Sensibility, sympathy, enthusiasm, I repeat, are the elements of the atmosphere in which the intellectual, the moral, and the religious nature of a child can alone germinate and healthily grow, and in later years, bloom and shed a wholesome fragrance. Stories written for the young must be _concrete_ representations of the True, the Beautiful, and the Good; in other words, they must be works of art. Says Browning, in 'The Ring and the Book,' Art may tell a truth Obliquely, do the thing shall breed the thought, that is, bring what is _implicit_ within the soul, into the right attitude to become _explicit_--bring about a silent adjustment through sympathy induced by the concrete (it cannot be induced by the abstract); in other words, prepare the way for the apprehension of the truth-- do the thing shall breed the thought, Nor wrong the thought, missing the mediate word; that is, Art, so to speak, is the word made flesh,--_is_ the truth, and, as Art, has nothing directly to do with an explicit presentation of the truth. 'The highest, the only operation of Art, as of Nature,' says Goethe, 'is formation' (Gestaltung). So may you paint your picture, twice show truth, Beyond mere imagery on the wall,-- So, note by note, bring music from your mind, Deeper than ever the Andante dived,-- So write a book shall mean, beyond the facts, Suffice the eye and save the soul beside. The greatest moral teachers the world has ever known, have exhibited the least of explicit moralizing. They have embodied their gospels,--clothed them in _circumstance_,--woven them into a tissue of imagery and incident and, by so doing, have given them that _vitality_ which alone can awaken sympathy, and thus induce a mental preparedness for a reception of the higher truths, and a comprehension of great principles. A deep sympathy with truth is the important thing: this implies a rectification of the spiritual nature--its harmonization with the constitution of things. A great amount of abstract truth may be lodged in one's brain, and this sympathy may be more or less wanting. To secure it, the 'Word' of the teacher must become flesh,--it must be contemplated in the flesh, living and breathing,--it must be represented as _militant_, subject to accident and antagonism, but assuring men of its unquenchable vitality, its relationship with the divine, through the might of its resistance, and through its final _triumph_, though not necessarily according to earthly standards of the triumphant. There are novels which exhibit a somewhat low ideal of life through the general squaring up of things at the end--the good being rewarded outwardly and the bad punished. But In the corrupted 'currents of this world, Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice, ... but 'tis not so above.