Little Foxes Author:Harriet Beecher Stowe Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1884. Excerpt: ... LITTLE FOXES. I. FAULT-FINDING. * pAPA, what are you going to give us this winter for our evening readings?" said Jennie. "I am thinking, for one thing," I replied,... more » "of preaching a course of household sermons from a very odd text prefixed to a discourse which I found at the bottom of the pamphletbarrel in the garret." "Don't say sermon, Papa, -- it has such a dreadful sound; and on winter evenings one wants something entertaining." "Well, treatise, then," said I, "or discourse, or essay, or prelection; I'm not particulai as to words.* "But what is the queer text that you found at the bottom of the pamphlet-barrel?" "It was one preached upon by your mother's great-great-grandfather, the very savory and much-respected Simeon Shuttleworth, 'on the occasion of the melancholy defections and divisions among the godly in the town of West Dofield'; and it runs thus, --' Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: fot our vines have tender grapes'" "It's a curious text enough; but I can't imagine what you are going to make of it." "Simply an essay on Little Foxes," said I, "by which I mean those unsuspected, unwatched, insignificant little causes, that nibble away domestic happiness, and make home less than so noble an institution should be. "You may build beautiful, convenient, attractive houses, -- you may hang the walls with lovely pictures and stud them with gems of Art; and there may be living there together persons bound by blood and affection m one common interest, leading a life common to themselves and apart from others; and these persons may each one of them be possessed of good and noble traits; there may be a common basis of affection, of generosity, of good principle, of religion; and yet, through the influence of some of these perverse, nibbling, insignificant li...« less