I sometimes think that instead of beginning, as we do, with a whole heaven-and-earth-embracing theory of duty to God and man, it might be better to adopt with our children the method of dealing only with each particular instance of moral obligation empirically as it occurs; with each particular incident of life, detached, as it were, from the notion of a formal system, code, or theory of religious belief, until the recurrence of the same rules of morality under the same governing principle, invoked only in immediate application to some instance of conduct or incident of personal experience, built up by degrees a body of precedent which would have the force and efficacy of law before it was theoretically inculcated as such. Whoever said that principles were _moral habits_ spoke, it seems to me, a valuable truth, not generally sufficiently recognized or acted upon in the task of education. The only immediate result, that I can remember, of my graver turn of thought at this time upon my conduct was a determination to give up reading Byron's poetry. It was a great effort and a very great sacrifice, for the delight I found in it was intense; but I was quite convinced of its injurious effect upon me, and I came to the conclusion that I would forego it. "Cain" and "Manfred" were more especially the poems that stirred my whole being with a tempest of excitement that left me in a state of mental perturbation impossible to describe for a long time after reading them. I suppose the great genius touched in me the spirit of our time, which, chit as I was, was common to us both; and the mere fact of my being _un enfant du siecle_ rendered me liable to the infection of the potent, proud, desponding bitterness of his writing.