STORY-BOOKS FOR BEATRICE.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 321, 7 October 1908, Page 3

STORY-BOOKS FOR BEATRICE.

"I am quite in despair about Beatrice," said the Bookworm's Mother plaintively. "She will read every spare moment she gets, and she borrows books from all her friends, books I have never heard of, and how do i know they are fit for her to read? Just look at the terrible things they have been saying lately about novels that everyone reads!" "Yes, I don't wonder you feel rather anxious," said her friend sympathetically. "What are you going to do about it?" "Do?" said the mother. "I have done. I told her she was never to read any book I had not already read myself and thought lit for her." "But that means a lot of reading for you, said tho Bachelor Girl, looking at tho lady, whose constant complaint was that she never had a moment to give to reading, and that if she'managed one novel a fortnight it was as much as she could do.' "Oh, I won't fret," said she comfortably. "It just means that Beatrice will have to do less reading, that's all." "Now, isn't that too bad?" said the Bachelor Girl, gazing after the niother, as she sailed down tho path. "There is that poor Beatrice passionately fond, of reading, and quite ready to read all tho best books if she come 3 across them, and she is 'to bo tied down to the little pecks of mental food that her. mother can find time to administer, I, just gbotifc knoiv the sort of stuff it will bis. Silas Hocking, because he is safe and religious you know, and Mrs. Henry Wood because she is mildly interesting, and something after the style of the 'Scarlet Pimpernel ' because she has seen the, play and knows it .is all right. - That for Beatrice, who has a real hunger for good books. ■ "What would you do though?',' said the Typewriter Girl. . "Would you turn her loy;e, say, in the Public Library, to choose for herself ? I out of it ths otn6r, day, a book with a guileless' titlo and. a good reputation, but one of. most horrible things I ever read in my life. They liaye three copies of it in the librarynow, and any girl might be excused for taking it out, so innocent does it look." . _ "No, I-should not turn her loose in tho library," said tho Bachelor Girl, thoughtfully. "As. you say, one never knows what to expect in any new- novel nowadays, though it seems to me that in the days of my 'extreme youth the line between good and doubtful was more clearly defined. But I do think' that a girl has as much right to mental food as she has to an ordinary meal, and if her mother'cannot keep her supplied with good reading she should find someone else who can recommend real good books. You see, the trouble is that if she is limited to what her mother has read, or books by well-known, good, safo writers for. girls, she is likely to wasto a lot of time reading trash that is almost as bad as poison, and sho is just at an ago when a girl should be forming a taste for good literature." "That's quite true," said tho Mother-of-Five; "I have had so little time for reading since I was married that I don't know how to bo sufficiently grateful to my people who reared mo on good books when I had leisure to enjoy them. I did a great deal of good reading between tho age of sixteen and twenty-one, and the result is that now when I have any time to read, I know how to uso it to tho best advantago, and a good novel means over so much more to mo than it would have done had I not been trained to discriminate between good and bad. But I know that had I been left to myself when I was Beatrice's age I should have devoured all sorts of lubbish, such as the wishy-washy books by Annie Swan and Rosa Carey, and L.T. Meade,' and weak sentimentality such as Mrs. Henry Wood indulges "in:""Not the 'Channings,'" cricd the Teacher. "I hope you except the 'Channings'' from that charge, a most.delightful book." . "And what about 'Molly Bawn'?" asked the Typewriter Girl. "Haven't you a soft spot in your heart for 'Molly Bawn Tho little lady's eyes twinkled. • "Yes," she said slowly. " I will confess that for the 'Channings' and 'Mollv Bawn,' and a few old simple things liko those, I have a soft spot in my head. Oil, yes, there is no reason why Beatrice should not read an occasional thing like that, but why not grown-up novels, tho very best of them? Lot's draw up a list." _ Paper and pencils were produced, and soon the three friends were hard at work each finding it very difficult to think of names of novels on the spur of tho moment, but when the lists were, compared it was found, of course, that they had all put down all Thackeray, Dickens, Jane Austen ("She is an acquired taste," said the Bachelor Girl, "but once you have got it, you've got it badly "), George. Eliot, Charlotte Bronte, and Mrs. Gaskell. To this the Mother-of-Five had added all tho books of Marion Crawford, A. E. W. Mason, Winston Churchill, Booth Tarkington. Mrs. Oliphant. Quiller Couch, and Mrs. Humphrey Ward, with several of Weyman's books, several of Anthony. Hope's, and of Thomas Hardy's sho had selcctcd " A Pair of Blue Eyes " and " Under the Greenwood Tree." The Typewriter Girl, whose tastes wore strongly American, had put down tho names of.EUqn Glasgow, Owen Wistcr, Myrtle' Reed', Mary Wilkins Freeman, and Mrs. Croker, wliilo the Bachelor Girl voted for Merriir.an, .. Blackmore. Quiller Couch, Mnr- "Fitirlln+or. ""'I fl, e Wi!l : nrn=olis. "We could evidently spend all night at this game," said tho Typewriter Girl, biting her pencil. "Don't you think we have supplied Beatrice with enough reading for a few days?" and the other agreed, tho Mother-of-Five saving to herself: "And if I know anything about Beatrice, she has read every one of those books long ago."