Quotes from Hamilton Wright Mabie

Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.

Nothing is lost upon a man who is bent upon growth; nothing wasted on one who is always preparing for - life by keeping eyes, mind and heart open to nature, men, books, experience - and what he gathers serves him at unexpected moments in unforeseen ways.

Then the maiden climbed into a tree, and, seating herself in the branches, began to knit.

The mother loves her child most divinely, not when she surrounds him with comfort and anticipates his wants, but when she resolutely holds him to the highest standards and is content with nothing less than his best.

Fair queen, at home there is none like thee, But over the mountains is Snow-white free, With seven little dwarfs, who are strange to see; A thousand times fairer than thou is she. Queen, thou art not the fairest now; Snow-white over the mountain's brow A thousand times fairer is than thou. Queen, thou art the fairest here, But not when Snow-white is near; Over the mountains still is she, Fairer a thousand times than thee.

of the race, untrammelled by the necessity of rigid adherence to the fact. The myths record the earliest attempt at an explanation of the world and its life; the fairy tale records the free and joyful

Art involves forgetfulness of immediate ends; complete surrender to the inward impulse to give form to the beautiful idea or image of truth because it is beautiful.

forces lie just outside the range of physical sight, but entirely within the range of spiritual vision, precisely as the tellers of these old stories divined; mystery and wonder enfold all things, and not only evoke the full play of the mind, but flood it with intimations and suggestions of the presence of more elusive and subtle forces, of finer and more obedient powers, as the world of fairies, magi and demons enfolded the ancient earth of daily toil and danger.

We would not give it thee for all the gold in the world.

There are few chapters in the biography of the childhood of men of genius more significant than those which describe imaginary worlds which were, for a time, as real as the actual world in which the boy lived.

The fairy tale belongs to the child and ought always to be within his reach, not only because it is his special literary form and his nature craves it, but because it is one of the most vital of the textbooks offered to him in the school of life. In ultimate importance it outranks the arithmetic, the grammar, the geography, the manuals of science; for without the aid of the imagination none of these books is really comprehensible.

All the queens of my acquaintance have children, some three, some seven, and some as many as twelve; and my queen has not one. I feel ill-used." So he made up his mind to be cross with his wife about it. But she bore it all like a good patient queen as she was.

The myths record the earliest attempt at an explanation of the world and its life; the fairy tale records the free and joyful play of the imagination, opening doors through hard conditions to the spirit, which craves power, freedom, happiness; righting wrongs and redressing injuries; defeating base designs; rewarding patience and virtue; crowning true love with happiness;

conditions, an effort to reconcile the spirit which loves freedom and goodness and beauty with its harsh, bare and disappointing conditions. It is, in its earliest form, a spontaneous and instinctive endeavor to shape the facts of the world to meet the needs

THE STORY OF ALADDIN; OR, THE WONDERFUL LAMP

On every side were stretched the bodies of men and animals apparently lifeless.

now at the end of a long avenue, but when he turned to, look for his followers not one was to be seen; the woods had closed instantly upon him as he had passed through. He was entirely alone, and utter

Little Two Eyes went home

a large silver tray, holding twelve covered dishes

embroidered with the brightest gold, and all over enriched with pearls. The hands next brought him an elegant dressing-table

Little goat, when you are able, Come and clear away my table.

Then his sister fastened the string of rushes to his

good little goat in the heart, and it fell dead.

an only son named Jack. Jack was a boy of a bold temper; he took pleasure in hearing or reading stories