"The writing of the book was the outcome of a gentle reminder², at breakfast one spring morning, of an old promise, to the effect that as the three elder children had their book—The Heroes—the baby, my youngest brother, then four years old, 'must have his.' My father made no answer, 'but got up at once and went to his study, locking the door,' and in an hour came back with the first chapter of The Water-Babies in his hand. At this pace and with the same ease the whole book was composed. . . .

 

"A visit in 1858 to Mr. W. E. Forster in Wharfedale, and to Mr. Morrison at Malham, gave him the local setting of the beautiful opening chapters. For the grandeur³ of the scenery of Godale Scar and Malham Cove⁴ had made a profound impression on his mind, as did the beauty of the Wharfe below Denton Park.

 

"Places he had seen, and many more he had read and dreamed of in his father's fine library of voyages and travels, fairies and men of science, fads⁵ and foibles, education true and false, Pandora's box and sanitary⁶ science—a matter always dear to his heart—the ways of beasts and birds, fishes and insects, of plant and tree and rock, of river and tide, are all interwoven here with the deepest truths of life and living, of morals and religion. So that while the book enchants⁷ the child, it gives the wise man food for thought. . . .

 

"Happy are the children who get their first ideas of the marvels⁸ of nature all around them from such a lesson-book as this. . . .

 

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