Excerpt from The Silver Buckle And what delights can equal those That stir the Spirit's inner deeps, When one that loves but knows not, reaps A truth from one that loves and knows? Â Tennyson. IT is natural to take pleasure in recollections of the past, and to feel an interest in prophecies of the future. The old man delights in every opportunity to begin a tale, When I was young, or to show his wisdom by foretelling how things will be twenty years from now. The child makes countless plans that begin with the words, When I am big,'f and listens eagerly to stories of things that happened long ago. This natural instinct is fostered and encouraged by Memory and Imagination. Is it any wonder that, in the early stages of civilization, when life's horizon was small, the history and the literature of a people were preserved by tradition only? My grandmother was one of those blessed persons who have the ability 'to tell interesting stories to the young. In my early child hood she began with the old nursery rhymes and Jingles; then she advanced to fables and fairy tales; then came ballads of war and love; and lastly, in the dawning years of my womanhood, she told me many adventures and romances of real life.