[Sidenote: Influence of the Bible.] For my part, I am impatient of the theory of those who think that nothing that is not understood makes any valuable impression on the mind of a child. I am certain that the constant contact of the Bible with my childish mind was a very great mental stimulant, as it certainly was a cause of a singular and vague pleasure. The wild, poetic parts of the prophecies, with their bold figures, vivid exclamations, and strange Oriental names and images, filled me with a quaint and solemn delight. Just as a child brought up under the shadow of the great cathedrals of the Old World, wandering into them daily, at morning, or at eventide, beholding the many-colored windows, flamboyant with strange legends of saints and angels, and neither understanding the legends, nor comprehending the architecture, is yet stilled and impressed, till the old minster grows into his growth and fashions his nature, so this wonderful old cathedral book insensibly wrought a sort of mystical poetry into the otherwise hard and sterile life of New England. Its passionate Oriental phrases, its quaint, pathetic stories, its wild transcendent bursts of imagery, fixed an indelible mark in my imagination.... I think no New Englander, brought up under the _régime_ established by the Puritans, could really estimate how much of himself had actually been formed by this constant, face-to-face intimacy with Hebrew literature. * * * * * [Sidenote: The study of a new language.] I recommend everybody who wishes to try the waters of Lethe to study a new language, and learn to think in new forms; it is like going out of one sphere of existence into another. * * * * * [Sidenote: Greek.] Greek is the morning land of languages, and has the freshness of early dew in it which will never exhale. THE PEARL OF ORR’S ISLAND. [Sidenote: The Bible.] “This ’ere old Bible,—why it’s jest like yer mother—ye rove and ramble and cut up round the world without her a spell, and mebbe think the old woman ain’t so fashionable as some; but when sickness and sorrow comes, why there ain’t nothin’ else to go back to. Is there, now?” HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS. [Sidenote: Reading only for amusement.] “But don’t you think,” said Marianne, “that there is danger in too much fiction?”