Excerpt from The Water-Babies Tale, what a fine thing it is to love truth, mercy, justice, courage, and all things noble and of good report. K Thus Rose G. Kingsley, in a preface to her father's fairy tale, describes the impromptu manner in which The water-babies was written. Dashed off for the pleasure of his own little son, this book has charmed and entertained thousands of children for more than fifty years, and has undoubtedly in many cases taught what a fine thing it is to love truth, mercy, justice, courage, and all things noble and of good report. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.