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 they are to poetic or rhythmic form in literature. And it must be insisted on that nothing less than the best that can be had, cost what it may (and it can hardly be cheap) is good enough for those early impressionable years when standards are formed for life. Any accepting, or even choosing, art or literature of a lower standard, as good enough for children, is a disastrous and costly mistake.’

Many of Rackham’s correspondents were children, whose letters he always answered with the utmost courtesy and patience. Three who wrote to him from Kensington in the autumn of 1909 were Betty, Joan and Gilbert Simon, the children of John Simon, K.C., as he then was (Viscount Simon as he eventually became). The young Simons had been reading The Wind in the Willows, which had