Everyone who has ever read much with children knows that to normal children before their thirteenth year the psychology and _modus operandi_ of love and love-making, innocent or guilty, are so alien as to pass harmlessly by them as a mere bit of the machinery of a story, when these notions do constitute such a bit of machinery in a story otherwise suitable. But it is a mistake to choose matter which obliges us to linger with the little people over these experiences or to emphasize them. He who would retell the Arthur stories must be wary here, so difficult is it to put together any series of the adventures that will at all represent the material, and constitute a whole, without using the scarlet thread of guilty passion, or substituting for it something "nice" but wishy-washy. We have only to compare the grim justice of Malory's Modred with Tennyson's sentimental and unconvincing handling of his character and function. When Malory wove into the Arthur cycle the legend of the Holy Grail, he introduced an element very hard to handle for children--that religious mysticism, not to say fanaticism, which Tennyson chose to set as the pivotal motive of the downfall of the Table Round. Tennyson, writing for mature modern readers a deeply symbolistic poem, and presenting a whole cycle, could, stroke by stroke, build up the impression of this burning zeal, this hypnotic trance of enthusiasm, that led men away after wandering fires, forgetting labor and duty. But simplified to fit the comprehension of the wholesome twelve-year-old it is likely to appear a vague and mistaken piety, producing a practical effect quite out of proportion to its importance. To the modern teacher, with the witchery of the Tennysonian music in his blood, it is all but impossible to keep out of prominence that symbolism which lay obvious upon the surface, even in the _Morte d'Arthur_, but which Tennyson heightened into an almost oppressive system of sophisticated and parochial doctrine. An occasional symbolistic nut to crack is not a bad thing for the older children of the grades. But would it not be a mistake to immerse them in a great system of symbolism? To the younger children the sacred outside appearance, the entrancing _Schein_, of things is best, and symbolistic art only baffles them or unduly forces their powers.