledge which may make the closet a place of enjoyment, by supplying the intervals of devotional with entertaining reading. "We carried Lucilla and Ph[oe]be to visit them; I believe she was a little afraid of their gay countenances. I talked to her of the necessity of literature to inform her daughters, and of pleasures to enliven them. The term pleasure alarmed her still more than that of literature. 'What pleasures were allowed to religious people? She would make her daughters as happy as she dared without offending her Maker.' I quoted the devout but liberal Hooker, who exhorts us not to regard the Almighty as a captious sophist, but as a merciful Father. "During this conversation we were sitting under the fine spreading oak on my lawn, in front of that rich bank of flowers which you so much admire. It was a lovely evening in the end of June, the setting sun was all mild radiance, the sky all azure, the air all fragrance. The birds were in full song. The children, sitting on the grass before us, were weaving chaplets of wild flowers. It looked like nature in the world's first spring. "My heart was touched with joy and gratitude. 'Look, madam,' said I, 'at the bountiful provision which a beneficent Father makes, not only for the necessities, but for the pleasures of his children; ----not content With every food of life to nourish man, He makes all nature beauty to his eye, And music to his ear.