/ "'Domilcl Q.Mitchell 
 
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ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
Well! what about them. 
 
ABOUT 
 
 OLD STORY-TELLERS 
 
 OF HOW 
 AND WHEN THEY LIVED, 
 
 AND 
 
 WHAT STORIES THEY TOLD. 
 
 BY 
 
 DONALD G. MITCHELL, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "reveries OF A BACHELOR," " MY FARM 
 OF EDGEWOOD," ETC., ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG, & CO. 
 
 1878. 
 
Copyright, 1877, 
 By SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG, & CO, 
 
 Elgctrotyped and Printed by 
 
 Ra7id, Avery, and Company, 
 
 117 Franklin Street, 
 
 Boston . 
 
^y 
 
 TO THE SMALL COMPANY 
 
 AT EDGEWOOD, 
 
 AND TO THE LARGER COMPANY 
 
 WHOM THEY MEET 
 
 ONCE A MONTH 
 
 OVER THE PLEASANT PAGES OF "ST. NICHOLAS. 
 
 THIS LITTLE BOOK 
 
 IS AFFECTIONA TEL V DEDICA TED 
 
 BY THEIR EARNEST WELL-WISHER, 
 
 D. G. M, 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 For the Grown-up People. 
 
 T MAKE no doubt that elderly people will 
 browse at this booklet, in the shops, if no- 
 where else ; testing what flavor it may have, and 
 if it will be safe reading for Ned, or Tom, or Bell, 
 or such other son or grandchild as may be pull- 
 ing at old heart-strings for some token of kindly 
 feeling, to mark the holidays. 
 
 For all such gracious elderly ones, I shall say a 
 frank word here at the beginning about the pur- 
 port of the book, and of the reasons why it has 
 taken the shape it has, and of what good I hope 
 it may do to the youngsters who thumb its pages 
 and study its pictures. 
 
 In the matter of books, as in the world, I 
 believe in old friends, and don't think they should 
 
 vii 
 
 ivi527928 
 
vill PREFACE. 
 
 be laid away upon the shelf without good cause ; 
 and age is hardly cause enough. 
 
 In short, I must confess a lurking fondness for 
 those good old-fashioned stories which were cur- 
 rent forty years ago, — and some of them maybe 
 a hundred years ago, — written in good straight- 
 forward English, with good straightforward in- 
 tent. I cannot get over or outlive the zest with 
 which I first pored over the story of " Lazy Law- 
 rence," or listened to it, or to that other of '' Bar- 
 ring Out," intoned by lips on whose utterance I 
 hung entranced. And if Miss Edgeworth won 
 such yearning, what is to be said of '' Robinson 
 Crusoe," — of ''Gulliver," — of "The Vicar of 
 Wakefield?" Are these outlived? — or "The 
 Arabian Nights," or Grimm's Stories, or John 
 Bunyan's "Pilgrim"? 
 
 In my own household at least, as the evenings 
 have grown long in winter, and the fire-play has 
 thrown its gleams over wall and floor, I have 
 sought to keep alive a regard for those old- new 
 books ; and have endeavored to kindle and fasten 
 interest in them, by talk of their authors, and of 
 the times in which they lived, and of the circum- 
 stances under which they wrote, — so that the 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 Stories should be planted in the minds of the 
 young people — not as isolated bits of fancy hav- 
 ing no historic surroundings, but as growing out 
 of definite epochs, and taking color from them, 
 and in their way illustrating them. And I have 
 sought by such a mingling of historic and bio- 
 graphic tints with the thread of the stories, to 
 connect them ineffaceably with the times and 
 places of their production, and with the person- 
 ality of the authors, so as to make them way- 
 marks, as it were, in any future and further study 
 of history or of geography. 
 
 Out of this effort and intention, has grown the 
 subject matter of this little book, which is planned 
 not alone for a pleasurable beguilement of time 
 in reviving memories of old stories, but for carry- 
 ing effective knowledge of dates and places and 
 conditions which young people are blamable for 
 not knowing, and which if they come to know by 
 agreeable coupling of them with happy memories 
 of stories told at night, will stick all the faster and 
 firmer in memory. 
 
 I have not filled out my intention so well or so 
 richly as I could have hoped to do on begin- 
 ning; but, such as it is, I hope the little book will 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 meet kindly greeting from many — scattered up 
 and down the country — who have kindred loves 
 for the work and the memory of the old story- 
 tellers. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 FAGB 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 For the Grown-up People vii 
 
 I. — INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Words to start with for Young Folks .... 17 
 
 II.— FIRST PRINTERS AND THEIR HOMES. 
 
 The Dutchmen 27 
 
 John Gutenberg ......... 29 
 
 The City of Strasburg 32 
 
 Old English Printers 39 
 
 III. — THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. 
 
 Who wrote the Stories ? 42 
 
 The Vizier''s Daughter 45 
 
 Aladdin and his Lamp 50 
 
 A Great Traveller 58 
 
 IV. — GOLDSMITH'S WORK. 
 
 A Vicar and his Family ..,,,,. 73 
 
 Mr. Burchell and the Squire ...... 76 
 
 What happened in Prison 82 
 
 Poor Goldy 85 
 
 His Family and Death 91 
 
 v. — GULLIVER SWIFT. 
 
 Some Queer Little People 96 
 
 Some Monstrous People 103 
 
 Who was Gulliver ? 108 
 
 Dean Swiff s Love ill 
 
Xii CONTENTS. 
 
 VI. — AN IRISH STORY-TELLER. 
 
 Who was She ? . . . . . . . . 115 
 
 Her Stones 117 
 
 Forester 124 
 
 VIL — TWO FRENCH FRIENDS. 
 
 Burst of Revolution . 1 29 
 
 Days of Terror 134 
 
 The Guillotine . ■■■. 1 r- 137 
 
 Taul and Virginia 139 
 
 The Siberian Wanderer 143 
 
 VIIL — FAIRY REALM. 
 
 The Grimm Brothers 149 
 
 The Gold Bird 154 
 
 More Qiceer Beasts and People 158 
 
 The Flower with a Pearl 162 
 
 IX. — A SCOTCH MAGICIAN. 
 
 Foanhoe 166 
 
 The Tourtiament 169 
 
 A Castle 172 
 
 Rebecca 177 
 
 Walter Scott's Home 182 
 
 How and When He wrote 189 
 
 His Life and Ways 192 
 
 X. — ROBINSON CRUSOE. 
 
 Fifty Pounds Reward 198 
 
 The Culprit's Work 201 
 
 His Family 204 
 
 The Book 208 
 
 Good-by, Robinson! 215 
 
 XL — HOW A TINKER WROTE A NOVEL. 
 
 Travels of Christian 219 
 
 Great-Heart 227 
 
 John Bicnyan 232 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 " Now, tell us all about them " Frontispiece. 
 
 Vignette 17 
 
 Uncle Ned 19 
 
 Once upon a Time 22 
 
 Hark! 24 
 
 07te 26 
 
 Trying the Type 30 
 
 The Gutenberg Momiment at Strasburg 33 
 
 Strasburg Cathedral ......... 36 
 
 Vignette 38 
 
 Vignette 41 
 
 Vizier and Daughter 46 
 
 Roc's Egg 57 
 
 Street of Bagdad 60 
 
 Roc 62 
 
 The Old Man of the Sea . 67 
 
 Ruined Temple at Bagdad o . . 71 
 
 Vignette 72 
 
 Mrs. Primrose'' s Fine Girls ........ 74 
 
 Mrs. Primrose's ''Style''' T] 
 
 Going to Prison 81 
 
 Portraits of Oliver Goldsmith 86 
 
 Goldsmith's Lodgings 88 
 
XIV ILL US TRA TIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Goldy, Johnson, and Bosxvell 93 
 
 Six Inches High ... 08 
 
 Gulliver on Exhibition - . .99 
 
 Gulliver kills a Rat 107 
 
 Dean Swift 1 1 1 
 
 A Brobdingnag Book . . . . . . . . . 114 
 
 Basket -Woman . ri8 
 
 Limerick Gloves .,,..,..... 122 
 
 Edgeworth House 123 
 
 " Forester " 1 26 
 
 The Bastille . 
 
 ' • • 133 
 
 Charlotte Cor day 136 
 
 Bernardin de St. Pierre 140 
 
 Paul and Virginia 142 
 
 The Wanderer ........... 147 
 
 A Trio ............ 153 
 
 The Three Musicians 159 
 
 Little Red-Cap 160 
 
 The Elves 161 
 
 Jorindel touches the Cage 164 
 
 Vignette 165 
 
 Swineherd and Wamba 168 
 
 A Strange Knight 170 
 
 Rebecca and the Messenger 171 
 
 Front de Boeuf and the Jew 173 
 
 Cedric disguised as Priest 175 
 
 Rebecca's Trial 179 
 
 The Champion 181 
 
 The Chair, Coat, and Cane 187 
 
 The Boy Walter Scott 192 
 
 Daniel Defoe ........... 199 
 
 House where " Robinson Crusoe " was written .... 207 
 
 Robinson Crusoe . 209 
 
 Saving Traps from the Wreck 216 
 
ILL USTRA TIONS. XV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Robinson at Home 218 
 
 Passion and Patience 223 
 
 Escape from Doubting Castle 226 
 
 John Bmiyan 233 
 
 Bedford Jail ... 235 
 
 Bunyan^s Tomb 236 
 
I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION, 
 
 Words to start with for Young Folks. 
 
 T 
 
 ^HE coach had 
 come in at half- 
 past four by the old 
 clock that stood in 
 the corner of the 
 hall, and which had 
 a dumpling-like face 
 of a moon that slid 
 itself into sight, by 
 halves and quarters, in a most won- 
 derful way. Half-past four of the 
 afternoon it was, else we should 
 not have been there to see, — nor 
 to see the coach, which was another 
 wonderful thing to behold ; a round-bodied coach, hung 
 upon enormous leathern thorough-braces, on which it 
 went see-sawing over the bars upon the hill-sides of 
 country roads. There was a door in the middle, with a 
 miniature coach painted upon its panel, with horses in 
 
 17 
 
1 8 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 full trot (making faster time than the coach ever did in 
 earnest), and over the painting was the legend, " Eclipse 
 Line." There was a rival "Express Line;" but the 
 " Eclipse " was our favorite. It had the best horses, 
 Harry said (he knew, Harry did) ; and the driver always 
 saved a place upon the coach-roof, back of his seat, and 
 this was what the " Express " driver never did, but 
 bundled us inside, with the women. Therefore we pat- 
 ronized the " Eclipse " line. 
 
 A great gulf of leather, behind the -coach, received 
 the trunks, which were finished in that day with hairy 
 skins. Will Warner (of our school) had one which he 
 vowed was covered with a leopard-skin : it was certainly 
 spotted. Then, under the driver's seat of the " Eclipse " 
 was another cavernous recess for the carpet-bags and 
 small parcels ; and again, upon the coach-roof, were hat- 
 boxes and band-boxes, kept from sliding off the fearful 
 height by a little iron railing of two bars, against which, 
 when the coach-top was free, — in vacation time, — we 
 planted our feet, and, with back to back, went swaying 
 and rollicking over the turnpike roads. There are no 
 such coach-loads now. I think there are no such 
 coaches. The Troy coach, known of hotel jDCople and 
 of overland passengers, approaches it ; but I am strongly 
 of opinion that the old New-England stage-coach had a 
 dignity and a character of its own, quite unapproachable 
 by any vehicle of these times. What ponderous cur- 
 tains, with their odor of varnish and paint ! These all 
 were buttoned close upon that December afternoon ; 
 and the sturdy wheels had such accumulation of half- 
 frozen mud over them, and around them, as to make 
 them strongly resemble the richly embossed chariot- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 19 
 
 wheels that were figured in our book of Roman Anti- 
 quities. 
 
 And it is for us, on that day, a triumphal chariot. 
 We know what that queer-shaped box means upon the 
 coach-top, — not long enough, Harry hints, for bow and 
 arrows, which he had set his heart upon ; but there is 
 room in it for a Noah's ark, and balls, and battledoor, 
 and a " Boys' Own Book," and lots beside. For uncle 
 Ned never makes 
 his Christmas visit 
 without a good stock 
 of such things. 
 
 And uncle Ned 
 is in the coach. 
 We see his earnest, 
 kindly face, and his 
 white locks floating 
 round it like a glory, 
 before we have 
 guessed at all the 
 riches that must 
 lie packed away in 
 the Christmas-box 
 on the roof. He 
 had a way of cud- 
 dhng us youngsters 
 
 in his lap we never forgot. There was aunt Effie too, 
 with her queer old frontlet of curls, which she would 
 persist in wearing — though it would never compare 
 with her own sheen of silvery hair (we caught sight of 
 her sometimes in her chamber — so we knew about 
 that). She was a goodly, fat woman, — was aunt Effie. 
 
20 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS, 
 
 Harry said he loved fat women. Yet he has married 
 since a woman as thin as a ghost : this is the way boyish 
 opinions get overset in the hurly-burly of life. 
 
 But aunt Effie was as good as she was large. Every 
 pat of her hand on our heads had the tender weight of 
 all her heart in it. Not given to many words : perhaps 
 because uncle Ned took all the talking to himself, for he 
 fairly bubbled over with it. 
 
 We wondered if it was aunt Effie's way at home, by 
 the privacy of her own fireside, to interject, as she did, 
 into the swift current of uncle Ned's talk her approving 
 or questioning "^^waRDE!" I have tried to make 
 the types show, with their capitals, how she uttered it ; 
 but even the capitals, rising in crescendo (you must look 
 for that word in your Latin Dictionary), don't begin to 
 figure the droll effect of her "^^waRDE ! " 
 
 Did these two dear old people ever love, — in the way 
 of the story-books, — we wondered } Was there any 
 billing and cooing } Had she ever a delicate little waist 
 and golden ringlets, that ''enraptured his regard " } At 
 this date, I don't doubt it, — however much we all doubted 
 it then. 
 
 They were childless people ; perhaps that was the 
 reason the big Christmas-box always came on time, and 
 they with it. Aunt Efifie, with all her love-pattings 
 bestowed here and there, never failed to follow up the 
 motions of uncle Ned, with a beaming eye ; and he, 
 good soul, never failed to look sharply after aunt 
 Effie's comfort, or to take grace or caution from her 
 " ^i^WARDE ! " as she happened to pronounce it. 
 
 Well — these good old childless souls had come to us, 
 as I said, on this December day (the one before Christ- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 21 
 
 mas), in the coach, which, with its rime of mud upon the 
 wheels, was so Hke a Roman triumphal chariot ; and 
 the Christmas-box (big enough for any thing, except the 
 coveted bow and arrows) had been bestowed away for 
 the morrow' s opening, and a royal supper had been 
 served, with a steaming dish of oysters from the creek 
 near by, and a fire had been kindled as early as three in 
 the afternoon in the great south sitting-room (Frank 
 and I bringing in the back-logs) ; and by seven or eight 
 o'clock we were all seated around it, waiting for uncle 
 Ned to begin. 
 
 He always told us a story on these visits. He always 
 had the same chair in the corner ; and when he demurred 
 or halted at the start, or said he was old and rusty, 
 aunt Effie, from her corner, broke out upon him with 
 ''^'^waRDE!" 
 
 With that, he began ; since the first story-telling of his 
 I could remember — always with ** Once upon a time." 
 I told Kitty, — who was a roly-poly dumpling of a cousin, 
 but very nice, — that it would be so now ; and so it 
 was. 
 
 There is a delicious vagueness about " once upon a 
 time," that I think takes hold upon young listeners, — 
 if it does not upon the elderly ones. If we have an old 
 date in full, straightway the thing becomes historic, and. 
 is brought to fast anchorage outside of the shadowy 
 realm into which it is so delightful — on Christmas Eve 
 — to wander. Again, if the story have its start-point 
 a few years ago, or a few months ago, it brings up the 
 thought of newspapers and news-mongers, from all 
 whose note-takings we cast loose delightsomely as we 
 drift out over that misty and indeterminate current of 
 
22 
 
 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 gone-by years, which is shadowed forth darkly in 
 "once upon a time." 
 
 Once upon a time, then 
 
 Once upon a Time. 
 
 But, bless you, I am 
 not going to tell Uncle 
 Ned's story here and 
 now. I didn't prom- 
 ise it ; and I have only 
 led you along towards 
 this pitch of expecta- 
 tion to show how much 
 the conditions under 
 which a story is told 
 serve to fix it in mind. 
 We always thought 
 of Christmas and big 
 fires, and the coach coming up, — sometimes it was a 
 sleigh, to be sure, — and the gifts and the little listeners, 
 when we thought of Uncle Ned's stories. And I think 
 his stories — however humdrum they were (and I must 
 confess, looking back upon them now, that some of them 
 were terribly humdrum), were always the sweeter and 
 the better for the surroundings under which they were 
 toJd ; and that we relish the memory of them now far 
 more, because we knew the surroundings, and knew 
 him, and all about him, and how kindly his meaning 
 was, and how aunt Effie pushed him up to the work 
 of it. 
 
 Well, I am to tell you now about other story-tellers 
 not known in our family only, but known all over the 
 world, far as English books ever go ; and I want you to 
 understand and remember some of the circumstances 
 
INTRODUCTION. 23 
 
 under which they told their stories ; and who helped 
 them on by calling out to them, and how they looked, 
 and in what times they lived, and why they told such 
 stories as they did. 
 
 And I want to tell you this not only because a knowl- 
 edge of it will interest you more in the work of the old 
 story-tellers, but because they were famous men and 
 women, about whom you ought to know. 
 
 It is not much matter to learn if our uncle Ned came 
 up on a coach, because his stories never reached very 
 far, and he was not a man about whom the great world 
 cares to know very much, — though they puzzle them- 
 selves to learn trifling things about men not half so hon- 
 est, and true, and kind as he. But when it comes to 
 Oliver Goldsmith, who told a story in such a way that 
 all the world read it, and French and German and Ital- 
 ian people turned it into their own language, — why, it is 
 well for you to know if there was an aunt Efifie in his 
 case, and stage-coaches ; and if he lived in New Eng- 
 land, or in Ireland ; and what children he had, if any ; 
 and what became of him ; and where he lies buried. 
 
 So of Jonathan Swift, another man I shall have to 
 tell you about, who was a stronger man, but not half so 
 kind-hearted ; and was remembered by a great many 
 people with a shudder ; and yet who told a story so witty 
 and so winning, about certain queer little folks, — not 
 much larger than your thumb, — that you ought to know 
 about him, and remember what his life was, when you 
 read what he wrote. 
 
 Then, there are certain stories which in their way 
 are very charming, about which we can't say positively 
 just when they were written. But we can learn when 
 
24 
 
 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 they were first made generally known, and how they 
 were handed down from year to year, and from genera- 
 tion to generation. 
 
 Of such are the fairy-stories belonging to all coun- 
 tries, and to the books of all nations, — stories to which 
 children listen always with such open-eyed wonder. 
 
 Do the old people tell you there is harm in them .-* 
 Well, it is a harm that must be met and conquered. 
 We cannot root them out. The House that Jack built, 
 it is hard to pull down. The gossips will be gossips. 
 The evening shadows will throw grotesque lines on the 
 greensward, that children will change into queer shapes. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 25 
 
 And while we tell of them, and of the colors which 
 story-tellers have put upon these strange shapes of 
 unreal things, we will try and pluck all the harm out 
 of them, by treating them as we would treat any other 
 unreal shadows of things which are actual. 
 
 Those fairy-stories which have held their ground 
 longest and best have almost always some good com- 
 mon-sense point in them ; and in no one that I can call 
 to mind, do indolence and conceit win greater rewards 
 than industry ; or cunnmg and folly gam the battle over 
 straightforward honesty. 
 
 Apollyon is a great, shining fellow irt Bunyan's ** Pil- 
 grim's Progress ; " but the point of Christian's sword 
 finds out the weak places in his harness of iron ; and 
 under Great-Heart (which is a capital name for a hero), 
 he goes down altogether, and is heard of no more. 
 
 Little Red Riding Hood may be eaten up by the 
 wolf who has put on her grandmother's cap ; but the 
 little Red Riding Hoods who are left will look all 
 the sharper on those who are full of professions, and 
 not judge people by their caps, and not believe the lying 
 words of the strangers they meet upon the high-roads. 
 
 Such patient, quiet, steadfast toil as that of Cinder- 
 ella, is apt to bring to those who are not fagged by it, 
 and do not give it up, the most splendid of luck — 
 slipper or no slipper. There may indeed be no mar- 
 riage to a prince ; but there will be a marriage to Duty, 
 which will be even grander and happier ; for Duty is 
 always young, and never gets slip-shod, and never has 
 bad humors. 
 
 Now, all these stories about which I have undertaken 
 to tell you are printed stories ; and if there had been 
 
26 A ROUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 no way of printing them, you would never have heard 
 of them or of the lesson of them ; and it is for this 
 reason that I open my budget about the story-tellers, 
 by saying something concerning the man who invented 
 printing, and who, if he did not print the first book, cer- 
 tainly printed the first Bible. 
 
 You must not count upon great adventures and very 
 extraordinary things as happening in all the chapters 
 of this book : I dare say you will think some matters 
 I have to talk about, very dull matters ; but I believe 
 all the things I shall tell you will be worth your knowing, 
 and will help your relish for the reading of the larger 
 books which I shall speak of. You know we can't count 
 upon a sunny day for every one of our summer picnics, 
 nor always reckon upon a company of eager listeners 
 for the stories we have to tell : it is very much to count 
 on one. 
 
II. 
 
 FIRST PRINTERS AND THEIR HOMES. 
 The Duichmeii, 
 
 IN the year 1420 there was living in the city of 
 Haarlem an old gentleman, who kept the keys of 
 the cathedral, and who used, after dinner, to walk in the 
 famous wood, that up to this time is growing just with- 
 out the city walls. One day, while walking there, he 
 found a very smooth bit of beech-bark, on which — as 
 he was a handy man with his knife — he cut several let- 
 ters so plainly and neatly, that after his return home he 
 stamped them upon paper, and gave the paper to his 
 boy as a **copy." After this, seeing that the thing had 
 been neatly done, the old gentleman, whose name was 
 Lawrence Coster, fell to thinking of what might be 
 done with such letters cut in wood. By blackening 
 them with ink, he made black stamps upon paper ; and 
 by dint of much thinkmg and much working, he came, 
 in time, to the stamping of whole broadsides of letters, 
 — which was really printing. 
 
 But before he succeeded in doing this well, he had 
 found it necessary to try many experiments, and to take 
 
 27 
 
28 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 into his employ several apprentices. He did his work 
 very secretly, and told all of his apprentices to say noth- 
 ing of the trials he was making. But a dishonest one 
 among them, after a time, ran off from Holland into 
 Germany, carrying with him a great many of the old 
 gentleman's wooden blocks, and entire pages of a book 
 which he was about to print. 
 
 This is the story that is told by an old Dutch writer, 
 who was president of Haarlem College, and who printed 
 his account a hundred and fifty years after Lawrence 
 was robbed. He says he had the story from the lips 
 of most respectable old citizens, who had heard it from 
 their fathers ; and, furthermore, he says that he had a 
 teacher in his young days, who had known, long before, 
 an old servant of Lawrence Coster's ; and this servant 
 would burst into tears whenever he spoke of the way 
 in which his poor master was robbed, and so lost the 
 credit of his discovery. 
 
 The Dutch writers believe this story, and hint that 
 the runaway apprentice was John Faust, or John Guten- 
 berg ; but the Germans justly say there is no proof of 
 this. It is certain, however, that there was a Lawrence 
 {Custos, or Keeper, of the cathedral), who busied himself 
 with stamping letters, and with engraving. His statue is 
 on the market-place in Haarlem, and his rough-looking 
 books are, — some of them, — now in the "State House" 
 of Haarlem. They are dingy, and printed with bad ink, 
 and seem to have been struck from large engraved 
 blocks, and not from movable types. They are without 
 any date ; but people learned in such matters think they 
 belong to a period somewhat earlier than any book of 
 Faust, or of Gutenberg, who are commonly called the 
 discoverers of printing. 
 
FIRST PRINTERS AND THEIR HOMES. 29 
 
 John Gutenberg, 
 
 John Gutenberg, at the very time when this old 
 Dutchman was experimenting with his blocks in Hol- 
 land, was also working in his way, very secretly, in a 
 house that was standing not many years ago in the 
 ancient city of Strasburg. He had two working part- 
 ners, who were bound by oath not to reveal the secret 
 of the arts he was engaged upon. But one of these 
 partners died ; and upon this, his heirs claimed a right 
 to know the secrets of Qutenberg. Gutenberg refused ; 
 and there was a trial of the case, some account of which 
 was discovered more than three hundred years after- 
 ward in an old tower of Strasburg. 
 
 This trial took place in the year 1439. Gutenburg 
 was not forced to betray his secret ; but it did appear, 
 from the testimony of the witnesses; that he was occu- 
 pied with some way of making books (or manuscripts) 
 cheaper than they had ever been made before. 
 
 But Gutenberg was getting on so poorly at Strasburg, 
 and lost so much money in his experiments, that he 
 went away to Mayence, which is a German city farther 
 down the Rhine. He there formed a partnership with 
 a rich silversmith named John Faust, who took an oath 
 of secrecy, and supplied him with money, on condition 
 that after a certain time it should be repaid to him. 
 
 Then Gutenberg set to work in earnest. Some ac- 
 counts say he had a brother who assisted him ; and the 
 Dutch writers think this brother may have been the 
 robber of poor Lawrence Coster. But there is no proof 
 of it ; and it is too late to find any proof now. There 
 
^o 
 
 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 was certainly a Peter Schoffer, a scribe, or designer, who 
 worked for Gutenberg, and who finished up his first 
 books by drawing Hnes around the pages, and making 
 ornamental initial letters, and filling up gaps in the 
 
 Trying the Type. 
 
 printing. This Schoffer was a shrewd fellow, and 
 watched Gutenberg very closely. He used to talk over 
 what he saw, and what^ he thought, with Faust. He 
 told Faust he could contrive better types than Guten- 
 berg was using ; and, acting on his hints, Faust, who 
 
FIRST PRINTERS AND THEIR HOMES. 3 1 
 
 was a skilful worker in metals, run types in a mould ; 
 and these were probably the first cast types ever made. 
 These promised so well that Faust determined to get 
 rid of Gutenberg, and to carry on the business with 
 Schoffer — to whom he gave his only daughter Chris- 
 tine for a wife. 
 
 Faust called on Gutenberg for his loan shortly after, 
 which Gutenberg couldn't pay ; and in consequence he 
 had to give up to Faust all his tools, his presses, and 
 his unfinished work, among which was a Bible nearly 
 two-thirds completed. This, Faust and Schoffer hurried 
 through, and sold as a manuscript. They sold it as a 
 manuscript, because manuscripts brought high prices, 
 and because if it were known that this Bible was made 
 in some easier and cheaper way, they could not be sure 
 of so good a price ; and besides, this would make people 
 curious to find out about this easier way of making 
 books, which Faust and Schoffer wished to keep secret. 
 
 There are two copies in the National Library at Paris ; 
 one copy at the Royal Library at Munich ; and one at 
 Vienna. It is not what is commonly known as the May- 
 ence Bible, but is of earlier date than that. 
 
 It is without name of printer or publisher, and with- 
 out date. It is in two great volumes folio, of about six 
 hundred pages a volume. You very likely could not 
 read a word of it if you were to see it ; for it is in Latin, 
 and in black Gothic type, with many of the words 
 abbreviated, and packed so closely together as to puzzle 
 the eye. I give a line of this printing to show you that 
 it would not make easy reading. Should you chance to 
 own a Copy (and you probably never will), you could sell 
 it for enough money to buy yourself a little library of 
 about two thousand volumes. 
 
32 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 gmtnteiitt;iam:e4((t)id0 am ^mmt 
 
 It was certainly the first Bible printed from movable 
 types ; but poor Gutenberg got no money from it, 
 though he had done most of the work upon it. But he 
 did not grow disheartened. He toiled on, though he 
 was without the help of Schoffer and of Faust, and in a 
 few years afterward succeeded in making books which 
 were as good as those of his rivals. Before he died his 
 name was attached to books printed as clearly and 
 sharply as books are printed to-day. 
 
 Of course they are very proud of his memory in the 
 old Rhine town of Mayence, where he labored ; and 
 they have erected a statue there to his memory, — from 
 a design by the great Danish sculptor, Thorwaldsen. 
 This statue was erected in August, 1837; and there 
 was a great festival on the occasion — fifteen thousand 
 people crowding into the town to assist in doing honor 
 to the memory of the first printer. The old cathedral 
 was thronged ; the Bishop of Mayence said high mass ; 
 and the first Bible printed by Gutenberg was displayed. 
 On the site where he worked there is now a club-house ; 
 and the gentlemen of the club-house have erected 
 another little statue to Gutenberg in the inner court 
 of their building. 
 
 The City of Slrashurg, 
 
 But Strasburg is as proud of him as Mayence ; for in 
 Strasburg the burghers of that city say he studied out 
 the plans which he afterward carried into execution 
 
HiBB yys "HHffl HHBB Hffisd sfeoB ifflP' iSff Sffl fflH ifflmf InMT 
 
 The Guttenberg (Vlonument at Strasburg. 
 
FIRST PRINTERS AND THEIR HOMES. 35 
 
 at Mayence. So in Strasburg, in 1840, they erected 
 another statue to his memory, by David, a French 
 sculptor. It is of bronze, and is one of the imposing 
 sights of the city — as you may see from the picture I 
 have given of it. 
 
 I have a Httle copy of the head of Gutenberg as he 
 is represented in this statue, in plaster and v^^ax, which 
 I brought away from Strasburg a great many years 
 ago. It is before me as I write, — a cap trimmed with 
 fur upon the head, a sober and most comely face, a long 
 beard which would have become a Hebrew patriarch. 
 He must have been a man of noble presence ; and, 
 though we know but very little of his personal history, it 
 is certain that his name and his fame will live among 
 those of the greatest inventors. Every book you read is 
 a monument to his memory ; and he is deserving of 
 most kindly remembrance, because he busied himself 
 throughout a long life, in making serviceable an art 
 which is of the greatest benefit to everybody. Those 
 who made dictionaries of biography in the centuries 
 which followed closely after him didn't think it worth 
 their while to gather up any facts about his life, or even 
 to mention him ; but they spent a great deal of useless 
 labor in inquiries about the lives of petty princes who 
 made wars for conquest, and of students who made wars 
 with words, for conquest in some petty points of theol- 
 ogy ; but these princes and bookworms are forgotten 
 now, while John Gutenberg in that noble statue of the 
 old city of Strasburg is looked upon, and thought of, 
 and honored, more than if Dr. Bayle had written one 
 of his longest and fullest folio pages about him. 
 
 You will see the statue if you ever go to Strasburg ; 
 
36 
 
 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 and you will see the cathedral too, which is one of the 
 grandest and most beautiful of Europe. The tallest 
 spire in New York would hardly reach half way to its 
 
 top ; and four or five coun- 
 try church towers, if piled 
 one upon the other, would 
 not make a scaffolding high 
 enough to reach the middle 
 of its spire. I give a 
 glimpse of it, as you see it 
 over the quaint roofs of the 
 city, in order that you may 
 associate it with the story 
 of the first printer. 
 
 You will see that only one 
 of its towers bears a spire : 
 upon the top of the shorter 
 tower there is a little cot- 
 tage of entertainment, more 
 than two hundred feet above 
 the level of the pavement. 
 Here, those who venture on 
 a climb to this lofty plateau 
 may rest, and consider — if 
 they will mount still higher 
 into the regions of air, where 
 the great spire will carry 
 them if they choose to go. 
 Some thirty years ago I tried this second climbing ; 
 but the stone-work is as open as a lattice, and the 
 people on the street far below looked like pygmies, and 
 the whole city and spire seemed to reel with me ; and 
 
 Strasburg Cathedral. 
 
FIRST PRINTERS AND THEIR HOMES. ^7 
 
 such a degree of dizziness crept over me, that I was 
 glad to get down again to what seemed the solid footing 
 of the deck of the tower. 
 
 And was the great cathedral there when Gutenberg 
 was worrying over his types in that ancient city ? Yes : 
 Gutenberg saw it ; very likely he saw some of the 
 last stones placed upon the tower ; for though it was 
 commenced three or four centuries before, and was in 
 course of building when Wallace was fighting so bravely 
 in the glens of Scotland (about which you will remem- 
 ber, if you have read " The Scottish Chiefs"), the tower 
 was only completed in 1365. 
 
 Another thing to remember about this great cathe- 
 dral, which throws its shadow upon Gutenberg's statue, 
 is, — Sabina Erwin of Steinbach, a daughter of the great 
 architect, conducted and directed the building of much 
 of it in the years when it was being finished. Think of 
 that when you hear that women can do no grand things ! 
 Think, too, that in those very years, when Gutenberg 
 was printing his first book, that other wonderful woman 
 Joan of Arc, was putting courage into French armies 
 by leading them herself, — and the first printer was 
 very likely one of those who grieved greatly when they 
 learned that the poor, brave Joan had been burned in 
 the city of Rouen, by order of the cruel English com- 
 mander. 
 
 I don't think that Gutenberg ever saw the clock that 
 you may now see in the Cathedral of Strasburg, for it 
 has only been there a little over three hundred years. 
 But it is a famous clock : I would not dare to tell you of 
 all the amazing things its hidden machinery can do. 
 The figures of the apostles march ; a cock claps his 
 
38 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 wings, and crows ; death (in the shape of a skeleton) 
 appears ; and there are chimes, and sweet jangHng 
 sounds ; and the moon shows its changes, and the plan- 
 ets too. 
 
 ' But, most of all, think, — in connection with this 
 great church building and the clock and the spire, and 
 the rich pates de foie gras which they give you for dinner 
 in Strasburg, — think of the old long-bearded prince of 
 printers, who by his art and toil and genius contrived 
 movable types, and first made it possible for all the men 
 who- can tell stories worth a long life, to repeat them in 
 print, so that you may take them in your hand to study, 
 and dream over, and enjoy. 
 
FIRST PRINTERS AND THEIR HOMES. 39 
 
 Old English Printers, 
 
 But who printed the first English book? And did 
 that follow quickly afterward ? Not many years — per- 
 haps twenty. And the man who did this was named 
 William Caxton — a name which has been held m very 
 great honor ever since. 
 
 He was in early life apprentice to a seller of dry-goods 
 in London ; but he was an excellent apprentice ; and his 
 master came to be Mayor of London, and left him a fair 
 fortune. His zeal and industry made him a marked 
 man, — so that he was sent by the Government over to 
 Flanders, to the city of Bruges, where Philip the Good of 
 Burgundy was ruling. And there he studied, and there 
 he came to a knowledge of what Gutenberg had been 
 doing, and of what Faust had been doing, in Mayence. 
 And he translated the ''Histories of Troye " — for he 
 had made himself a good scholar ; and he secured some 
 of the workmen who had been with Faust and Schoffer, 
 after their printing-office was broken up by a war that 
 raged in that day along the Rhine ; and, taking over the 
 workmen into England, he set up a printing-office at 
 Westminster, — in some outbuilding of the famous West- 
 minster Abbey, — and there printed his Histories of 
 Troye, and many another book ; among them a Life of 
 Charles the Great, of which he says, *' I have specially 
 reduced it (translated it) after the simple cunning that 
 God hath lent to me, whereof I humbly and with all 
 my heart thank Him, and also am bounden to pray for 
 my fathers and mothers souls, that in my youth set me 
 to school, by which, by the sufferance of God, I get my 
 living I hope truly." 
 
40 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 And in this spirit of old-fashioned honesty and zeal, 
 the good printer toiled all the days of his life. 
 
 And after his death, the men who had worked with 
 him — of whom Wynkyn de Worde was chief — car- 
 ried on labor in the same spirit, and looked forward to 
 "the happy day when a Bible should be chained in 
 every church, for every Christian man to look upon." 
 
 And this was a great thing to look forward to in that 
 day. Books had borne and were bearing a value which 
 would astonish you now. An old Italian called Poggio 
 had — in those centuries, and not long before — ex- 
 changed his manuscript copy of Livy for a country villa 
 near to Florence. 
 
 In England, the cost of copying a book in writing 
 was worth the price of two fat oxen. Chaining books 
 to desks was not uncommon ; but it was not in every 
 church they were chained. They were in great reli- 
 gious houses, called monasteries and abbeys ; or they 
 were carefully guarded in the cabinets of kings. 
 
 The bindings of many of the old manuscript books, 
 and of the early printed ones, were enriched with very 
 rare carving in ivory or wood, or they were enamelled 
 beautifully on copper and adorned with pearls and rare 
 stones, and their clasps were of silver and of gold. 
 Many bindings of this sort are now kept with great *care 
 in European museums, and are very much valued. In 
 the old church of Monza, which is an Italian town very 
 near to Milan, there is a very old and curious piece of 
 book-binding, which, with its manuscript of the Gospels 
 in Greek, was given to the church by Theodolinda, a 
 good and famous queen of the Lombards, who lived 
 twelve hundred years ago. It is of silver and gold, and 
 
FIRST PRINTERS AND THEIR HOMES. 
 
 41 
 
 set over with precious stones, and is, I think, the oldest 
 bound book in the world. It was a very old book, and 
 a prized book, when Wynkyn de Worde talked about 
 chaining a Bible, some day, in every church. 
 
 What would the good old man have thought of Bibles 
 printed and sold for only a few pennies each } What 
 would the first English printer have thought, if he had 
 been told that within three centuries, in a country un- 
 heard of by him (for Columbus sailed on his first voy- 
 age the very year on which William Caxton died), and 
 in a single city of that country, more type would be set 
 up in one day, than was set up in all Europe during 
 the space of a year, in his time } 
 
III. 
 
 THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. 
 
 Who wrote the Stories? 
 
 WHO knows ? Not Captain Mayne Reid ; though 
 had he been born a Persian, and lived long 
 time enough ago, and been a Caliph with a long beard 
 and a cimiter — instead of a captain in the Mexican 
 war, with a Colt's revolver and a goatee, — and had he 
 seen the cloud of dust which Ali-Baba saw, I think he 
 could have made out the band of forty robbers under 
 it, and the cave, and all the rest. 
 
 But Mayne Reid didn't see the cloud of dust which 
 covered those robbers (and which is very apt to cover 
 all gangs of public robbers), and did not live so long 
 ago, and therefore did not write "The Arabian Nights." 
 Nor did Mrs. Hannah More, for the book is not in her 
 style ; nor did the author of '' Little Women." 
 
 You could never guess who wrote **The Arabian 
 
 Nights," — for nobody knows when those stories were 
 
 first written. It seems very odd that a book should be 
 
 made, and no one able to tell when it was made. The 
 
 42 
 
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. 43 
 
 publishers don't allow such things to happen nowadays. 
 Yet it is even so with the book we are talking of. Of 
 course it is possible to fix the date of the many trans- 
 lations of *'The Arabian Nights " which have been made 
 into the languages of Europe from the old Arabic 
 manuscripts. Thus it was in the year 1704 that a cer- 
 tain Antoine Galland, a distinguished Oriental scholar 
 of Paris, who had travelled in the East, and who had 
 collected many curious manuscripts and medals, pub- 
 lished a French translation of what was called **The 
 Thousand and One Nights." This was in the time of the 
 gay court of Louis the Fourteenth ; and the fine ladies of 
 the court — those of them who could read — all devoured 
 the book ; and the school-boys throughout France 
 (though there were not many school-boys in those days 
 outside of the great cities) all came to know the won- 
 derful stories of Aladdin and of Ali-Baba. Remember 
 that this was about the time when the great Duke of 
 Marlboro' was winning his famous victories on the Con- 
 tinent, — specially that of Blenheim ; about which an 
 English poet, Dr. Southey, has written a quaint little 
 poem, which you should read. It was in the lifetime, 
 too, of Daniel Defoe, — who wrote that ever-charming 
 story of Robinson Crusoe some twelve or fourteen years 
 later ; and the first newspaper in America — called " The 
 Boston News Letter" — was printed in the same year 
 in which Antoine Galland published his translation of 
 "The Thousand and One Nights." If you should go 
 to Paris, and be curious to see it, you can find in the 
 Imperial Library, or the National Library (or whatever 
 those changeable French people may call it now), the 
 very manuscript of Antoine Galland. 
 
44 
 
 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 Some years afterward there was a new and fuller 
 translation by another Oriental scholar, who had suc- 
 ceeded M. Galland as professor of Arabic in the Royal 
 College. Then there followed, in the early part of this 
 century, translations into English ; and I suppose that 
 American boys in the days of President Monroe took 
 their first taste of those gorgeous Arabian tales. 
 
 But the completest of all the collections was made 
 by a German scholar, Mr. Von Hammer, in the year 
 1824 — not so far back but that your fathers and moth- 
 ers may remember little stray paragraphs in the papers, 
 which made mention of how a German scholar had 
 traced these old Arabian tales back to a very dim anti- 
 quity in India ; and how he believed they had thence 
 gone into Persia, where the great men of the stories all 
 became Caliphs ; and how they floated thence, by hear- 
 say, into Arabia (which was a coilntry of scribes and 
 scholars in the days of Haroun al Raschid) ; and how 
 they there took form in the old Arabic manuscripts 
 which Antoine Galland had found and translated. But 
 during the century that had passed since M. Galland's 
 death, other and fuller Arabic copies had been found, 
 with new tales added, and with other versions of the 
 tales first told. 
 
 But what we call the machinery of the stories was 
 always much the same ; and the same Genii flashed out 
 in smoke and flame, and the same cimiters went blaz- 
 ing and dealing death through all the copies of ** The 
 Thousand and One Nights." 
 
 But why came that title of "■ The Thousand and One 
 Nights," which belonged, and still belongs, to all the 
 European collections of these old Arabian stories .-^ I 
 
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. 45 
 
 will tell you why ; and in telling you why, I shall give 
 you the whole background on which all these various 
 Arabian stories, wherever found, are arrayed. And the 
 background is. itself a story, and this is the way it 
 runs: — 
 
 The Viziefs daughter. 
 
 Once there lived a wicked Sultan of Persia, whose 
 name was Schahriar ; and he had many wives — like 
 the Persian Shah who went journeying into England a 
 few summers ago ; and he thought of his wives as stock- 
 owners think of their cattle — and I fear the present 
 Persian Shah thinks no otherwise. 
 
 Well, when this old Schahriar found that his wives 
 were faithless and deceitful, — as all wives will be who 
 are esteemed no more than cattle, — he vowed that he 
 would cut off all chance of their sinning by making 
 an end of them : so it happened that whatever new 
 wife he espoused one day, he killed upon the next. 
 
 You will think the brides were foolish to marry him ; 
 but many women keep on making as foolish matches all 
 the world over ; and she who marries a sot, or the man 
 who promises to be a sot, is killed slowly, instead of 
 being killed quickly with a bow-string, — as the Schah- 
 riar did his work. 
 
 Besides, all women of the East were slaves, as they 
 are mostly now, and subject to whatever orders the 
 Sultan might make. 
 
 Now, it happened that this old Schahriar had a vizier, 
 or chief officer under him, who executed all his mur- 
 derous orders, and who was horrified by the cruelties 
 he had to commit, And this same vizier had a beauti- 
 
46 
 
 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 ful and accomplished daughter, who was even more 
 horrified than her father ; and she plotted how she 
 might stay the bloody actions of the Schahriar. 
 
 Vizier and Daughter. 
 
 She could gain no access to him, and could hope to 
 win no influence over him, except by becoming his 
 bride ; but, if she became his bride, she would have but 
 one day to live. So, at least, thought her sisters and 
 
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. 47 
 
 her father. She, of course, found it very hard to win 
 the consent of her lather, the vizier, to her plan ; but at 
 last she succeeded, and so arranged matters that the 
 Schahriar should command her to be his bride. 
 
 The fatal marriage-day came, and the vizier was in an 
 agony of grief and alarm. The morning after the 
 espousals, he waited — in an ecstasy of fear — the 
 usual order for the slaughter of the innocent bride ; but 
 to his amazement and present relief, the order was 
 postponed to the following day. 
 
 This bride, whose name was Scheherazade, — known 
 now to school-boys and school-girls all over the world, 
 
 — was most beguiling of speech, and a most charming 
 story-teller. And on the day of her marriage she had 
 commenced the narration of a most engrossing story to 
 her husband the Schahriar; and had so artfully timed it, 
 and measured out its length, that, when the hour came 
 for the Sultan to set about his cares of office, she should 
 be at its most interesting stage. The Sultan had been 
 so beguiled by the witchery of her narrative, and so 
 eager to learn the issue, that he put off the execution 
 of his murderous design, in order to hear the termina- 
 tion of the story on the following night. 
 
 And so rich was the narration, and so great was the 
 art of the princess Scheherazade, that she kept ali-ve 
 the curiosity and wonder of her husband, the Sultan, 
 
 — day after day, and week after week, and month after 
 month, — until her fascinating stories had lasted for a 
 thousand and one nights. 
 
 If you count up these you will find they make a 
 period of two years and nine months — during which 
 she had beguiled the Sultan, and stayed the order for 
 
48 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 her execution. In the interval, children had been born 
 to her ; and she had so won upon her husband, that he 
 abolished his cruel edict forever, — on condition that 
 from time to time she should tell over again those 
 enchanting stories. And the stories she told on those 
 thousand and one nights, and which have been recited 
 since in every language of Europe, thousands and thou- 
 sands of times, are the Arabian Nights tales. 
 
 If this account is not true in all particulars, it is at 
 least as true as the stories are. 
 
 A good woman sacrificed herself to work a deed of 
 benevolence. TJiat story, at any rate, is true, and is 
 being repeated over and over in lives all around us. 
 
 But, after all, the question is not answered as to who 
 wrote **The Arabian Nights." I doubt if it ever will be 
 answered truly. Who cares, indeed } I dare say that 
 youngsters in these days of investigation committees 
 are growing up more curious and inquiring than they 
 used to be ; but I know well I cared or thought noth- 
 ing about the authorship in those old school days when 
 I caught my first reading of Aladdin and the Wonderful 
 Lamp. 
 
 What a night it was ! What a feast ! I think I could 
 have kissed the hand that wrote it. 
 
 •A little red morocco-bound book it was, with gilt 
 edges to the leaves, that I had borrowed from Tom 
 Spooner ; and Tom Spooner's aunt had loaned it to him, 
 and she thought all the world of it, and had covered it 
 in brown paper, and I mustn't soil it, or dog's-ear it. 
 And I sat down with it — how well I remember ! — at a 
 little square-legged red table in the north recitation- 
 room at E school ; and there was a black hole in 
 
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. 49 
 
 the top of the table — where Dick Linsey, who was a 
 miUtary character, and freckled, had set off a squib of 
 gunpowder (and got trounced for it) ; and the smell of 
 the burnt powder lingered there, and came up grateful- 
 ly into my nostrils, as I read about the sulphurous 
 clouds rolling up round the wonderful lamp, and the 
 Genie coming forth in smoke and flames ! 
 
 What delight ! If I could only fall in with an old 
 peddler with a rusty lamp, — such as Aladdin's, — 
 wouldn't I rub it ! 
 
 And with my elbows fast on the little red table, and 
 my knees fast against the square legs, and the smell of 
 the old squib regaling me, I thought what I would 
 order the Genie to do, if I ever had a chance : — A 
 week's holiday to begin with ; and the Genie should be 
 requested to set the school *' principal" down, green 
 spectacles and all, in the thickest of the woods some- 
 where on the ** mountain." Saturday afternoons should 
 come twice a week — at the very least ; turkey, with 
 stuffing, every day except oyster day. I would have a 
 case of pocket-knives ''Rogers' superfine cutlery" — 
 (though Kingsbury always insisted that " Wosten- 
 holm's " were better) brought into my closet, and would 
 give them out, cautiously, to the clever boys. I would 
 have a sled, brought by the Genie, that would beat 
 Ben Brace's ''Reindeer," he bragged so much about, — 
 by two rods, at least. I would have a cork jacket, with 
 which I could swim across Snipsic Lake, where it was 
 widest, — twice over, — and think nothing of it. I 
 would have a cavern, like the salt mines in Cracow, 
 Poland (as pictured in Parley's Geography) ; only, in- 
 stead of salt, it should all be rock-candy ; and I would 
 
50 
 
 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 let in clever fellows and pretty girls, and the homely 
 ones, too — well, as often as every Wednesday. 
 
 Ah, well-a-day ! we never come to the ownership of 
 such caverns ! We never find a peddler with the sort 
 of lamp that will bring any sort of riches — with wish- 
 ing. 
 
 But, my youngsters, there is a Genie that will come 
 to any boy's command, and will work out amazing- 
 things for you all through boyhood, and all through 
 life ; and his name is — Industry. 
 
 And now, if your lessons are all done, and if you 
 will keep in mind what I have said about *' The Arabian 
 Nights," and their history, we will have a taste of these 
 Eastern stories. 
 
 :^laddin and his Lamp. 
 
 Aladdin was the son of a poor old woman who lived 
 in a city of China. His father was dead, and he didn't 
 work as he should have done to support his old mother : 
 in fact, all his early life was not the sort of one out of 
 which men are apt to grow into heroes. 
 
 He was idling in the streets one day — as idle fellows 
 will — when he met a strange man with a dark face, 
 who asked Aladdin his name, and told him he was a 
 relative of his father's, and would befriend him ; and 
 thereupon he gave him some gold coins, with which 
 Aladdin ran off home. 
 
 After a few days this strange man (who was a magician 
 — though Aladdin couldn't know that) met the boy again, 
 and gave him more money, and paid a visit to his old 
 mother, and promised to set up the boy in trade, which 
 
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. 5 1 
 
 he did do — furnishing him silks to sell, or whatever 
 the city people would be apt to buy. And this same 
 strange dark man used to take Aladdin about the city, 
 and show him all the wonderful sights ; and finally led 
 him one day far beyond the city walls, to a retired place 
 between two mountains. There with the help of Alad- 
 din he builds a fire (a great many of the wonders of 
 these tales turn upon the secret power of fire) ; then he 
 utters a few magical words, and the ground opens, show- 
 ing an iron plate, which Aladdin lifts, and lo ! there 
 appear steps going down into a cavern in the earth. 
 
 The magician instructs Aladdin how he is to descend, 
 — tells him what halls of treasure he will pass through, 
 and gardens with splendid fruit, — tells him how he 
 must touch nothing till he reaches the farthest chamber, 
 where he will find an iron lamp in a niche of the wall. 
 This he must seize upon, and bring back : after he has 
 secured this, he may pluck as much of the fruit as he 
 chooses. Lastly he puts on the boy's finger a ring, 
 which will give him safety and help. 
 
 So Aladdin enters, — marches through the great glit- 
 tering corridors (which, though they were deep under 
 ground, were as light as day), — passes through the gar- 
 dens, and reaches and seizes the lamp. 
 
 He picks some of the fruit in the garden ; but what 
 seemed fruit are only topazes and diamonds and pearls. 
 Of course he fills his purse and his pockets ; and, ar- 
 rived at the steps, the magician asks him to hand up 
 the lamp. 
 
 But Aladdin is cautious : perhaps he suspects a little 
 false play on the part of the magician, and he refuses 
 until he shall have come fairly out. 
 
52 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 At this the magician in a rage utters again a few 
 magical words, and the ground and iron door close on 
 poor Aladdin. He wanders in despair up and down. 
 He calls out ; but who can hear him in those depths t 
 At last he betakes himself to prayer ; and, in the act 
 of clasping his hands, he rubs slightly the ring upon 
 his finger. Upon this a great Genie appears in smoke 
 and flame, by whose power he is placed outside once 
 more, and he wanders back to his mother's house in 
 the city. 
 
 I don't know what became of his shop and stock of 
 goods ; or what became of his pocket-full of rubies and 
 diamonds. The story doesn't say ; but it does say that 
 he felt hungry on one occasion, when there was no bread 
 in the house, and no money. So he determined to sell 
 the old lamp : the mother thinks no one will buy it, ex- 
 cept she brighten it up a little. But she has no sooner 
 set to work at the scouring, than smoke and flame fill 
 the place, and out of the smoke and flame comes a ter- 
 rible Genie, who offers to do Aladdin's bidding. 
 
 Aladdin wants food ; and straightway, the Genie hav- 
 ing vanished, slaves come in from some unknown quar- 
 ter, and bring silver and gold dishes heaped up with 
 meats and fruits such as these humble people had 
 never tasted before. And when after some days the 
 meats are gone, the gold dishes are sold to a Jew, and 
 they have money for months longer. Two or three 
 times in the course of a year this is repeated : the lamp 
 is rubbed ; the Genie comes ; the food in golden dishes 
 is sent up ; the dishes are sold. I don't think Aladdin 
 can have made a very good bargain with the Jew who 
 bought his dishes. For my part, I think I should have 
 
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS, 53 
 
 commanded the Genie to bring a good batch of " cur- 
 rent funds," and bought my own dishes. But Aladdin 
 didn't. 
 
 He began shortly to have ambitious views about get- 
 ting up in the world. He had seen the Sultan's daugh- 
 ter, and, approving of her looks, thought he would like 
 to marry her. He sent his old mother to '' interview " 
 the Sultan on the subject. 
 
 People at the court hooted her at the first ; but she 
 bore great gifts of jewels and gold, — so great that at 
 last the Sultan listened, and promised that at the end of 
 a certain time his daughter would receive the addresses 
 of this unknown lover. 
 
 But, as the Sultan had already the rare jewels in his 
 own keeping, he did not keep very fast in mind poor 
 Aladdin ; and so Aladdin woke one morning to hear the 
 bells ringing for the marriage of the Sultan's daughter. 
 However, by the aid of the lamp and the Genie, he put 
 difficulties in the way of this new marriage ; and sent 
 such splendid gifts that at last he won his purpose ; and 
 his marriage day with the beautiful daughter of the 
 Sultan was really appointed. He built a magnificent 
 palace — all through the Genie of the lamp — in which 
 he was to live ; and he purposely left one window in the 
 great hall unfinished, and then he challenged the best 
 work-people of the Sultan to complete it. 
 
 The Sultan sent his cunningest workmen, and his 
 whole stock of jewels, to make the window of the 
 palace as perfect as the rest. But they could not do it. 
 The laborers were not cunning enough, and the jewels 
 were not rare enough. So Aladdin ordered them away ; 
 and then (with his lamp, and a little rubbing of it) he 
 called his Genie, and all was finished in an hour's time. 
 
54 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 The Sultan's daughter seems to have Hked Aladdin ; 
 and they lived very happily together for a while in this 
 palace. I dare say the old people of the court thought 
 Aladdin an upstart, and perhaps they didn't visit him 
 notwithstanding his wife's position. 
 
 Meantime, what has become of that African magi- 
 cian .? He had gone away — across Tartary possibly, 
 and by way of Bagdad very likely, to his own country, — 
 thinking poor Aladdin was buried in the cavern. But, 
 by his magic, he learned after a time how things had 
 turned in China : so he travelled back to get possession 
 of the wonderful lamp. The way in which he did this 
 was a very shrewd way ; for he disguised himself as 
 a peddler of new and flash trinkets, and offered to 
 change them for old candlesticks or old lamps. 
 
 If he had lived in our time, he would have found that 
 women love old candlesticks very much more than any 
 new things ; but it was not so then ; and he went to the 
 gates of this splendid Aladdin palace, bawling his wares, 
 and offering to change new lamps for old ones. And 
 some slave — I suppose an upper chambermaid — re- 
 ported what he said to the princess Buddir al Buddoor 
 (which was the name of Aladdin's bride). And she 
 hinted to the princess that an old lamp stood always on 
 her master's table, which was so ugly and old, that it 
 would be much better to have a new one in place of it. 
 
 The princess Buddir thought the same ; and, Aladdin 
 being away a-hunting, the bargain was made. 
 
 What do you think came of it } Why, next morning, 
 when the Sultan waked up, he looked over to admire the 
 fine palace of his son-in-law, and behold ! there was no 
 palace there ! The African magician (by the aid of the 
 lamp) had whisked it away into his own country. 
 
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. ■ SS 
 
 Poor Aladdin, when he came back from hunting, had 
 a sorry time of it, and the Sultan threatened to take off 
 his head. But he begged grace for two months or so, 
 in which time he hoped to get things straight again. 
 
 What way should he turn ? He knew it must all 
 come of the lamp ; but where to find it .'* He thought 
 if he could discover the princess, he might learn some- 
 thing about the lamp ; though I am afraid he lamented 
 the loss of the lamp more than he did the loss of the 
 princess. He remembered the ring the magician had 
 given him, and gave it a good rubbing ; sure enough, 
 the old Genie that had met him in the cavern came 
 back in smoke and flame. The Genie couldn't give 
 back his bride to him ; but it transported him over land 
 and sea in a twinkling, and set him down under the 
 walls of his lost palace, which was standing now in the 
 magician's country, just as complete and beautiful as it 
 stood before in China. This was very wonderful. I 
 suppose if the African newspapers of that time re- 
 marked upon it, they probably said, — " We observe that 
 a fine residence has gone up on Pyramid Street, adding 
 much to the value of property in that locality, and doing 
 credit to the taste and enterprise of our fellow towns- 
 man Mr. Magic." 
 
 Aladdin saw through the blinds of a window of the 
 residence the beloved Buddir (I suppose he called her 
 Budd, or perhaps Rosebud) ; and she saw him, and 
 sent her maid to open the postern, or whatever the gate 
 was called ; and he came in, and learned how it had 
 all happened. And Rosebud said the magician came 
 every day, and was trying to win her affections. Alad- 
 din told her not to bluff him outright ; but to treat him 
 
56 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 kindly, and ask him to take supper with her. Then he 
 goes to a drug-shop near by, and buys a powder, — 
 sulphate of morphia, perhaps, — and, returning quietly 
 and secretly, causes the powder to be put in the magi- 
 cian's cup. 
 
 That is the end of the magician. The lamp — as you 
 will have guessed — was in his bosom; and Aladdin 
 takes it out — rubs it, and whisks his palace — Rose- 
 bud and all — back to China once more. 
 
 The Sultan is delighted to find things on their old 
 footing. And I suppose the China newspapers said, 
 " We are gratified to see that the residence of our friend 
 Col. Aladdin is again in position, and occupied by the 
 esteemed family of the colonel. Its temporary dis- 
 placement is said to have been due to a slight earth- 
 quake, against which in future we understand that the 
 colonel has abundantly provided. Mrs. Col. Aladdin, 
 nee Buddir, is, we learn, in her usual health, not having 
 suffered, as was at first reported, by the catastrophe." 
 
 Things were now going on very swimmingly with 
 Aladdin ; and they would have continued thus, had not 
 an old lady who boasted of being very religious (which 
 is not a thing to boast of) put herself in the way of 
 Princess Budd, and so won upon her, that Rosebud 
 thought she would do nothing without taking the advice 
 of Fatima, — which was the name of the pretended 
 holy woman. 
 
 Rosebud asked Fatima how she liked her palace, and 
 her crockery, and her great Hall. Fatima liked it all 
 very well, except the Hall, which she thought wanted a 
 Roc's Qgg hung up in the middle. 
 
 It must have been a very great hall ; for a Roc's itgg 
 
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. 57 
 
 was so large that when it lay upon the plain it looked 
 like a round-topped temple. 
 
 But perhaps Budd had never seen one — probably not 
 She asked Aladdin to get her a Roc's egg. So he takes 
 to his lamp, and calls up his Genie. 
 
 For once the Great Slave was raging with anger. 
 The house shook ; flames darted from the eyes of the 
 Genie. Aladdin did not know that the Roc was own 
 cousin to this creature of smoke and flame — and that 
 they were much attached to each other. 
 
 Roc's Egg. 
 
 The Genie at last cooled down, and told Aladdin how 
 it was ; and told him, besides, that the holy woman was 
 no woman at all — only a brother of the wicked magi- 
 cian, who had murdered the true Fatima, and had made 
 his way into the palace to destroy Aladdin, and get pos- 
 session of the Wonderful Lamp. 
 
 So Aladdin determined to meet the tricks of the 
 magician with a trick of his own. He pretended to be 
 sick, and summoned the holy woman to comfort him : 
 he watched her narrowly, and saw that under the folds 
 
58 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 of her gown she had a dagger in hand. Seizing his 
 chance, he snatched it from her, and plunged it in her 
 bosom ; and that was the end of the other magician. 
 
 Rosebud was greatly shocked ; for she thought still it 
 was Fatima who was murdered. She dried her tears 
 when Aladdin told her the true story. And ever after 
 they lived together in great comfort, and kept the 
 Wonderful Lamp till they died. 
 
 And who do you think has the Lamp now } Nobody 
 knows. 
 
 It seems strange that such a lazy, good-for-nothing 
 fellow as Aladdin is said to be in the beginning of the 
 story, should have come to such great luck. Such boys 
 in our day don't come to any thing good or great. The 
 only way I can account for it is — by supposing that 
 there was really no lamp at all, and that the old story- 
 teller intended what he calls the Lamp to mean — only 
 Industry and Watchfulness — which, as long as Aladdin 
 kept and used, brought him riches and honor ; and 
 whenever he lost hold on them — every thing turned out 
 badly. 
 
 :^ Great Traveller. 
 
 In the time of the ^rreat Haroun al Raschid 
 
 You don't know who the great Haroun al Raschid 
 was } 
 
 He was a real Eastern monarch, surnamed The Just, 
 who lived about eleven hundred years ago in Bagdad. 
 He loved science, and loved letters ; he loved fair 
 women, and he loved pearls and jewels. 
 
 I don't know if all is true that the histories tell about 
 
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. 59 
 
 him ; but he must have been a grand monarch, and Uved 
 in more luxury than most monarchs. 
 
 I can't forget the stories of him, which an old teacher 
 of my boyish days put in my mind. They cling so to 
 my memory, that I never hear the sweetly-flowing 
 name of Haroun al Raschid, but I seem to see great 
 gardens full of bloom, and thrones with jewels crusted 
 on them, and sparkling fountains, and flashing swords, 
 and silken turbans, and troops of camels, and palm- 
 trees lifting their tops . into the dreamy haze of East- 
 ern countries. Then, again, I see the great Caliph 
 seated on his jewelled throne, and the Grand Vizier, 
 Jaeffer, in attendance on him — looking lovingly upon 
 the beautiful face of the Princess — the daughter of 
 Haroun. Poor Jaeffer ! He came to look too lovingly 
 upon the beautiful face of the Princess ; and the great 
 Caliph clipped off his head with a cimeter. This is 
 history I am telling you now ; and this really and truly 
 happened. It has made a great blot upon the fame 
 of Haroun al Raschid, who, — for all this, was the most 
 brilliant and the justest monarch of those centuries ; 
 and he lived in the age of Charlemagne. 
 
 Well — it was in the time of this great Caliph Ha- 
 roun al Raschid, and in his great city of Bagdad, that a 
 porter named Hindbad, very poor, and very tired, and 
 very hungry, — one day sat at the gate of a rich, tall 
 palace, snuffing the odors of the rich dinner that was 
 being served within. 
 
 The by-standers told him he was at the door of the 
 great traveller and merchant — Sindbad. But it did not 
 console the poor fellow to know that the rich man had 
 a name almost like his own. 
 
6o 
 
 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 "Alas ! " said he (nobody says "Alas!" now, whatever 
 happens), "Alas, why has Allah, the great God, given to 
 this man plenty, and to poor Hindbad only poverty?" 
 Some one of the by-standers — very likely the door- 
 keeper — reported 
 this speech of the 
 poor fellow to Sind- 
 bad ; and Sindbad or- 
 dered him brought in, 
 and gave him a place 
 at his table, and then 
 and there commenced 
 the story of those 
 dangerous voyages of 
 his, and of those trials 
 and labors, which had 
 made him rich. I sup- 
 pose he wanted to 
 make poor Hindbad 
 understand that riches do not fall from the clouds, and 
 that very many who enjoy them have come to them 
 through long struggles and dangers — if nothing worse. 
 Sindbad said that he was the son of a merchant ; and 
 that on his first voyage he was one day becalmed beside 
 what seemed a great green island : and that he, with 
 several of the crew, went ashore, and after wandering 
 about some time suddenly felt the land quake and heave 
 under them. This was not strange ; for what they had 
 taken to be an island was in reality only the back of 
 a huge sea-monster sleeping on the water. Before he 
 had fairly rolled over and gone down, most of the men 
 made their escape in the boat ; but poor Sindbad was 
 
 Street of Bagdad. 
 
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. 6l 
 
 not quick enough, so he was overwhelmed in the sea. 
 Luckily he seized upon a log as he rose, and clambering 
 upon it, floated upon it a day and a night, and at last 
 was swept into the bay of a real island where he had 
 many adventures, but ended with getting home safely, 
 and with the wonderful recovery of all the goods he 
 had taken out in his ship. 
 
 On his second voyage he was cast away again ; and 
 upon the island where he landed he came upon one of 
 those wonderful Roc's eggs of which a picture was 
 given you a little way back. Of course he had no 
 idea what it could be ; but while he gazed upon it in 
 wonderment the sky was darkened, and the mother-bird 
 came sailing to her nest. He was so near the ^'ggy that 
 the great Roc (which was large enough to carry off an 
 elephant in its claws) sat down upon her ^gg and poor 
 Sindbad. He made himself as small as he could ; and 
 then with some cord he had in his pocket — what does 
 he do but lash himself to the ankle, or to one of the 
 toes, of the great bird ! 
 
 Was there ever such a bird } To tell truth, I don't 
 think Sindbad's story is very good authority ; but there 
 was an old Venetian traveller named Marco Polo, who 
 went all across Asia some years later than the time of 
 Haroun, and he says he heard of the Roc ; and people 
 told him it could carry up an elephant and a rhinoceros 
 together. But then, Marco Polo, though he was a real 
 traveller, told some stories that it is hard to believe. 
 
 Why did Sindbad tie himself to the leg of the great 
 Roc t The truth is, there was nothing to eat on the 
 great plain where the Roc's nest was ; and he was 
 so badly off, that he thought he could not fare worse in 
 
62 
 
 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 going wherever the Roc might take him. He doesn't 
 seem to have been at all afraid that the Roc would 
 devour him ; and he had as good a reason for wishing 
 to change his place of residence as many people have 
 now every May-day. 
 
 Roc. 
 
 The Roc, when it flew, took him up, — so high, he 
 could see no ground : he was swept through the clouds, 
 and great clouds were below him. Then at last, 
 swooping down in great circles over sea and over land, 
 the Roc alighted in a barren valley hemmed in on all 
 sides by high mountains. From the account Sindbad 
 gave of it, it must have been very much like the famous 
 valley of Yosemite in California. Yet I don't think it 
 was the Yosemite. However, he untied himself hastily ; 
 and presently after, the Roc, having taken up a huge 
 serpent in his beak, soared away. 
 
 Sindbad found himself without food. There were 
 no houses in this mountain valley ; there were no 
 fruits ; huge serpents in plenty, and — strange to say 
 — great store of diamonds scattered all over the sur- 
 
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. 63 
 
 face of the ground. But all around him the cliffs were 
 so steep that there was no hope of climbing away ; least 
 of all, if he should load himself with diamonds. It was 
 a dreadful night he passed after his air-voyage tied to 
 the leg of the Roc. There was no shelter except in a 
 crevice of the cliffs — too narrow for the great serpents 
 to creep in. The next day, as he wandered about, faint 
 with hunger, he suddenly felt a shock of something fall- 
 ing on the ground near him ; and, on looking carefully, 
 he found that this falling matter was nothing less than 
 big rounds of uncooked beef. He saw, too, that these 
 fragments of meat were directly pounced upon by gi- 
 gantic eagles, which swooped down and bore them off. 
 He remembered then to have heard of some distant val- 
 ley where the diamond-collectors took this way to gather 
 jewels they could not otherwise reach — the diamonds 
 sticking fast in the flesh, and the eagles bearing all to 
 their nests in the cliffs, where the merchants found 
 them. Marco Polo, if I remember rightly, tells this 
 story too. 
 
 Seeing how the case stood, Sindbad gathered a great 
 package of the finest diamonds to be found — tied the 
 package to his girdle in front ; then tied a round of 
 beef to his girdle behind, and lay down flat, with his 
 face to the ground. He trusted that some great eagle 
 would lift him, and the meat, and diamonds, and all. 
 
 And there came a mammoth bird, — not so large as a 
 roc, by any means, — but yet equal to the work. Slowly 
 but surely, Sindbad was borne up by it from the earth — 
 borne away to the cliffs, and dropped into a nest of 
 young eaglets, where the diamond-searchers were in 
 waiting to snatch the jewels. 
 
64 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 You may be sure they were very much surprised to 
 see Sindbad, and were astonished when he showed them 
 the treasures in his package. However, he gave them 
 a generous share, — visited their city, saw the king, — as 
 was usual for strangers, — and finally sailed away with 
 a rich load of jewels for home. And this was the end 
 of his second voyage. 
 
 On his third voyage, this unlucky Sindbad was 
 wrecked again. He saves his life, indeed, and with 
 a few of his comrades wanders upon the shores of a 
 strange country, where at last he enters the doors of 
 a great palace. It must have been a rude palace ; for 
 there were bones of men upon the floor, — fresh bones 
 too ; and a great fire in the palace chimney-place, and 
 fearful-looking spits. Sindbad and the men with him 
 crouched in the corner ; and the walls around them 
 shook, as the master of the palace came stalking in. 
 He had a horrible figure. If you have ever read 
 Homer, you must remember the great one-eyed Cy- 
 clop, who lived in a cavern, and devoured the compan- 
 ions of Ulysses. Well, this monstrous creature, into 
 whose palace Sindbad had wandered, was one-eyed, like 
 the Cyclop, and far more hideous to look upon. His 
 teeth were long and pointed, and his ears were like the 
 ears of an elephant, and flapped upon his shoulders. 
 
 You may be sure he saw these castaway sailors with 
 that great red eye of his ; and presently coming up and 
 pinching one or two between his fingers, to find the fat- 
 test of them, he picked out one ; then he lifted him 
 as a cook would lift a partridge, and thrust him through 
 with one of those cruel spits. The sailors knew then 
 what the fire meant, and the men's bones ; and I sus- 
 
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. 65 
 
 pect Sindbad must have been glad he was in so lean 
 condition ; for he had been one of the first this mon- 
 strous creature had taken in hand. 
 
 Having eaten, the monster slept, — they generally 
 sleep pretty soundly, — though his snoring was some- 
 thing dreadful to listen to. Sindbad and the men with 
 him crept slily out from their corner, while the monster 
 slept ; and, putting eight or nine of the iron spits in the 
 fire until they were well heated, thrust them all at once 
 into the one eye that was in the middle of the giant's 
 forehead. Then they all made for the shore with as 
 much haste as they could. They put together rafts out 
 of timbers lying there — dreading every moment lest 
 the blinded giant should find his way to them. They 
 finished their rafts, however, and had pushed off, when, 
 with a howling that echoed all along the shores, they 
 saw the giant striding toward them, — led by another, 
 and followed by some half-dozen others. In the Greek 
 story — as you will find when you come to read it — 
 there were only three of the Cyclops family — which 
 seems quite enough. This company of Eastern giants 
 did not reach the shore till Sindbad and his friends had 
 paddled a long way off : but they were not safe ; for the 
 giants began pelting them with stones, and battered 
 their rafts in pieces. Somehow Sindbad saved himself 
 upon a log, and drifted into a far-away bay, where he 
 landed with one or two companions. He had a won- 
 derful escape here from huge serpents, who devoured 
 the men with him ; and, from a tall tree into which he 
 had climbed, he sees a ship off shore, and waves his 
 turban, and is seen, and is taken off, and carried to his 
 home again, — managing somehow to carry a great deal 
 
66 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 of money back with him from this voyage, as he did 
 from all the others. 
 
 He m.akes seven voyages in all, of which he tells the 
 story in seven succeeding days, to that old porter 
 Hindbad, of whom I spoke in the beginning. And he 
 not only tells the stories to Hindbad ; but he gives 
 him a bag of golden coin every time he has finished a 
 story of a voyage. I presume that Hindbad thought 
 them very excellent stories, and would have dearly liked 
 to hear more of them. 
 
 And he is not the only one who has thought them 
 good. I cannot tell you the half of his wonderful 
 adventures. Once, when cast away, he comes, with the 
 sailors who were saved with him, upon another Roc's 
 Q^gg ; which his companions — never having seen one 
 before — commence hewing in pieces. In a moment 
 the air is darkened ; the great birds, whose nests these 
 wanderers have disturbed, hang over them like a cloud ; 
 and when they would escape by taking to their boats, 
 the birds, like the great Cyclops, take huge rocks, and 
 sailing in the air above the ships, drop their burden, 
 and make a wreck of the vessels. 
 
 That lucky Sindbad escapes, as he always manages to 
 do ; but in the new lands to which he is floated upon a 
 piece of the wreck, he finds one of the strangest of all 
 his adventures. The trees are beautiful, and the streams 
 of water ; there are sweet-smelling flowers too ; and in 
 this country, which seems as if it were altogether only a 
 pleasant garden, he meets an old man, with long white 
 beard, and deep-set prying eyes, limping along by the 
 bank of a stream. Sindbad, at the beckoning of this 
 droll-looking old man, takes him on his shoulders to help 
 
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. 69 
 
 him across the stream. But no sooner is he upon Sind- 
 bad's back than his legs seem to grow long, and cling 
 about the poor sailor, and his fingers stretch out into 
 claws that hold him fast ; and he settles to his place 
 upon Sindbad's shoulders as if he grew there. Sindbad 
 stoops for the old man to come down ; but the old man 
 does not come down : instead of it, he chuckles, and 
 gives Sindbad a punch in his ribs, and urges him to go 
 forward. 
 
 And forward this poor sailor of Bagdad is compelled 
 to go ; over hill and brook, and through valleys, and past 
 wide plains, — by noon, by night, — this terrible old Man 
 of the Sea keeps his place, and comes near to choking 
 Sindbad with the tightness of his hug. He makes Sind- 
 bad stay when he would pluck fruit from the trees ; he 
 warns him to go faster, when, through fatigue, he halts 
 and trembles under this terrible load. 
 
 Hindbad — being a porter — and used to carrying bur- 
 dens on his shoulders, must have listened very wonder- 
 ingly to this story of a load which could not be shaken 
 off. Had it been a cask or a box, there would have been 
 more hope ; but a burden in the shape of a man is a 
 very hard thing to shake off. 
 
 And how was Sindbad rid of him at last } Why, one 
 day (after he had carried the old man a week or more), 
 he saw some empty gourds lying on the ground ; and, 
 taking one of them, he pressed the juice — from some 
 of the delicious grapes that grew all around — into it, and 
 then hung his gourd upon a tree. The juice turned into 
 wine after some days, as grape-juice is very apt to do. 
 And when he came to drink it, — being faint with the 
 continual burden of that horrible Man of the Sea, — 
 
70 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 the old man snuffed the wine, and beckoned to Sindbad 
 to give him a taste of it. And he took another, and an- 
 other, and another taste, — as wine-drinkers when once 
 started are inclined to do, — until at last Sindbad felt the 
 old man loosening his hold : and he lay down with him : 
 and the hold was loosened more and more, until the old 
 man had fallen off from his shoulders in a drunken sleep. 
 Then Sindbad seized whatever weapon he coald find, — 
 stones, I presume, — and made an end of his tormentor. 
 
 Sindbad does not say so in his story ; but I think this 
 old Man of the Sea belonged to a dreadful tribe called 
 Badd-Habbidtz, stray members of which are found very 
 often in the East nowadays, and sometimes in the West. 
 If you ever meet one, I advise you not to let him get 
 settled down on your shoulders. 
 
 Sindbad prospers again when once he has shaken 
 off this obstinate old man : he makes friends in that 
 beautiful country ; gathers great cargoes of tea and 
 spices, and sails back with new and richer stores than 
 ever to the dear old City of Bagdad. 
 
 There he lived always afterward in a princely house 
 (if we may believe those who made the pictures for the 
 " Arabian Nights " ), and was befriended by the Caliph 
 Haroun al Raschid, who certainly lived and did a great 
 many wonderful things — whatever may be true of the 
 voyaging Sindbad and of the porter Hindbad. 
 
 Bagdad, too, was a real city, and is a city still. You 
 will find it on your maps of Asia, lying a little eastward 
 of the great sandy wastes of Arabia, upon the banks 
 of the river Tigris, which is a branch of the river 
 Euphrates, on which, as tradition says, once bloomed 
 the Garden of Paradise. 
 
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. 
 
 71 
 
 Sindbad must have sailed on his great voyages down 
 through the Tigris, — then through the Euphrates, and 
 so out into the Persian Gulf. You can go there now 
 by the same track over 
 which Sindbad carried 
 home his treasures. But 
 I fear you would be dis- 
 appointed in the city. 
 You would find low houses 
 and narrow streets, and a 
 Turkish governor in red 
 woollen cap in place of the 
 great Caliph. You would 
 find the palaces and grand 
 temples and hanging gar- 
 dens ruined, and only be 
 reminded of the days of 
 Arabian Nights by the 
 blazing noonday heats, by 
 
 the camels coming in with their burdens, by the waving 
 palm-trees, and by the tomb, which is still standing, of 
 the beautiful Zobeide, who was the favorite wife of the 
 great Caliph. 
 
 For my part, I am content to stay away from the 
 Turkish city of Bagdad of to-day. I am sure that the 
 sight of its outlying valleys — whatever herds of sheep 
 and cattle might be feeding on them — would not be 
 equal to the image I have in mind when I read the Vis- 
 ion of Mirza ; ^ and in the city itself, I am quite sure that 
 I should miss the great stretch of brilliant streets — 
 
 1 I counsel all my young readers to find and read the delightful paper of Addi- 
 son's in the Spectator, with this title., 
 
 Ruined Temple at Bagdad. 
 
72 
 
 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 the jewelled palaces — the troops of laden camels — the 
 flashing cimeters — the rustle of silks — the fair Per- 
 sians — the veiled princesses — the Shahs and Schah- 
 riars — the delightful Zobeides, — which come into my 
 thought when I read the " Arabian-Nights " stories of 
 the times of the magnificent Haroun al Raschid. 
 
IV. 
 
 GOLDSMITH'S WORK. 
 :^ Vicar and his Family. 
 
 WHO, pray, has not read that dehghtful old story 
 about a certain Dr. Primrose, who was Vicar 
 of Wakefield ? Was it in the Sunday-school library 
 that we first came upon it ? — or was it on the book- 
 shelves of some darling old aunt who kept it as one of 
 the treasures of her school-days ? For it is an old book : 
 our grandmothers read it, and may-be our great-grand- 
 mothers ; and I think it is quite certain that our grand- 
 children will read it too. 
 
 There are skipping-places in it, to be sure ; such are 
 some of the long talks about second marriages, which 
 don't concern young people much ; and such is the page- 
 long speech about kings and republics and free govern- 
 ment : but with these taken out, or skipped over, — as 
 well as the Greek, which has no business there, — what 
 a delightful story it is ! 
 
 One grows into the kindliest sort of companionship 
 with the good Dr. Primrose and his family, and follows 
 
 n 
 
74 
 
 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 their fortunes as if they were fortunes of his own, and 
 never forgets them, — let him live as long as he may. 
 
 Naturally we don't think as much of Mrs. Primrose 
 as we do of the Doctor ; but that happens in a good many 
 families where we love to go. She is a little too proud 
 of her daughters, — who are fine girls, both of them, — 
 and a little too much bent upon holding up her head in 
 the world. 
 
 Mrs. Primrose's Fine Girls. 
 
 Of course it is a very good thing to hold up one's 
 head, and better still to be able to do so with a clear 
 conscience ; but we don't like to encounter people who 
 want to impress everybody they meet — Avith a notion 
 of their great importance. There was a little of this in 
 Mrs. Primrose, but not a bit of it in the Doctor. 
 
 He was of good fortune when the story opens ; and 
 besides those two daughters, Sophia and Olivia, had two 
 sons, George and Moses, as well as a couple of younger 
 boys, who don't have much to do with the story; and 
 for aught that appears, they may be young boys some- 
 where in England still. 
 
GOLDSMITH'S WORK. 7$ 
 
 Not much happens to interest one while the Doctor is 
 comfortably rich. He says himself, that the most im- 
 portant event of a twelvemonth was the moving from the 
 blue chamber to the brown ; that surely would not con- 
 cern young fellows who have no moving to do. The son 
 George does, indeed, fall in love with a very nice girl, — 
 Miss Wilmot, who has a snug fortune of her own ; and 
 as Miss Wilmot has a strong fancy for George, it is 
 counted a settled thing between them ; and, indeed, the 
 marriage-day was fixed. 
 
 But Dr. Primrose (I call him Doctor because Mr. 
 Jenkinson, an important character in the story, always 
 did, and I am sure if he had lived among our American 
 colleges he would have been a doctor) — Dr. Primrose, 
 I say, could not get over his love for talk about the 
 wickedness of second marriages, in which Mr. Wilmot, 
 the father of the charming Arabella, did not agree with 
 him ; and as they waxed warm one day, Mr. Wilmot — I 
 dare say, getting the worst of the argument — let slip the 
 fact that the Doctor was a beggar, — since the business 
 man who had been intrusted with his property had 
 become bankrupt, and had fled from the country. 
 
 This was an ugly thing for Mr. Wilmot to say, and a 
 rough way of pushing his cause ; but it was none the 
 less true. And this fact and the quarrel broke off the 
 match ; and son George, in high dudgeon, set off to seek 
 his fortune otherwheres. 
 
 Nor was this the worst : the good Doctor had to leave 
 his fine house, and take a poor parish in a distant part of 
 the country, with a cottage so small that there could be 
 no moving every spring from the blue chamber to the 
 brown. There were no chambers to move into. But 
 
76 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 out of this change of home, and the griefs and trials that 
 came with it, grew all those events which have made the 
 history of the old Vicar so charming a one that it has 
 been conned and read in ten thousand households all 
 over the world. 
 
 Can I tell you what those events were in a half-hour 
 of talk ? 
 
 Ah, well ! it will be spoiling one of the tenderest of 
 stories ; and yet I will try to catch so much of the pith 
 and of the point of it as shall make you eager to taste 
 for yourself, and "at first hands," the delicate humor 
 and the charming flow of that old-fashioned novel of the 
 Vicar of Wakefield. I call it a novel, though it is as 
 unlike as possible to the work that our modern novel- 
 writers do. 
 
 Mr, Burchell and the Squire. 
 
 Mrs. Primrose — poor woman — who had loved to put 
 on airs in her large house, did not get over the love in 
 the small house. It is a love that it is hard for anybody 
 to get over, if they begin once to encourage it. . But the 
 Doctor, good soul, laughed at her grand dressing and 
 her eagerness to show off her daughters in the old 
 finery. She even aims at something like style in going 
 to church, by rigging up the two plough-horses so that 
 one should carry the boy Moses and herself with the 
 two little ones, and the other make a mount for the two 
 daughters. Of course it was but a sorry figure they 
 cut, and the Doctor had his laugh at them, though it was 
 on a Sunday, Yet when a middle-aged woman has an 
 eye for '' style," it is not easy to laugh her out of it ; and 
 
GOLDSMITH'S WORK. 
 
 77 
 
 Mrs. Primrose was set on to this and a good many other 
 Uke manoeuvres by a hope she had of making conquest 
 of a certain Squire Thornhill, — who was their landlord 
 and the great man of the neighborhood, — and of match- 
 ing him with one of her daughters. He was of fair age, 
 lived freely in a grand house, rode to the hounds, and 
 sent presents of game to the Primrose girls, — much to 
 
 Mrs. Primrose's "Style." 
 
 the delight of their mamma ; who banters Olivia specially 
 on these attentions, and wonders the Doctor — simple 
 soul — cannot see through it all. She has even hopes 
 of capturing the Squire's chaplain — or the man who 
 passes as chaplain — for her daughter Sophia ; who is a 
 sweeter girl than Olivia, — though not so coquettish and 
 not taking so much after the mother. 
 
78 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 They say in the neighborhood that Squire Thornhill 
 is indebted for his easy way of living to the bounty of 
 an eccentric uncle, — not much older than himself, but 
 more grave, living much in London, not well known 
 down in the country, but spoken of always with very 
 much awe. 
 
 The Primrose family, moreover, make the acquaintance 
 of a Mr. Burchell, — whom they meet first, I think, upon 
 the highway ; and who does good service by saving 
 Sophia from drowning, when she had fallen, one day, 
 into the river that ran near by. He is a shabby-genteel 
 person in appearance, but well instructed, and can talk 
 by the hour with the Doctor about his hobbies ; and he 
 brings little gifts for the boys ; indeed, if he had been 
 rich and better-looking, Mrs. Primrose would have been 
 half-disposed to favor him as a proper match for Sophia 
 — provided the chaplain should fail her. 
 
 A curious thing is, that Mr. Burchell doesn't talk in 
 the highest terms of Squire Thornhill ; and another 
 curious thing is, that he avoids any occasion of meeting 
 him at the Vicar's cottage — all which Madame Primrose 
 places to the account of the poor man's jealousy. Maybe 
 so ; but the Doctor thought well of him and of his talk, 
 and so did Moses and the boys ; and it always seemed 
 to me that Sophia — though she never said so — looked 
 kindly on him, and was not so much disturbed by his 
 lack of fine clothes as Olivia or her mother. 
 
 They were all flustered and provoked, however, when 
 they learned, in an accidental way, that Burchell, by 
 some talk and letters of his, had prevented the two girls 
 from carrying out a plan they had formed of going up 
 to London with a couple of lady friends of Squire 
 
GOLDSMITH'S WORK. 79 
 
 Thornhill's. These town ladies had been down to the 
 country, and paid a visit to the Vicarage, very much to 
 the dehght of Madame Primrose, who could never have 
 done with admiring their fme feathers and silks. It 
 would be a splendid thing for the dear girls to go up to 
 London with them ! 
 
 The Doctor did not, indeed, think quite so highly of 
 these town ladies ; but what business had Mr. Burchell 
 to interfere, and by his misrepresentations to defeat 
 what would have been such a pleasure to the girls t 
 'Twas a shabby intermeddling in his family affairs ; and 
 he told Mr. Burchell so with some warmth. And Mr. 
 Burchell was warm too ; and what business had the 
 Doctor to be prying into the contents of private letters 
 of his } In short, they made a sharp family quarrel of 
 it with Mr. Burchell, and Burchell took his stick and 
 walked away. This was the last they saw of him for 
 a long time. 
 
 Did Sophia possibly look after him with a little 
 yearning and repenting } I used to ask myself that 
 question when I read the story in my young days ; but 
 I don't think she did — certainly not at the moment. 
 
 Well, the Doctor's money affairs were not getting on 
 well : I think Madame Primrose and her love for good 
 style had something to do with it. Good style, as it is 
 called, has very much to do then, and always, with — not 
 getting on well. 
 
 The good folks of the family had sent Moses off to 
 the Fair to make sale of the colt ; but Moses was horri- 
 bly cheated, and came back with only a gross of green 
 spectacles — of which, you may be sure, he never heard 
 the last. The good Doctor thought to mend matters by 
 
So ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 taking the only remaining horse himself. The rogues 
 would never cheat Jiim: but they did, and very badly 
 too ; for he brought back only a worthless bit of paper, 
 which was a draft on Neighbor Flamborough, who had 
 two bouncing daughters, — one of whom Moses was 
 tender upon. The Vicar had taken this draft from the 
 man Jenkinson, who had talked Greek with the Doctor, 
 and praised a book he had written, and so made the 
 good man believe that he, — Jenkinson, was the worthi- 
 est and most benevolent creature in the world. 
 
 Moses had the laugh now. But it was no laughing 
 time for the family : they were growing poorer and 
 poorer. Mrs. Primrose's "style" was getting uncomfort- 
 ably pinched ; and the match with the Squire didn't get 
 on : so she thought to spur his attentions by setting up a 
 new claimant for Miss Olivia, in Farmer Williams, who 
 lived hard by. This had not gone very far, when, one 
 day, the boys ran in, crying out, — " Olivia is gone ! " 
 
 And so she had — in a coach : it was a runaway of a 
 very bad kind. Was Burchell the criminal, or who } 
 The old gentleman seized his pistols, and would have 
 made after the wretch, but his wife and poor weeping 
 Sophy quieted him. 
 
 It came out shortly after, that Thornhill was the man ; 
 and that he had made a mock marriage, and had made 
 two or three such before. And yet the villain had the 
 daring to call upon the Doctor with explanations ; but the 
 good man blazed upon him with all the rage of injured 
 innocence. The Squire was cool ; for Dr. Primrose 
 owed him large debts, which there was no means of 
 paying. 
 
 Olivia found her way back, broken-hearted, and was 
 
GOLDSMITH'S WORK. 
 
 8i 
 
 warmly greeted by the father, though she met only a 
 half-welcome from Mrs. Primrose. 
 
 It came to a prison, at last, for the good Vicar ; for in 
 those days people who could not or would not pay their 
 debts were clapped into prisons. The family of the 
 good man would not leave him, but journeyed up to the 
 town where the jail lay — though it was winter weather, 
 the ground covered in snow, and poor Sophia just recov- 
 
 Going to Prison. 
 
 ering from a slow fever. The parishioners of the Doctor 
 would, indeed, have snatched him from the keeping of 
 the officers of the law, as they set out on their journey ; 
 but the good Vicar in his earnest way checked them, and 
 bade them remember that without law there could be no 
 justice, and they must respect what the law commanded. 
 
82 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 What Happened in Prison. 
 
 For a long time Dr. Primrose lay in that dreary jail ; 
 his family paying him frequent visits, and he by kindly 
 talk winning upon the company of his fellow-prisoners 
 
 — among whom happened to be that very Jenkinson who 
 had so deceived him on his visit to the horse-fair, but 
 who now at last seemed repentant. 
 
 Surely it was a very sorry time for the poor Primrose 
 family : the father in prison for debts he could find no 
 means to pay; the oldest son a wanderer — none knew 
 where ; Olivia a poor disgraced creature ; and to add to 
 the sum of troubles, it is reported that the lawless 
 Squire Thornhill is to marry the charming Miss Wilmot, 
 who had been once the promised bride of the poor wan- 
 dering George Primrose. This seemed enough to break 
 down all faith in that Providence whose overwatching 
 care the good Vicar had always preached. Yet still 
 further griefs were in store : Sophia — poor Sophia — 
 in one of her walks into the country, where she hoped 
 to catch some new strength and bloom, was stolen away 
 
 — gone, none knew whither. And, as if to crown all, 
 the wandering vagabond George returns — not with 
 honors, but a prisoner, with shackles upon his limbs. 
 He has heard of the wrong done his poor sister Olivia ; 
 in his anger, he has challenged Squire Thornhill to 
 mortal combat ; he has resisted the servants of that 
 base master, — has cut one down with his sword. 
 
 Indeed, it is a sorry group in that prison : the son a 
 felon ; the Doctor a hopeless debtor ; Olivia disgraced 
 and broken-hearted ; Sophia gone ! 
 
GOLDSMITH'S WORK. 83 
 
 That was the place in this old story for tears — if 
 anybody had them ; and a good many did have them ; 
 and I have no doubt will have them in years to come. 
 But we fellows didn't stop there — for all the crying. 
 We felt sure something better was to happen. And it 
 did, — it did. 
 
 First of all, Sophia was brought back, rescued ; and 
 who do you think brought her back } Why, Mr. Bur- 
 chell, — old seedy Burchell ; and the family — even to 
 Mrs. Primrose — cannot help thanking the man, not- 
 withstanding his shabby clothes. 
 
 Mr. Jenkinson, too, proves a friend at last — is ready 
 to swear that the marriage of Olivia to Squire Thornhill 
 was not a mock marriage at all, but a real marriage ; for 
 he himself had brought the priest who went through the 
 ceremony. 
 
 The good Doctor was enraptured at this ; and Mrs. 
 Primrose went up and kissed poor, shrinking Olivia — 
 for the first time. (I never liked Mrs. Primrose over- 
 much.) 
 
 After this, Miss Arabella Wilmot comes in to see the 
 poor Vicar, and is much taken aback to find George 
 there : she blushes, and is disturbed ; for, to tell truth, 
 she has never loved any one else ; and when occasion 
 permitted, I dare say she told him so ; for they were 
 hand in hand, in a corner, before much time had passed. 
 
 Squire Thornhill came in, — for what reason I don't 
 know exactly, — but got hard looks from everybody ; 
 most of all from Mr. Burchell, whom he seemed to fear 
 greatly. 
 
 Can you fancy why he should .** — It was all clear 
 enough presently ; for this Mr. Burchell — old, seedy 
 
84 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 Burchell — was none other than the famous and wealthy 
 and eccentric Sir WilUam Thornhill, on whose favor the 
 reckless young squire was dependent. However, the 
 uncle let his nephew off easily, but compelled him to 
 acknowledge publicly his marriage with Miss Olivia. 
 
 Then came old father Wilmot, with the story that the 
 man of business who had run away with the Vicar's 
 fortune had been captured, and there was good chance 
 that all his property would be restored. George, too, 
 would be cleared from imprisonment : at least, Sir 
 William Thornhill said he would bring it about; and 
 nobody doubted that he would. 
 
 Of course the Primrose family had now reason to be 
 happy ; and they all looked so except Sophia, who wore 
 a very sad countenance. The truth is, when Mr. Bur- 
 chell had brought her back to her father, the good 
 Doctor — knowing her preserver only as Mr. Burchell — 
 had told him in his gratitude, that, as he had rescued 
 her, he deserved to possess her, — to which Mr. Burchell 
 had not made much reply. 
 
 But now Mr. Burchell — that is, Sir William Thorn- 
 hill, — with all the dignity that should belong to a great 
 baronet, said that he was glad to see prosperity restored 
 to this Primrose family; — that he had a great respect 
 for the good Doctor (he didn't say any thing about Mrs. 
 Primrose) ; — that he was glad to see so many happy 
 faces about him, and that the only exceptions were the 
 faces of Miss Sophia and Mr. Jenkinson. He thought 
 Jenkinson deserved well of the Vicar ; and he pro- 
 posed that the good man should give Sophia to him as 
 a bride, and he himself, he said, would add a wedding 
 portion of five hundred pounds. 
 
GOLDSMITH'S WORK. 85 
 
 But Sophia's face did not clear up at all : nay, there 
 were angry tears in her eyes as she vowed with a pitiful, 
 low voice — that she would not have Mr. Jenkinson at 
 all, — never ! 
 
 "Why, then," said Sir William Thornhill, "I must 
 take the dear girl myself ; " and with that he snatched 
 her to his arms. 
 
 Could there be a prettier ending to that story of the 
 Primroses .'* No wonder it charmed us ; no wonder it 
 has charmed thousands. 
 
 And what became of Moses .-* Why, Moses married 
 one of the bouncing Miss Flamboroughs, of course. 
 And ril warrant you that Mrs. Primrose let everybody 
 know, within twenty miles round, that her daughter 
 became Lady Thornhill ; and I will warrant further, that 
 Sir William never took to his mother-in-law very 
 strongly, and never enjoyed her gooseberry-wine so 
 much — as when he drank it outside her own house. 
 
 Poor GoUy. 
 
 And was there really a Dr. Primrose who told this 
 story about his own family, and about the vanities of his 
 wife, and who married his daughter to Mr. Burchell — 
 otherwise known as Sir William Thornhill } 
 
 No — no — no ! 
 
 It is as little true of any one, as that Master Aladdin 
 found a lamp which worked the wonders we read of in 
 the chapter that went before this. 
 
 The person who really told this story of Dr. Primrose 
 was an Irishman, of the name of Goldsmith, M'ho used 
 to be talked of among those who knew him best as 
 
86 
 
 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 "poor Goldy." He was a short, thick-set man, marked 
 
 with old traces of small-pox, with a quick, clear black 
 
 eye, and head almost bald. 
 
 Among his friends was the famous painter Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds, who made a 
 picture of him, from which 
 most of the engravings are 
 made, and which I am sure was 
 not a little flattered. I give it 
 to you here. 
 
 Leslie, the painter, said he 
 saw in it all the genius that 
 went to the ** Vicar of Wake- 
 field," and the '' Deserted Vil- 
 lage ; " and I dare say Sir 
 
 Joshua Reynolds painted it (as he should have done) 
 
 with the memory of all the best things poor Goldy 
 
 had done, quickening his skill, and lightening up his 
 
 touches on the canvas. Without this knowing and 
 
 feeling of a man's inner life, 
 
 good portraits are never made. 
 I said that Goldsmith was 
 
 nearly bald-headed, and he so 
 
 appears in Reynolds's picture ; 
 
 but it was the custom of that 
 
 day — the latter part of the 
 
 last century — to wear wigs ; 
 
 and Goldsmith almost always 
 
 wore a wig. 
 
 And now you shall see what Bunbury's Goldsmith 
 
 his quizzical friend Bunbury made of his face, with 
 
 the wig above it, and with his upper lip, which was very 
 
GOLDSMITH'S WORK. 87 
 
 protruding, making a show that must have provoked 
 Goldsmith; yet it was said to be very like him. He 
 played a great many games of cards with his friend 
 Bunbury, — of which game he was always over-fond ; 
 but I think he would never have forgiven that friend 
 if he had known that we now, more than a century later, 
 should be looking at it, and calling it a fair picture 
 of him. 
 
 As he loved cards and gaming, so he loved wine over- 
 much, and was often the worse for it. I don't mean to 
 say that he went so far as to make a sot of himself, but 
 that he lingered often and often over tavern-tables when 
 he might have been doing better things. And remember 
 in excuse for him, that he lived in days when almost 
 everybody drank wine in taverns, and when even that 
 great man Dr. Johnson — who was also a friend of Gold- 
 smith's — sometimes drank so much as to forget himself, 
 and to make his great figure reel along the walk on the 
 way to his chambers. 
 
 Dr. Johnson was the great literary character of that 
 day (it was in the reign of George II. and George 
 III.), and wrote the best Dictionary of the English Lan- 
 guage — until Dr. Webster made a better one; and it 
 was through this very Dr. Sam Johnson, that the 
 story of Dr. Primrose, I have told you of, found its way 
 first to the printer's hands. 
 
 You would like to know how it happened ; and it is a 
 thing you ought to know. Well — one day. Dr. Johnson, 
 being at dinner with Mrs. Thrale, who was a great friend 
 of Johnson's, received a message from poor Goldy, say- 
 ing that he was in distress, and " would the Doctor call 
 round and see him ? " 
 
88 
 
 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 Goldy was living, at that time, in Wine-Office Court, 
 near Fleet Street ; and there the Doctor went to see 
 him, having sent a guinea by the messenger to relieve 
 any pressing trouble. Goldy had used the guinea to 
 buy (among other things) a bottle of wine, and was 
 sitting over it when the Doctor came in. 
 
 Goldsmith's Lodgings 
 
 "I put the cork in the bottle," says the Doctor, *'and 
 begged him to be calm." Then he learned that his 
 landlady was threatening him for his rent, and that the 
 sheriffs were ready to pounce upon him. He took a 
 manuscript from his drawer, and begged the Doctor to 
 sell it for him. This was the Vicar of Wakefield — that 
 delightful old story of which I have given you a glimpse. 
 
 Dr. Johnson, seeing it had merit, — but not, I think, 
 seeing all its merit — (for it is not much like Rasselas, 
 
GOLDSMITH'S WORK. 89 
 
 which was a story by Dr. Johnson, that it may be worth 
 your while to read) went out with it, and sold it for sixty 
 pounds. 
 
 The bookseller who bought it thought so little of it, 
 that the story lay in his drawer for fifteen months before 
 it was given to the printer. It appeared finally in 1766, 
 when Goldsmith was thirty-eight years old. The critics 
 did not speak very well of the book at the first : some 
 of them thought it worth their while to make fun of the 
 Primrose family ; but it grew steadily in favor, month 
 by month and year by year, and is now read all over the 
 world. 
 
 A great German, who was young when it first ap- 
 peared, hit upon the tale some four years after, and read 
 it with delight and admiration ; and seventy years later, 
 when he read it again with renewed delight, he told a 
 friend how much its first reading had to do with forming 
 his education. This great German was Goethe. 
 
 We told you that Goldsmith was in distress when he 
 wrote the Vicar of Wakefield, and beset by poverty. 
 He never outlived that sort of distress ; for though the 
 booksellers have received thousands and thousands of 
 pounds for that little book, only the first paltry sixty 
 pounds ever went into the pockets of the author. 
 
 I do not think he would ever have been rich, if he had 
 received thousands for it. He never had the art of 
 husbanding his moneys, and never knew how to spend 
 them with judgment. His heart was easily touched by 
 any story of suffering ; and he would give his last guinea 
 to a begging woman in the street. He loved dearly, 
 too, a good roistering tavern supper, where he could lift 
 up his voice to a great roar of song ; and he paid for a 
 
go ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 great many such suppers, from which richer men than 
 he slunk away, and left him to the ''reckoning." He 
 had a passion for gaming, too, — or, as we should say — 
 gambling, of which I have already spoken. But, before 
 we condemn him too much for this, let us remember 
 that in that day, and in London, gambling was common 
 in most of the respectable houses ; and the great orator 
 Charles James Fox would lose, and did lose, as much as 
 eleven thousand pounds at a single sitting. 
 
 Another fancy — and a queer one — of poor Goldy's, 
 was his passion for dress. Looking back at Bunbury's 
 picture of him, you would never imagine that he should 
 have a love for silk waistcoats, and velvet breeches, and 
 ruffles, and plush coats. Yet nothing is more true ; and 
 • there are old bills of his still in existence, in which are 
 set down in fair figures — and very long ones — what he 
 paid for ** Ratteen surtout," and "• Blue Velvet Suit," and 
 "Silk breeches," and ''Queen's blue dress suit," and 
 "Princess stuff breeches." 
 
 Yet he was not — as we should say — a society man. 
 He knew few ladies; he never married — never was 
 near marrying. I cannot find, by any hint, that he ever 
 loved any young woman better than any old one ; or 
 that any young woman ever loved him tenderly. Indeed, 
 his appearance could never have been very engaging ; 
 and his manner in a mixed company was always some- 
 what clownish. 
 
 Mr. Boswell, who was a member of the same club with 
 him, and a great friend of Dr. Johnson's (whose biogra- 
 phy he wrote), was much more of a society man, and 
 much less of a man in every other way. He used to 
 sneer at "poor Goldy " and his over-fine clothes; and I 
 
GOLDSMITH'S WORK. 9I 
 
 think would never have been seen in the street with 
 him, except that the great Dr. Johnson befriended Gold- 
 smith, and patted him, in his bear-like way, upon the 
 back. 
 
 Eis Family and Death. 
 
 I have said that no Dr. Primrose ever really lived ; 
 but there were those who said that Goldsmith's old 
 father, who had been a clergyman in Ireland, and who 
 died when the son was quite young, was in many things 
 very like to Dr. Primrose. 
 
 It was almost in the middle of Ireland that Goldsmith 
 was born, — not far from Roscommon, and very near to 
 Edgeworthtown — where lived, later, that good woman 
 Maria Edgeworth, whom you also know by her stories, 
 and to whose acquaintance I shall introduce you in a 
 coming chapter of this little book. 
 
 He has not the best of schooling in that little village, 
 nor has the poor parish priest — his father — much 
 money to spare. Later, the old gentleman gets a larger 
 and richer parish, — just as Dr. Primrose did not, — and 
 Oliver has a better chance. But he loves to make a 
 song for village idlers, and to hear them roar it out at 
 a tavern table, — better than to study. 
 
 And, after his father's death, he becomes more of 
 a vagrant ; sometimes studying ; sometimes tutoring ; 
 sometimes trading horses, — always selling one for less 
 than he is worth, and always buying one for more than 
 he is worth — as most people do. He has some bicker- 
 ings with his mother, too, — who does not like vagrancy. 
 
 At one time he goes away to Cork, and actually 
 
92 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 engages place on a ship for America ; but this plan 
 gets somehow upset. If he had come ! Do you think 
 he would have written a '' Deserted Village " and a 
 "Vicar of Wakefield" over here? Or would he have 
 slipped into practical ways, and taught the violin, or 
 kept a country tavern, or had an office in the Custom 
 House ? 
 
 On one of his jaunts about the Irish country, he found 
 himself belated one night in a village far from home ; 
 and, inquiring after a public house, some wag directed 
 him to a gentleman's place, where Goldy went, — and 
 ordered out his horse, — and fumed, — and put on im- 
 portant airs, — and wanted the best supper that could 
 be had ; and did not find out that he was making free 
 with the home of a private gentleman until he asked 
 for his bill next morning. Out of this little adventure 
 grew afterward that charming play of '* She Stoops to 
 Conquer," which you may see now, from time to time, 
 upon the stage ; and which is better worth seeing than 
 most of the comedies of to-day. 
 
 By the help of a rich uncle, he gets a footing after- 
 ward at college ; later he goes to study medicine at 
 Edinboro' ; and thence he goes over — sent by the same 
 good uncle — to Leyden in Holland, where was a famous 
 university. 
 
 Who knows but he might have made a great Doctor, 
 if he had kept by his chances there t But he doesn't : 
 we presently find him wandering about Europe — sleep- 
 ing in stables, in religious houses, in small inns — pay- 
 ing his way sometimes by the music he made with the 
 flute he took with him ; and perhaps it was over-use of 
 this that made that great upper lip of his project so 
 much as you see it does in Bunbury's caricature. 
 
GOLDSMITH'S WORK. 
 
 93 
 
 I suppose nobody ever went through Europe, seeing 
 so much, with so Httle money, as Goldsmith. You will 
 see traces of this wandering in his poem X)f the " Trav- 
 eller ; " and here and there in the "Bee," — which was 
 another of his books ; and most of all, in the wanderings 
 of George Primrose, in the ''Vicar." 
 
 Coming to London again, he tried medicine, with 
 velvet coats and big wig to help him ; but he never did 
 much at medicine. He tried teaching ; but he was not 
 steady enough and patient enough to get on well at this. 
 Then he became proof-reader — that is to say, — he cor- 
 rected the printed sheets for Dr. Richardson, a book- 
 seller, who had written novels — one of which, called 
 " Clarissa," was thought superb, and everybody read it. 
 Women would go a block 
 out of their way to see the 
 dear and famous Dr. Rich- 
 ardson. And now scarce 
 anybody knows about " Cla- 
 rissa ; " but all the world 
 knows the ''Vicar." 
 
 After this, he kept by 
 books ; writing some which 
 brought him more money 
 than the Primrose story, but 
 not nearly so well known 
 now. He wrote so well that 
 he was asked to join the club, — a very famous club, 
 where he used to meet Burke (another great Irishman 
 and an orator), and Beauclerc, and Boswell, and Dr. 
 Johnson, and Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Garrick the 
 great actor. With some one or two of these, he might 
 
 Goldy, Johnson, and Boswell. 
 
94 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 have been seen over and over in those times, walking 
 along Fleet Street in London. 
 
 They all liked him ; and there were times when they 
 all laughed at him. He never would have made a Mr. 
 Worldly-Wiseman, such as comes into Bunyan's story of 
 the Pilgrim. He was always at ''sixes and sevens." 
 He was petulant in his talk often, and he had vanities 
 that crept into his manner ; but his vices were such as 
 disposed one more to laugh than to be shocked by 
 them. And in all he wrote, he was so simple, and pure, 
 and healthy, and withal there was such play of delightful 
 humor, and all of his stories were so tenderly told, that 
 people loved him for his books, and keep on loving him 
 for them to-day. 
 
 Poor and lonely in his chamber, he only knew cheer 
 when he was with some favorite member of the club, or 
 with some humble companion at a coffee-room table. 
 Poor and lonely he died ; with few friends about him, 
 — neither mother, nor wife, nor brother, nor sister near 
 him when his great black eye grew dim, and the light of 
 it passed away forever. 
 
 The great statesman Edmund Burke, when the tid- 
 ings of the death came to him, burst into tears. Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds, when the messenger came to say 
 Goldy was dead — laid his brushes down — shut up his 
 studio, and gave the day up to his grief. Burly old 
 Dr. Johnson was touched keenly, and mourned his death 
 as he had mourned for very few. 
 
 They buried him in the Temple Church-yard, quietly ; 
 but among the mourners were men so highly and so 
 worthily known, that the presence of one of them was 
 worth more to the fame and memory of poor Goldy than 
 
GOLDSMITH'S WORK. 95 
 
 would have been the presence of a host of gilded 
 carriages, and the blaze of idle ceremony. 
 
 There is a tablet in honor of this writer of the Prim- 
 rose story, in Westminster Abbey ; and upon it a Latin 
 inscription — by Dr. Johnson, with one line in it, I dare 
 say you have seen somewhere : — 
 
 Nnlhim quod tetigit non oniavit. 
 
 It was so aptly said, that it has been said of many others 
 since ; but never said so truly as of poor Goldy. 
 
 No one knows just where he lies buried in Temple 
 Church-yard, for there is no record. But they have 
 placed a stone with his name upon it on the north side 
 of the Temple Church, a little west of the master's 
 house ; and there visitors go every Sunday — strangers 
 from all countries — men, and women, and children, to 
 see the stone which bears the name of the man who 
 told such a winning story of a poor Vicar and his family. 
 
 He will never be forgotten. He deserves to be 
 remembered. 
 
mim» 
 
 iAfii»JF^^ 
 
 V. 
 
 GULLIVER SWIFT. 
 
 Some Queer Little People. 
 
 A HUNDRED and fifty years ago, or thereabout, 
 while George the First was King of Great Brit- 
 ain, there was a story of some voyages printed in Eng- 
 land, which everybody read with a great deal of wonder. 
 
 There never had been such voyages made before ; 
 there never had been such people seen as this voyager 
 had seen. 
 
 A man who said his name was Richard Sympson 
 sent the story of these voyages to the printer or pub- 
 lisher, and told him, and told the public, that he knew 
 the man who wrote the story, and that he was living in 
 Nottinghamshire in England, and that he was a friend 
 of his, and connected with him on the mother's side. 
 And, besides this, he said that he was a truthful man, 
 and that his neighbors believed what he said. He knew 
 the house in which he had lived, too, and knew who his 
 father was — which was not very strange, since he was 
 connected with him, as I said, on the mother's side. 
 96 
 
GULLIVER SWIFT. 97 
 
 The name of this voyager was Lemuel Gulliver ; and 
 he was so much thought of among his neighbors (Mr. 
 Sympson said), that it came to be a proverb among 
 them, when any one told a thing that was very, very 
 true, to add, — " It's as true as if Mr. Gulliver had said 
 it." 
 
 Well, this Mr. Gulliver said he studied physic in 
 Leyden, and married Mary Burton, who lived in New- 
 gate Street, and that he got four hundred pounds in 
 money by his wife. I don't see any reason to doubt 
 this. He went as surgeon on a good many ships ; but 
 nothing happened to him very extraordinary, until he 
 sailed in May, 1699, in the "Antelope," for the South 
 Seas. (I knew a ship, once, called the "Antelope.") 
 This " Antelope " was commanded by Capt. William 
 Prichard ; but that doesn't matter much, since Mr. Gul- 
 liver doesn't refer to Capt. Prichard once again. 
 
 They had a very hard time of it, — a good many of the 
 sailors dying off; and on the 5 th of November — a little 
 while before Thanksgiving Day in New England — the 
 ship drove on a rock, and split. 
 
 Ships do so very often when they drive on rocks. 
 
 Six of the men got clear, with Gulliver, and rowed 
 until the wind upset the boat. The six men were 
 drowned ; but Gulliver touched bottom, and walked a 
 mile through the water till he reached land. Then 
 being very tired, and, as he says, " having taken half a 
 pint of brandy aboard ship," he was very sleepy, and lay 
 down to doze. This about the brandy is, I dare say, 
 not more than half true. 
 
 He says he must have slept about nine hours, and 
 when he waked he felt stiff, and couldn't turn over. He 
 
98 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 tried to lift his arm, but he couldn't. Presently he 
 found out that there was a cord across his breast, and 
 another across the middle of his body ; and then he 
 found that his legs were tied, and his arms ; and it 
 seemed to him — though he couldn't tell certainly — 
 that his hair was fastened to the ground. This was all 
 strange enough ; but it was stranger yet when he felt 
 something walk up over his left leg, and come on across 
 
 Six Inches High. 
 
 his body, almost to his chin, so that by turning his eyes 
 down, he could see a little fellow, about six inches high, 
 formed just like a man, with a bow and arrows in his 
 hand. One would have been enough ; but when he felt 
 forty more walking over his legs and arms, and pulling 
 themselves up by his hair, he roared out, — as I think 
 you and I would have done. 
 
^^^^iQ^usa 
 
 Gulliver on Exhibition. 
 
GULLIVER SWIFT. lOI 
 
 At this they all scampered ; and some of them hurt 
 themselves badly by tumbling off his body, though this 
 Mr. Gulliver did not know until some time afterward. 
 The poor voyager, who was thus lying on his back, 
 struggled a little, and so he came to get his left arm 
 loose ; which was very lucky for him, because these little 
 people, who were much frightened, began to shoot 
 arrows at him, and would most certainly have put out 
 his eyes if he had not covered them with his hand. 
 
 But, by little and little, he was able to look about him, 
 and saw there thousands and thousands of these queer 
 small people in the fields around. 
 
 Afterward, when he had made signs that he was 
 hungry and thirsty, they brought him food, a wagon-load 
 at a time, which he took up between his thumb and 
 finger ; and their casks of wine, — no bigger than a tea- 
 cup, — he emptied in a way that made them wonder. 
 (Of course, if these people were only six inches high, 
 their wine-casks must have been small in proportion ; 
 every one must see the truth of that.) But these little 
 people had put drugs in the wine, so that Mr. Gulliver 
 slept very soundly after it, — so soundly that he didn't 
 know at all when they brought an immense cart or truck 
 (which they used for dragging vessels), and slung him 
 upon it ; and with fifteen hundred of the king's horses 
 drew him to town. There they chained him by one leg, 
 near to the entrance of an immense temple, with a door 
 four feet high — so that he was able to crawl under 
 cover when he awoke. 
 
 Of course all the little people round about came to 
 see Mr. Gulliver, whom they called "The Man-Moun- 
 tain ; " and the king, who had a majestic figure, since he 
 
102 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 was taller by half an inch than any of his subjects, 
 appointed officers to show the Man-Mountain, and the 
 officers in this way made a great deal of money out of 
 Mr. Gulliver. Officers almost always make money out 
 of somebody. 
 
 He caught their language, after a time ; though they 
 couldn't have spoken louder than our crickets — if as 
 loud. The name of this strange country was Liliput ; 
 and Mr. Gulliver was introduced to all the distinguished 
 people there, — at least he says so, — and has a good 
 deal to say about the queen and the princesses, and how 
 he amused them. Travellers are apt to. He helped 
 them, too, very much ; and when a people living upon a 
 neighboring island called Blefuscu threatened war, and 
 collected a great fleet of vessels to attack the Lilipu- 
 tians, Mr. Gulliver kindly waded over one morning, and, 
 tying a cord to all the ships' bows, drew them along 
 after him, and gave them up to his imperial majesty of 
 Liliput. He had to put on his spectacles, however, 
 while he was in the water, to keep the Blefuscan 
 soldiers — who were collected on the shores by thou- 
 sands — from shooting out his eyes. 
 
 The King of Liliput was, of course, delighted with 
 this service of Mr. Gulliver, and made him a prince on 
 the spot. He also thought it would be a good thing if 
 Mr. Gulliver should, some day, wade across again, and 
 drag over the rest of the enemy's ships ; but the Eng- 
 lishman did not think very well of this, and I suspect 
 this difference led to a little coolness between him and 
 the king. It is certain that a good many of the high 
 officers took up a dislike of Mr. Gulliver, as well as some 
 of the ladies of the court. The long and the short of it 
 
GULLIVER SWIFT. 103 
 
 was, that he found himself out of place among the Lili- 
 putians, and so went over afoot to the island of Blefuscu, 
 where he soon was on very good terms with the emperor 
 of that empire, though he had drawn away his ships. 
 
 One day, however, Mr. Gulliver espied in the offing an 
 English boat bottom side up, and by dint of wading and 
 tugging, with the aid of several Blefuscan men-of-war, he 
 brought it to land. There he repaired the boat, — the 
 emperor kindly consenting, and furnishing a few hun- 
 dred mechanics to aid him. Then he stocked the boat 
 with provisions, taking some live sheep and cattle, and 
 set off homeward. He ran great danger of being 
 wrecked ; but, finally fell in with an English merchant 
 vessel, — Capt. John Biddel, commander, — who kindly 
 took him on board, and asked him how he happened to 
 be at sea in a yawl 1 
 
 Mr. Gulliver told him, and described the people he 
 had been with. Capt. Biddel didn't believe him, and 
 thought him crazy. Whereupon Mr. Gulliver pulled 
 some of the Blefuscan sheep and cattle out of his pocket, 
 and showed them to him. 
 
 Capt. Biddel couldn't say any thing more. Mr. Gulli- 
 ver arrived home safely ; found his wife well, and his 
 boy Johnny (named after his uncle, who had left him 
 some land at Epping) at the grammar school. 
 
 Some Monstrous People. 
 
 This same Mr. Gulliver made three or four more 
 voyages, and always had the luck to fall in with most 
 extraordinary people, — some of them being ninety feet 
 
I04 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 high ; and he was for a considerable time in the waist- 
 coat pocket of a farmer. 
 
 Only imagine what the wheat must have been, and the 
 pumpkins, and the green corn — where a farmer could 
 quietly put a great traveller like Mr. Gulliver in his 
 vest-pocket ! People get into farmers' pockets in this 
 country, — but not in that way. 
 
 The potatoes in that land of Brobdingnag (for so the 
 country was called) must have come up to Mr. Gulliver's 
 waistband; and as for the potato plants, they would 
 have made a great craggy forest over his head ; and the 
 Colorado beetles (which probably did not live in that 
 time) would have been huge creatures, upon whose back 
 a man might ride. 
 
 Think, too, of what the trees must have been in such 
 a region : the great California Red-woods would have 
 been mere walking-sticks ; and the mountains would 
 have risen up at least some sixty or seventy miles in the 
 air, and of course would have been seen a very long dis- 
 tance away. Just what that distance might be, looking 
 over the sea, it will be easy for you to calculate. 
 
 It seems very strange that a land with such huge 
 mountains upon it should never have been discovered 
 until Mr. Lemuel Gulliver passed that way ; and yet 
 this is hardly more strange than the other things he 
 tells. 
 
 One would have thought that such monstrous people 
 with their monstrous tools of all kinds — a sickle was 
 larger than our scythes — should have had great tele- 
 scopes too, so that wonderful sights would be opened to 
 them in the skies ; but if it were so, he tells us nothing 
 of it. On another of his voyages, however, to a land 
 
GULLIVER SWIFT. 105 
 
 called Laputa, — which was a land that floated about in 
 the air and was directed by a huge magnet, — he does 
 tell us of strange things discovered in the sky. Among 
 the rest, he assures us that these Laputans had found 
 out that the planet Mars had two moons or satellites 
 revolving about it, — whereof one revolves in the space 
 of ten hours, and the other in twenty-one and a half. 
 
 You may be sure that the British astronomers had no 
 faith in this when Gulliver reported it ; certainly no 
 one except these Laputans had ever seen such moons : 
 and now, in this year 1877, it proves that the report is 
 quite true, and that there are such moons, — though 
 their times of revolution may be a little different, — and 
 they have been discovered through the great telescope 
 in Washington. 
 
 What if the other reports which Gulliver made 
 should some day prove to be true ! What if we should 
 find somewhere in the interior of Africa queer little 
 people like Liliputians, or great monsters of men like 
 those of Brobdingnag ! 
 
 Though these last were monstrous in size, they were 
 excellent, quiet people. Gulliver had a great many long 
 talks with their King, who had a strong liking for this 
 little traveller, and led him on to tell all about the gov- 
 ernment and usages of the country from which he had 
 sailed. He thought Mr. Gulliver did a wise thing in 
 sailing away from it. For when he heard of the bicker- 
 ing, and wars, and bribery, and cheating, and prisons, 
 which were com.mon in England, he thought the people 
 must be " contemptible little vermin," and said so plainly 
 to Mr. Gulliver. 
 
 Mr. Gulliver does not seem to have been offended, or 
 
I06 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 at least he did not resent this plain talking ; and when 
 he told the King further, that in his country men were 
 used to making great tubes of metal (as large as his 
 majesty's tooth-pick), and filled them with a black powder 
 and hot shot, and then fired them off with a terrible 
 explosion, so as to kill and maim as many men as possi- 
 ble at one blast — the big King was horrified. And, 
 when one thmks of it closely, it does seem horrible. 
 
 Gulliver told the King, one day, in the course of a con- 
 versation, which he held by sitting upon a chair placed 
 on a cabinet, and the cabinet on a table, — all which 
 brought Mr. Gulliver about on a level with the King's 
 ear, who kindly took a low seat, — I say Gulliver told 
 the King that in his country — meaning England — 
 there were a thousand works published on the art of 
 government. The big King said only, "Pooh! pooh!" 
 but afterward gave it as his opinion that ** whoever 
 could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass to 
 grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, 
 would deserve better of mankind, and do more service to 
 his country, than the whole race of politicians put 
 together." 
 
 A good many orators have said the same thing since ; 
 but the King of Brobdingnag said it first. 
 
 Of course Mr. Gulliver must have found it very awk 
 ward in getting about in houses where the steps were all 
 five feet high, and where the level of the seats was six- 
 teen feet above the floor. The flies, too, were as large 
 as robins, and came buzzing frightfully about his ears. 
 He had a very narrow escape, also, from a couple of 
 rats ; when his great presence of mind alone saved him 
 from death. 
 
GULLIVER SWIFT. 
 
 107 
 
 It happened in this wise. He had been left asleep on 
 a bedstead twenty feet from the floor, in a chamber 
 which was about three hundred feet wide by five hundred 
 feet long, and high in proportion. Waking up suddenly, 
 he saw two enormous beasts, as large as large mastiffs, 
 but with the whiskers and tails of rats, tramping toward 
 him. One seized him by the collar, and had nearly 
 throttled him, when he managed to draw out the short 
 sword which he always wore, and with it he pierced the 
 
 Gulliver Kills a Rat. 
 
 monster rat through the body. The other ran away 
 frightened, but not until the traveller had given him two 
 or three good thwacks with his weapon. 
 
 He was, however, very limp and exhausted after this 
 battle — as you observe in this picture of him. 
 
 Fortunately, Mr. Gulliver kept a journal, or else wrote 
 
I08 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 out the account of his travels and of his adventures 
 when they were fresh in his mind. But his friend Mr. 
 Sympson, of whom I spoke in the beginning, did not 
 cause his travels to be printed until a good many years 
 after. Why, I'm sure I don't know. When they were 
 printed, people in England were very much astonished ; 
 and some curious ones went so far as to go down into 
 Nottinghamshire to have an interview with Mr. Gulliver. 
 But, bless you, he wasn't there. He was not anywhere, 
 the Nottingham people said. And some went so far as 
 to say there was no Mr. Sympson. 
 Who then t 
 
 Who was Gulliver! 
 
 There can't be travels unless there's a traveller, — 
 that's certain. If Mr. Gulliver didn't bring away those 
 small cattle in his pocket from Blefuscu, — which Capt. 
 Biddel saw, and Capt. Biddel's mate saw, — where did 
 he bring them from t or if Mr. Gulliver didn't fetch them 
 himself, who did } 
 
 Everybody asked, and for a good while nobody knew. 
 At last it all came out. There was no Gulliver, and 
 there was no Sympson, — only Dean Swift, a queer sort 
 of Irish clergyman, who saw in his own library every 
 thing that Gulliver professed to have seen. And this 
 Dean Swift was as strange a creature as any that Mr. 
 Gulliver saw. 
 
 He was a child of English parents, though he was 
 born in Ireland, and lived most of his life in Ireland. 
 
 Sir William Temple had married a relative of Swift's 
 mother, and therefore he was befriended by Sir William 
 
GULLIVER SWIFT. 109 
 
 Temple, and through him came to know a great many 
 distinguished people of England, — the King among the 
 rest. He had a university education, and a powerful 
 and acute mind, and enormous ambition. These things 
 would have made him a distinguished man, even if he 
 had never known Sir William Temple and never known 
 the King. 
 
 But he was an utterly selfish man ; and though he was 
 admired by thousands, he was loved by very few. 
 
 That queer story of Gulliver, I have told you of, was 
 written by him, — not so much to amuse his readers as 
 to ridicule the people he had met about the court of 
 England. He loved dearly to ridicule people whom he 
 disliked ; and I think he disliked nearly the whole human 
 race. 
 
 He wanted to be a Bishop ; but Archbishop Sharp 
 told the Queen that he was unfit to be a Bishop ; and I 
 think Sharp was right. A man who is doing his best 
 only when he is saying (or writing) harsh, witty things of 
 other people, is not the man for Bishop, or clergyman 
 either. 
 
 And yet — so strange a creature was this Dean Swift 
 — he did, at one time, make himself respected and held 
 in good esteem as a parish priest. Not such a man, we 
 may be sure, as the excellent Dr. Primrose ; but he filled 
 up the measure of his duties with a sturdy zeal, and for 
 the poor or those who were beneath him in position, he 
 never had bitter words. He gave in charity too, but 
 often with such look of scorn as made it hard to accept 
 his gifts. At the last, too, — to do him justice, — he left 
 a large sum to endow a hospital for lunatics ; and if he 
 could have had his way, and had possessed money 
 
no ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 enough, I think he would have clapped half the world 
 into such an asylum. A very great man, to be sure — 
 as his writings and his influence show; but a soured 
 man ; with good instincts sometimes struggling up to 
 light ; and sometimes amazing people by sudden explo- 
 sions of generosity; but yet — all through his life, mak- 
 ing ten men hate and fear him, where he made one love 
 him. 
 
 It must be said that his boyhood was a hard one : he 
 had no father to direct or win him ; he was poor ; he 
 only gained his education by the charity of an uncle 
 whom he never loved, and of whom, in his savage way, 
 he always spoke scornfully ; he quarrelled with his 
 teachers. His only sister married badly, and he never 
 forgave her for it ; and, though he came afterward to 
 give support to her family, he did it grudgingly. He 
 quarrelled with Sir William Temple, who was one of the 
 gentlest and most amiable of men ; and when he came, 
 by his splendid talents, to be associated with the first 
 men in England, — there were few of them in political 
 life with whom he did not sooner or later find himself at 
 war. 
 
 He lived when Pope lived, and Gay and Bolingbroke 
 and Steele and Defoe, the author of "Robinson Crusoe." 
 But I think he never knew this last, and I dare say 
 thought of him as a tile-maker and a quack. Yet there 
 can be no doubt that he read '' Robinson Crusoe," which 
 was published only five or six years before Gulliver's 
 travels ; and the minute careful descriptions in this last 
 remind one very much of the pains-taking descriptions 
 in the voyages of Crusoe. 
 
GULLIVER SWIFT. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Dean SwifVs Love. 
 
 Of domestic comforts Swift knew very little, and per- 
 haps cared little. In his early life he had met Esther 
 Johnson, a charming young person, who was living under 
 the guardianship of Sir William Temple. Under his 
 
 Dean Swift. 
 
 direction he became her tutor ; he admired her quick- 
 ness ; perhaps he admired her beauty : certain it is that 
 he so won upon her that she gave her heart and faith to 
 him wholly. She was that '' Stella" whom all the world 
 came to know through his poems. 
 
 When he went to take a parish in Ireland, she fol- 
 
112 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 lowed with an elderly lady friend, and took a cottage 
 near to his parsonage. There she lived for years — 
 people wondering at this strange friendship ; she, poor 
 girl, believing her idol, the great Dean, could do nothing 
 wrong. In later life he did indeed marry her privately, 
 but she never came to make glad any home of his ; nor 
 would he — though she entreated it again and again — 
 ever publicly acknowledge the marriage. Beside her 
 death-bed he did relent ; but poor Esther Johnson said 
 it was too late ; and she died with a blighted name, and 
 heart-broken. 
 
 This was bad enough : but more remains to be told. 
 At the very time when ** Stella" was receiving fond 
 letters from this strange Dean — when he never went to 
 England without declaring to her how hard it was to be 
 away — when he was writing fierce political pamphlets, 
 and pushing intrigues at Court ; he was writing letters 
 
 — quite as fond as those to " Stella " — to a wealthy and 
 beautiful Miss Van-homrig, who is known as the "Va- 
 nessa" of some of his best verses. She was highly 
 educated ; she admired the Dean ; they read together : 
 their intimacy was such that all who knew of it believed 
 that he wished and intended to make her his wife. She 
 was led to believe this too : she never doubted Dr. Swift 
 
 — not even when rumors came to her ear of the true 
 story of ''Stella." But, finding out with her woman's 
 wit the real name of *' Stella," she wrote to her a letter, 
 asking what claim she had to the protection and love of 
 Dean Swift. 
 
 It was after the private marriage; and "Stella" told 
 all, and sent "Vanessa's" letter to the Dean. Fast as 
 horses would carry him the Dean rode away to that 
 
GULLIVER SWIFT. II3 
 
 beautiful home of Miss Van-homrig, where he had met 
 such kindly greetings — where over and over they two 
 had read poetry together under the shade of the laurel 
 boughs, — laurels of ''Vanessa's" own planting, and all 
 planted in honor of the Dean — he did not now slacken 
 pace until he was at the door ; he passed into the room 
 where the poor, shrinking, frightened Vanessa waited 
 her fate. He threw her letter wide open upon the table, 
 and with an oath of defiance turned upon his heel, and 
 strode out of the house, — never to enter it again. 
 
 She, poor woman, whose heart had gone out to his, 
 bowed underneath this blast of his fury. Three weeks 
 after this, they buried her — the victim of Dean Swift's 
 rage and double dealing. 
 
 Do you think this was the sort of a man to make a 
 clergyman of } And yet he could so impose on men of 
 eminence, that the great Addison wrote on the fly-leaf 
 of a little book which he gave him, — "To Dr. Jonathan 
 Swift ; the most agreeable companion, the truest friend, 
 and the greatest genius of his age." 
 
 Certainly he was a rare genius. No other English 
 writer has ever put words together in a way which shows 
 more surely and more sharply his real meaning; and 
 none ever put more meaning into his words. If he 
 were only less coarse and less indecent, — for he is often 
 both, — no better model for strong, clear writing could 
 be given you. As it is, I would advise only the reading 
 of the Liliput voyage of Gulliver. 
 
 And what old age do you think befell this great man .'' 
 No calm, — no peace in it ; no quietude of home ; no chil- 
 dren ever fondled him. He grew so petulant and irrita- 
 ble, that no one wanted to live in the same house with 
 
114 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 him. Then came moodiness and melancholy. For a 
 year he said never a word to any one. At last that 
 great mmd of his — which was joined to no heart at all 
 
 — broke down, and went out. Yet still he lingered ; he 
 ate ; he slept ; he paced his chamber — knowing nothing 
 
 — saying nothing that was worth saying ; and only hired 
 keepers were with him at his death. 
 
 If he were alive to-day, and at his best, we might like 
 to have him make our dictionaries for us, or go to 
 Washington for us; but of a certainty — knowing him 
 as we do — we should never want him to preach Chris- 
 tianity for us, or to sit down with us at our firesides. 
 
 A Brobdingnag Book. 
 
VI. 
 
 AN IRISH STORY-TELLER. 
 
 Who was She? 
 
 DID you ever hear of Gretna-Green, and of Gretna- 
 Green marriages ? 
 
 Gretna is a small place in Scotland, only a little way 
 over the English border, as you go from Carlisle to 
 Dumfries ; and it used to be famous as a place for run- 
 away couples to go and be married — a thing that it was 
 much easier to do, without consent of relatives, under 
 the Scotch law, than under the English law. 
 
 Well, in the year 1763 — the year when poor Gold- 
 smith was getting into trouble with his landlady, and 
 had the "Vicar of Wakefield" still in his drawer — 
 there drove up to the inn at Gretna a fine carriage with 
 a young gentleman in it, hardly nineteen years old, who 
 was an Oxford student ; and he brought with him a 
 young girl only seventeen ; and these runaways were 
 married there by the blacksmith of the village, who 
 was also justice of the peace. 
 
 I suppose the parents were indignant ; but I think 
 
Il6 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 they forgave them afterward. The young wife lived 
 only a few years ; but she left to her husband two 
 children. The oldest, a boy, was brought up in a very 
 strange way, — yet a way which had been commended 
 by a French philosopher, — Rousseau (who never had a 
 child that he cared for). This young Oxford man was 
 at this time a great admirer of Rousseau : so his boy 
 did what he chose to do, and nothing that he did not 
 choose. He was never punished ; wore no clothing 
 beyond what decency required ; and grew up, as any- 
 body might expect, a strong, active, ungovernable, bare- 
 armed and bare-legged young savage. He took a strong 
 liking for the sea, just when his father would have been 
 glad to keep him on land ; and to sea he went ; and at 
 sea he kept — until in after days he went to America, 
 married there, and settled near to Georgetown in South 
 Carolina, where, it is said, some of his descendants still 
 live. 
 
 The second child of this runaway match was a 
 daughter, who grew up to be one of the best-known 
 women in all Europe ; and her name — if you have not 
 guessed it already — was Maria Edgeworth. 
 
 Her father — Richard Lovell Edgeworth, married 
 again ; in fact, he married a third and a fourth wife 
 before he was sixty ; and he had a great company of 
 children, who lived with him in a huge country house 
 near to Longford in the centre of Ireland. Here Maria 
 Edgeworth went, when she was only four years old ; here 
 she grew into such love for Ireland and the Irish, that 
 she called herself an Irishwoman, and was proud to be 
 so called ; and here she wrote those stories which were 
 the delight of all young people forty years ago, and 
 
AN IRISH STORY-TELLER. II/ 
 
 those novels which were the delight of all the grown 
 people of her time. — You never heard of them ? Well, 
 well ! Yet it is not so very long ago that she was alive 
 there, — a good, kindly old lady ; and her stepmother 
 — the latest wife of Richard Edgeworth — died only the 
 other day (1864). 
 
 It is quite too soon to forget good Miss Edgeworth 
 and her books. Why, in my school-days, the fellow who 
 had not read "Eton Monteni," and "Forrester," and 
 "Waste not, Want not," was not counted much of a 
 reader. There were long words in them, and some 
 prosiness, maybe (Dr. Johnson, who set the example 
 of long words, was the great man in her young days, you 
 must remember) ; but there was a good plot in her 
 stories, and a good winding-up. You couldn't tell now, 
 if you were to read one of her books, what church she 
 attended, or what party she voted with ; but you could 
 find, scattered up and down, such talk as would show — 
 that honesty and common sense and good manners and 
 good morals and all charities were always venerated by 
 her, and always taught by her. 
 
 Her Stories, 
 
 I don't think I shall forget to the last day of my life, 
 the long white Chalk-Hill near to Dunstable, where 
 Paul and his little sister " scotched " the wheels of the 
 chaises that went toiling up, so that the horses might 
 take a breathing-spell. The story was in the " Parents' 
 Assistant ; " and there was a quaint old cut showing 
 Paul with his " scotcher," and sister Anne, and the old 
 grandmother — talking over the guinea which had been 
 given the children by accident. 
 
Il8 , ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 Would he keep it? — would he return it? Of course 
 we knew how it would be ; and the sturdy honesty and 
 
 Basket- Woman. 
 
 pluck of the lad as he went bustling through the inn- 
 yard at Dunstable was more refreshing than the eighth 
 commandment repeated ten times over. 
 
 Some of us made "scotchers," to look like Paul's, out 
 of blocks and broom-handles ; but there were no chaise- 
 wheels and no long chalk-hills to help us out ; and no 
 
k 
 
 AN IRISH STORY-TELLLER. II9 
 
 guineas dropped into our hats by accident or otherwise. 
 If there had been, I think we should have caught — all 
 the same — the infection of good Miss Edgeworth's 
 straightforward honesty. Healthy, cheery, unhesitat- 
 ing honesty is always catching. 
 
 The fact is, that homely old truths, which nobody in 
 his senses ever thought of disputing, lie at the bottom 
 of most of Miss Edgeworth's pleasant stories, and put 
 their color on them from beginning to end. 
 
 She doesn't take the sly way of covering up a moral 
 pill in a spoonful of jelly — so that a boy shall bolt it 
 without knowing it ; nor does she tie the lesson she 
 wants to teach upon the end of her stories — like a 
 snapper ; but it runs all through them, and is so strong 
 and sound and good that every boy's common sense 
 makes him stand up stoutly for her little heroes. 
 
 Take that old tale of ** Waste not. Want not." Mr. 
 Meacham is a shrewd, practical, kindly-disposed man, 
 who — having no sons of his own — has taken a couple 
 of nephews to bring up and care for. 
 
 Hal is free and easy ; and has been brought up to 
 have a great respect for people with a great trail — 
 whether of titles or of silk. How the boy does wor- 
 ship Lady Diana Sweepstakes and her sons ! 
 
 Ben, the other nephew, is thoughtful, quiet, careful, 
 plodding, and doesn't think of running after boys be- 
 cause they are Lady Diana's sons. 
 
 Mr. Meacham — wanting to test the working ways of 
 his two nephews — gives to each a big parcel to undo. 
 Hal goes daintily about his task, — puzzles over the 
 knots, — gets petulant, — whips out his knife, and cuts 
 all clean. Ben sets himself sturdily to a careful unty- 
 
120 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 ing of the fastenings, and saves a good bit of whipcord. 
 Next day Mr. Meacham gives each of them a top — but 
 without strings. Ben, by his steady care of yesterday, 
 is provided with a capital one. Hal — in a gust of per- 
 plexity — at last pulls off his hat-band, and uses it up. 
 
 Presently afterward, a great archery match is to come 
 off under the patronage of Lady Diana. Both are pro- 
 vided with bows and arrows, — thanks to uncle Meach- 
 am : and both, by a little practice, come to be good 
 shots. Hal wants a white and green uniform to wear — 
 since Lady Diana's boys are to have such. Ben does 
 not care so much to do things because Lady Di's 
 boys do them ; and puts his money into a good v/inter 
 coat, that will be of service when the archery day is 
 gone by. 
 
 Well, the time for the match comes at length. Hal is 
 very fine in his green and white ; but it is something 
 cold and windy ; and his hat — for want of that band 
 which went to top-spinning some days before — goes 
 spinning over a ploughed field, where Hal must needs 
 follow, and comes back with his green and white uni- 
 form woefully draggled and besmeared with red mud. 
 He could bear this better if he did not catch a sneering 
 look from Lady Diana and Lady Diana's boys : those 
 who worship fashion must take fashion's sneers. How- 
 ever, he stands up bravely to the shooting. The Sweep- 
 stakes boys have made good ventures ; Hal does fairly 
 at the first two shots (they have three each) ; but at 
 the third — twang ! goes his bow-string, — hopelessly 
 broken. 
 
 Ben shoots as well ; is mighty comfortable, too, in his 
 snug linsey-woolsey coat ; but it could not bar him 
 
AN IRISH STORY-TELLER. 121 
 
 against accident. His bow-string gives out at the sec- 
 ond shot. Ben is not flustered one jot : he pulls out 
 that bit of whipcord which he had saved from his par- 
 cel-fastening, and which had done service with his top, 
 — adjusts it to his bow, — takes new aim, and with two 
 capital shots — one after the other — wins the match. 
 
 I suspect that little experience — as recorded in the 
 " Parents' Assistant " — has led to the saving of a great 
 deal of whipcord first and last : and I suspect it has 
 lessened the eagerness with which some boys — even 
 American boys — will go hunting after familiarity with 
 the showy Lady Dianas and the Lady Diana's sons. 
 Miss Edgeworth did not believe in fustian. 
 
 Then there was that jolly story — as we easily thought 
 it — of the "Limerick Gloves." What a pig-headed 
 British obstinacy in the old verger Jonathan Hill, with 
 his — ''What I say, I say; and what I think, I think." 
 We had seen such people, though they did not wear 
 wigs like the verger of Hereford. There was the stout 
 wife too, who set him upon the hunt for unreal troubles, 
 and carried her head so high ; and the pretty Phoebe, 
 with the bang in her hair, looking demure, but very 
 constant in thinking well of Mr. Brian O'Neill, whatever 
 papa might do or say. 
 
 It looked as if there were a great Popish plot to come 
 out in the story, and as if the Hereford Cathedral were 
 to be blown up ; but it ends in a scare about a mere rat- 
 hole under the church wall, and in the pretty Phoebe 
 wearing her Limerick gloves ; and " no perfume ever 
 was so delightful to her lover " (who was Brian O'Neill) 
 "as the smell of the rose-leaves in which they had been 
 kept." The moral of the tale is, — we have no right 
 
122 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 to suspect people of roguery and arson because they do 
 not sing out of our hymn-book. 
 
 I have no doubt Phoebe and O'Neill married ; but 
 Miss Edgeworth doesn't say so. In fact, few of her 
 stories are love-stories in the ordinary sense. She 
 never married herself ; and I dare say saw no reason 
 why a story — like a life — might not be a good one 
 without being rounded off with a marriage. 
 
 Nearly all of her stories were written in that old 
 country-house in Ireland. There was almost always a 
 troop of children in it, as I have said, whom she loved, 
 and who loved her. The father, too, was a companion 
 and a helper in all her work ; for he had bravely given 
 over all the wild courses of his younger days, and was 
 one of the best of landlords ; seeking always for means 
 to help on his work-people, and so knitting their inter- 
 ests with his own, that in the rebellion of 1798, when 
 so many brave young Irishmen went to the scaffold, and 
 
AN IRISH STORY-TELLER, 
 
 123 
 
 SO many homes were desolated, the Edgeworth house 
 (though they were obliged to leave it for a time, in the 
 madness of the outbreak) was wholly unharmed. Even 
 the pens and papers upon Miss Edgeworth's table were 
 found, at their return, precisely as she had left them. 
 
 Edgeworth. 
 
 An avenue of gaunt old trees leads up to the mansion 
 from the high road ; and the library windows look out 
 upon lawn and garden, which were always in the old 
 time carefully kept. And it is a wonderful thing, and 
 worth the telling — that this good lady authoress never 
 had her *' moods " — never neglected commonest every- 
 day duties, and actually did her book-making work sur- 
 rounded by the family, — with only such retirement as 
 she could gain by placing her quaint little writing-table 
 (still preserved) in a corner of the great library, which 
 was also the common sitting-room. 
 
124 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 But it was an orderly and a cheery household. Mr. 
 Edgeworth writes to Dr. Darwin in 1796 — '* I do not 
 think one tear a month is shed in this house, nor the 
 voice of reproof heard." The son who had been bred 
 half a savage was gone at this time ; else I think he 
 would have amused himself with pinching the fat arms 
 of the little ones. 
 
 I cannot show you a portrait of Miss Edgeworth ; for 
 she would never consent to sit for one. She was not 
 beautiful, but very comely, and had those virtues which 
 almost compensate for beauty — extremest cleanliness 
 and neatness of dress and person. 
 
 Forester. 
 
 Upon the whole, I think the best short story of Miss 
 Edgeworth's is that which she calls " Forester ; " it is 
 certainly worth every boy's reading. I can only give 
 you a sketch of it. 
 
 The hero was the son of a strange English gentle- 
 man, who had very curious notions about society and 
 education, — not very unlike those which Mr. Edge- 
 worth held when he was making a half-savage of his 
 oldest son. 
 
 Forester's father died when the lad was nineteen ; 
 and he was placed under the guardianship of Dr. Camp- 
 bell, a clever and learned man, who had a clever son 
 Henry, and a pretty lass of a daughter called Flora. 
 
 Forester was brave and generous and truthful ; but 
 he had been taught to believe that cleanliness and good 
 manners and the usual forms of cultivated society were 
 idle things, not worthy of the consideration of a reflect- 
 
AN IRISH STORY-TELLER, 1 25 
 
 ing man ; and he brought his half-savage habits into the 
 family of the good Dr. Campbell. The Campbells, see- 
 ing his better qualities, bore with him patiently ; but 
 there was a certain Lady Mackenzie, with her son 
 Archibald, living under the same roof — very preten- 
 tious and artificial and shallow, both of them. These 
 lose no occasion to ridicule the shortcomings of poor 
 Forester, who finds that the ridicule of the shallow, if 
 well informed in the ways of the world, is very irritat- 
 ing. He pays back ridicule with a noisy contempt ; and 
 his sense of truth is not kept in check by any regard for 
 the feelings of others. He would have lived as inde- 
 pendent as Robinson Crusoe, if he could, and with as 
 little practice of the ordinary courtesies of society. He 
 had been taught to think that a polished manner must 
 needs go always with a selfish indolence ; and he showed 
 his hate for it by wanton disregard of proprieties, and 
 by choosing his companions among those beneath him, 
 whom he honored only because they were without any 
 fashionable gloss. 
 
 I suppose that most of big-brained boys go through 
 this state of feeling at some period of their youth ; but 
 they never get on very well in life until they master it 
 and hold it decently in check. 
 
 Forester's wrong-headedness puts him in the way of 
 incurring a good many damaging suspicions — that are 
 slyly fed by the Mackenzies, who hate the lad's coarse- 
 ness, and are jealous of his cleverness. But this he 
 could bear bravely enough, — with the knowledge that 
 he was honest and true. But when his slovenliness and 
 disregard for appearances exposed him to the open ridi- 
 cule of a company of well-bred people — as it did upon 
 
26 
 
 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 a memorable evening at his friends, the Campbells, he 
 forswears all further intercourse with such people — 
 packs up his wardrobe, — writes an adieu to the Camp- 
 bells, and goes to live with an industrious, simple- 
 minded gardener. 
 
 He finds, however, that the gardener and the garden- 
 er's people — however simple-minded they may be — 
 are just as self-seeking as those he has left ; and that it 
 
 is none the better for 
 being coarsely shown. 
 He learns how to plant 
 flowers, and enjoys it ; 
 but he doesn't find any 
 delightful Arcadia with 
 the gardener. 
 
 He conceals his name 
 so that old acquaint- 
 ances shall know noth- 
 ing of him ; yet his new 
 acquaintances are not 
 satisfying : so he chan- 
 ges quarters, and estab- 
 lishes himself in the 
 office of a great brew- 
 ery. Oddly enough, he 
 doesn't find the clerks 
 and apprentices here 
 gets his dismission at an early 
 join his fellow clerks in sup- 
 
 Forester. 
 
 altogether perfect. He 
 day, because he will not 
 porting some false report to the officers of excise. 
 
 He next undertakes employment with a bookseller 
 and printer, whom he has encountered accidentally, and 
 
AN IRISH STORY-TELLER. 12/ 
 
 with whom he doubtless hopes to find purity without 
 any pretence or parade. I doubt if he did ; so does Miss 
 Edgeworth. 
 
 Meantime he had been practising extravagant chari- 
 ties — siding with poor street people in quarrels he 
 knew nothing of — thrusting himself into situations by 
 his independent bravado, that made him easily suspected 
 of bad deeds. Indeed, it came to that pass at last, that 
 he was fairly arrested as party to a theft of which he 
 knew no more than the man in the moon. 
 
 As an independent young citizen who wanted to live 
 his own life without thanks to anybody — there was no 
 one to help him. But as young Forester — when his 
 name came to be known — and former companion to 
 young Henry Campbell, the old Doctor and all his 
 friends came forward to aid him in spite of himself. 
 These establish very clearly the honesty of the young 
 man ; but in making this clear, it was equally well 
 proven that he had acted with very great folly. Perhaps 
 it was some consolation to him to know that the real 
 culprit — so far as there was any culprit at all in the 
 matter of the theft — was his old enemy, the elegant 
 Archibald Mackenzie. 
 
 Forester is brought to think better of the Campbells 
 — gentlemanly as they are ; and he is taught, too, to pay 
 more regard than had been his habit to those formali- 
 ties of society, which the usage and good-fellowship of 
 the world — for a few centuries past — have laid down 
 for law. He gave over the hope of fighting windmills 
 and carrying off honor ; or of overleaping the customs 
 of civilized life at a bound. In the excess of his new- 
 found tolerance, it is stated that he condescends to 
 
128 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 take a few dancing-lessons. He goes back to his old 
 intimacy with the Campbells — father and son and 
 daughter. He wears clean linen — does not put on 
 Crusoe goat-skins ; think's no worse of people for say- 
 ing *' Good-morning " cheerily and to all the world ; does 
 not consider a shabby coat or a coarse speech of neces- 
 sity a reason for showing favor ; and the curtain of the 
 little story drops upon our hero — dancing a Scotch reel 
 with the pretty Flora Campbell ! 
 
 Whether they made a match of it, Miss Edgeworth 
 does not say, and has no need to say. The tale is 
 pointed with a moral, though it be not blazoned with a 
 marriage. 
 
VII. 
 
 TWO FRENCH FRIENDS. 
 
 ^urst of ^evolulion. 
 
 I REMEMBER that in my old Geography — a lit- 
 tle square, fat book, most unlike the Geographies 
 which I observe spread out under the eyes and elbows 
 of youngsters nowadays — the Frenchman was pic- 
 tured and described as an extremely limber and graceful 
 gentleman, taking off his hat with a wide flourish to 
 ladies in great furbelows, or else dancing with others 
 of like elegance around a tall tree ; and I always found 
 it very hard to believe how so gay and polite and fes- 
 tive gentlemen should have taken it into their hearts 
 or heads to engage in the bloody work of those *' Days of 
 Terror," which were also spoken of in the Geography. 
 I have discovered since, that dancing men and women 
 are often very cruel, and do not care on whose toes 
 they tread. 
 
 You have all heard, I dare say, of the French Revo- 
 lution. But do you know how it came about, and what 
 its terrors were ? 
 
 129 
 
130 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 It came about because there had been a great many 
 wicked kings and wicked nobles in France, who had 
 Uved only for their own selfish ends, and had considered 
 the people as beasts of burden, to be used to help them 
 forward in their pleasure-seeking and their money-getting. 
 If they wanted war for any ambitious purpose of their 
 own, whole regions were desolated, and sons and fathers 
 and husbands swept away down the bloody path that 
 war always makes. If they wanted service of any kind, 
 — whether honest labor or vile labor, — children were 
 torn from parents, and new-married wives from their 
 husbands. 
 
 But the poorest of the French people were so igno- 
 rant, and had lived in a state of slavish dread of those 
 who were above them in rank, for so long a time, that 
 perhaps they would have borne their trials longer — 
 if it had not happened that very many among the richer 
 people, and the better educated ones suffered too, by 
 reason of quarrels with the nobles, or quarrels among 
 themselves, or abuses of the king or his courtiers. 
 Among the most fearful of these abuses were those 
 which were committed under the authority of what were 
 called lettres dii cachet, or letters with the royal seal. 
 Throughout the reigns of Louis XIV. and of Louis XV., 
 this sort of tyranny was common. Thus, if a noble 
 bore a grudge against some neighbor, and wished to take 
 him out of the way, he would apply to the king or to a 
 royal minister, and beg or buy an order with the royal 
 seal upon it : — Under authority of this royal order, he 
 v^rould send a file of soldiers to seize his enemy, and 
 thrust him into a prison of the state, where he might 
 spend years without communication with wife or friends. 
 
TIVO FRENCH FRIENDS. I31 
 
 Friends or family would not know, indeed, whither he 
 had gone ; and so secretly would the work be done, that 
 they could not tell when or by whom he was torn away. 
 Sometimes an old, white-haired man, who had been 
 almost forgotten, would suddenly appear among his 
 acquaintances again, after twenty years of dungeon 
 life. 
 
 If you should ever read Mr. Dickens's **Tale of Two 
 Cities," — and it is one of the strongest stories he wrote, 
 and well worth your reading, — you will find a thrilling 
 narrative of the imprisonment of a French physician, 
 — who was torn away from his young wife, and for 
 sixteen long years never heard if she were alive or 
 dead. No wonder that his mind gave way, and that 
 when he found liberty at last, he was a poor decrepit 
 shadow of a man. 
 
 There is also another terrible story of abuse under 
 these lettres du cachet, which is said to be wholly true, 
 and which appeared in a book called " Letters from 
 France," by Helen Maria Williams, — an English lady 
 who passed much time in France before the Revolution, 
 and who was herself a prisoner in the Temple, under the 
 rule of Robespierre. Her story was about a black- 
 hearted father, who, — under cover of one of these kingly 
 orders or letters, — caused his own son, who had offended 
 him, to be snatched away from his family, and to be 
 buried in a dungeon for years. In fact, there was 
 hardly any crime against persons that might not be 
 permitted under shelter of one of those terrible ** letters" 
 of the king. 
 
 What would you think, pray, if our President, or 
 Gen. Sherman, might issue a letter with the State seal 
 
132 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS, 
 
 affixed, which would empower any marshal or politician — 
 or whoever might gain possession of the letter — to seize 
 upon any enemy of his at dead of night, and bear him 
 off to prison, and keep him there so long as he might 
 choose ? Would not such a power, unchecked by any 
 courts of justice or by law, make of our country — or of 
 any country — a very doleful place to live in ? 
 
 And can you wonder that those poor people in that 
 far-away France, and in that far-away time (nearly a 
 hundred years now), should have chafed under it, and 
 talked bitterly and threateningly; until -after a while 
 their angry and threatening talk grew into a great tem- 
 pest that swept through the Paris streets like a whirl- 
 wind ? 
 
 No wonder they were maddened ; no wonder their 
 passion got the better of their judgment ; no wonder 
 the population, led on by enraged men, worked deeds 
 of cruelty which made all Europe shudder. Very great 
 wrongs, however orderly, are almost always balanced — 
 sooner or later — by very great and disorderly avenge- 
 ment. 
 
 When that tempest of madness I was speaking of just 
 now first swept through the streets of Paris, in the reign 
 of Louis XVL, it drove the crazed people in herds, to 
 glut their vengeance upon those who were keeping cap- 
 tives in chains, within the great prison of the Bastille. 
 This was a grim and dismal-looking building upon the 
 borders of Paris, with sluggish water around it ; and 
 its door was entered by a draw-bridge. Toward the 
 frowning walls of this prison (there is only a tall bronze 
 column upon the spot now) the populace of the city 
 rushed headlong, with whatever weapons they could lay 
 
TWO FRENCH FRIENDS, 
 
 133 
 
 hands upon. Butchers took their cleavers, stable-men 
 their forks, carters their heavy oaken stakes, carpenters 
 their axes ; and there were thousands with guns and 
 cutlasses, while brawny women carried huge pistols. 
 
 The Bastille. 
 
 The soldiers who guarded the prison were so fright- 
 ened by the sights and sounds of this tempest of the 
 people's fury, that they could hardly make any opposing 
 fight at all. The governor of the prison, seeing what 
 mad rage he must encounter, would have blown up the 
 huge building altogether ; and had actually laid the 
 match to do so, but the soldiers rebelled, and forced him 
 to surrender. Then the raging mob flowed in ; and 
 those who wore the uniform of the king were smitten 
 
134 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 to death. The dungeon gates were unlocked, and prison- 
 ers staggered out, who had not seen the sun for dozens 
 and scores of years. 
 
 T)ays of Terror. 
 
 A beautiful girl was caught sight of, flying down one 
 of the great stairways. She was straightway seized 
 upon by those who believed her to be a daughter of the 
 governor, and would have been burned in the court-yard 
 had not a few generous soldiers stolen her away, and 
 secreted her until the sack was over. As for the gov- 
 ernor, — who was a marquis and the king's friend, — 
 they cut off his head, and bore it bleeding from the top 
 of a pike-staff, all down the street ; and all down the 
 street poured the mad, rejoicing rabble, slaying many 
 another as they went, and carrying the trophies with 
 them, — gory heads on pikes, or gory heads on chafing- 
 dishes carried by women. 
 
 As it was on that day, so it was on many a day there- 
 after, and for many a week and month ; and for years, 
 whoever was a noble, or friend of the hated nobles, — 
 or rich, or friend of the hated rich, — liv^ed, if he lived 
 at all in that city of revolution, in great dread and 
 danger. 
 
 There was not much feeling at the first against Louis 
 XVI., for he was a far better king than those who had 
 gone before him. He was kindly at heart, and what we 
 might call nowadays a gentlemanly, amiable man, — 
 with not much force of character, and disposed to yield 
 to the opinions of those who had been his old advisers. 
 These, by their obstinacy, brought him very soon to 
 
TH^O FRENCH FRIENDS. 1 35 
 
 grief. The people forced him to trial, and there was a 
 forced condemnation. His head, too, fell before the 
 fury of the enraged people, and was held up by the exe- 
 cutioner upon the scaffold, for the thronging mob to 
 look upon. 
 
 This poor king had left behind him in the prison a 
 son, whom he had taught, as he best could in those 
 dreary prison hours, arithmetic and geography. Do you 
 think the boy ever forgot those lessons, or ever forgot 
 the sorrow, and the loud wailings of his mother — the 
 queen, when the king went out to his death.'' 
 
 A little after this, those crazy ones who were govern- 
 ing France gave over this prince boy to the care of a 
 shoemaker and his wife, — to whom they furnished a 
 lodgement in the prison ; and they did this in order, as 
 they said, that the bringing-up of the boy might be as 
 low as that of the lowest of the people. Poor boy ! 
 poor prince ! 
 
 A little later, Marie Antoinette, the queen, was taken 
 out of her dungeon to go to trial : they called it a trial, 
 for the sake of decency ; but I think they knew how it 
 would end, before they called on her to appear. If the 
 judges before whom she stood had said she was inno- 
 cent and must go free, I am sure that the wives of the 
 wine-sellers, and the fish-women, and the hags of Paris, 
 would have snatched her away, and carried her off to 
 execution, — if they had not slain her with their own 
 bread-knives in the street. 
 
 These mad people had such a thirst for blood ! 
 
 It was better perhaps that the judges should say the 
 queen must be beheaded, as they did, than that these 
 wild women should cut her in pieces. 
 
136 
 
 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 She certainly died an easier death by the guillotine. 
 Another famous woman who fell under the hands of 
 the executioner in these bloody days, and whom we do 
 not know whether most to pity or to admire, was Char- 
 lotte Corday. 
 
 She was of humble family, in Normandy. No one in 
 Paris had ever heard of her when she left her home in 
 
 early July, 1793, to come up 
 ^ to the bloody city. Yet 
 
 what she did, and what 
 happened to her within one 
 week, have made her name 
 known everywhere. 
 
 She had a lover who was 
 suspected by the revolution- 
 ary tribunal, and who was 
 assassinated by order of 
 Marat, — who was the most 
 cruel and the most hated of 
 all the men who governed. 
 
 Charlotte Corday deter- 
 mined to avenge her lover, 
 and free France of the monster Marat. So she jour- 
 neyed up to Paris, — went to the home of Marat, — found 
 some excuse for admission, — engaged him in talk (for 
 she was winning in manner, and intelligent), and, seizing 
 her chance, plunged a dagger in his bosom. 
 
 There were many in Paris who gave a sigh of relief 
 when they heard of this murder ; but there were howl- 
 ing thousands who clamored for the blood of poor Char- 
 lotte Corday. A young- man offered to die in her place ; 
 but this could not be. There was a sharp, quick trial, 
 
 Charlotte Coiday 
 
TPFO FRENCH FRIENDS. 1 37 
 
 and within a week, — in her little Norman sacque, — 
 and in her Norman cap, she too went through the 
 streets to take her turn under the sharp, swift knife of 
 the guillotine. 
 
 The Guilloiine. 
 
 You don't know what the guillotine is ? 
 
 I will tell you. Perhaps you have sometimes seen 
 the great knives sliding up and down in a frame, by 
 which hay and straw are cut for horses. Well, im- 
 agine, if you can, a knife like those, — only a great deal 
 larger and a great deal sharper, — working up and down 
 in grooves like the straw-cutter. Then imagine such a 
 knife at the top of two grooved posts some eight feet 
 high, with a great weight resting on it ; then fancy the 
 poor victim lying at the foot of these posts, with the 
 bared neck placed directly between the grooves ; next 
 imagine the headsman, — as he was called, — pulling a 
 cord which sets the great knife free — to come — clang- 
 ing down with an awful thud 
 
 It does dreadfully quick work : but, for all that, it is 
 the most humane way of executing capital punishment : 
 — if there be any humanity in it at all — which I doubt. 
 
 The machine was called guillotine, after a Dr. Guillo- 
 tin, who, in the French Assembly in 1791, proposed a 
 better way of cutting off people's heads than the old 
 way of doing it by an axe ; which he said was a clumsy 
 way, and clumsy headsmen sometimes made bad work 
 of it. But Dr. Guillotin was not the inventor, as some 
 books will tell you ; nor did he lose his own head by it, 
 as other books will tell you. 
 
138 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 In 1792 the question of finding some new way of 
 execution was referred to Dr. Antoine Louis, the Secre- 
 tary of the College of Surgeons ; and he advised such a 
 method as had been hinted at by Dr. Guillotin the year 
 before. They had therefore a machine made for trial 
 by one Schmidt, who was a knife-maker. Finding it 
 worked well, after trial, they adopted it ; and people 
 called it at first ** Louisette." But Dr. Louis said he 
 didn't invent it, or make it. (Webster's Unabridged 
 Dictionary, which is so rarely wrong, makes a mistake 
 in saying he did invent it.) 
 
 So the people went back on the name of Dr. Guillo- 
 tin — all because a poet of that day had made some 
 jingling rhymes, in which the honor had been referred 
 to him. 
 
 The real truth is, that a machine like it had been used 
 in Italy, at Genoa, two hundred years before ; and in 
 England, at Halifax ; and in Scotland, at Edinburgh, 
 more than a hundred years before. The Scotch people 
 had called it *' The Maiden." 
 
 It is a dreadful machine, and does verv quick work, 
 as I know; for I have myself seen a man's head taken 
 off by it ; and I never wish to see such a sight again. 
 
 And now, why do you suppose I have run over this 
 dismal bit of history } Only as a sort of introduction 
 to two of your good friends, — a man and a woman who 
 lived in Paris through all this time of blood, and who 
 yet have written the two most charming and pleasant 
 stories for children that are anywhere to be found in 
 the French language. 
 
TIVO FRENCH FRIENDS. 1 39 
 
 Paul and Virginia, 
 
 The name of the first story is " Paul and Virginia ; " 
 and the name of its author, Bernardin de St. Pierre. 
 He was born at Havre, a seaport town at the mouth 
 of the Seine, and went to school there until he was 
 twelve ; but while he was at school he fell in with a 
 translation of ''Robinson Crusoe," and he loved the 
 book so much that he came to love adventure more than 
 books, and begged for permission to go over seas with 
 an uncle, who was bound for Martinique. 
 
 And he went there, and saw first in that island (which 
 you will find on your atlas among the West Indies) the 
 bananas, and palms, and orange-trees, and all that rich 
 tropical growth, which afterward he scattered up and 
 down upon the pages of his story of '* Paul and Vir- 
 ginia." 
 
 But the boy Bernardin did not stay in Martinique : 
 he grew homesick, and went back to France, and 
 studied engineering in Paris ; and before he was twenty 
 had gone away again to Malta, which is a strongly for- 
 tified little island in the Mediterranean, lying southward 
 of Italy. He did not stay, however, in Malta ; for he 
 fought a duel there, which made it an unsafe place for 
 him. 
 
 Not long after this he obtained a position under the 
 famous Empress Catherine of Russia, and had strange 
 adventures in Poland ; where it is said a beautiful Polish 
 princess would have married the young French engi- 
 neer, but her friends took good care she should not 
 commit what was counted so great an indiscretion. 
 
I40 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 He then went to bis old home at Havre again ; but 
 his family was scattered, and the home broken. He 
 next gained an appointment as engineer to the Isle of 
 France, — which was another tropical island near to 
 Madagascar, in the Indian Ocean. After five or six 
 
 Bernardin de St. Pierre. 
 
 years here, among the bananas and the palm-trees, he 
 went back to Paris — without business, without money, 
 almost without friends. This was his own fault, how- 
 ever ; for he was reckless and petulant and proud. 
 
 He began now to think of printing books, though he 
 
TtVO FRENCH FRIENDS. I4I 
 
 was past thirty-four. His first venture was a story of 
 his voyage to the Isle of France ; afterward he passed 
 many years working at what he called '* Studies of Na- 
 ture." He could hardly find a publisher for this. At 
 last, however, he bargained with M. Didot to print it, 
 — and Didot was the most celebrated printer in France. 
 Not only did he print the book of the adventurous Ber- 
 nardin, but he gave him his daughter for a wife. 
 
 I suppose that this author gave a great deal more of 
 study and of care to his book on Nature, than he did to 
 the little story of ''Paul and Virginia." Yet it was this 
 last — which was published some two years or more 
 before the capture of the Bastille — which gave him his 
 great fame. 
 
 Where there was one reader for his other books, 
 there were twenty readers for *' Paul and Virginia." 
 In those fierce days when the Revolution was ripening, 
 and a gigantic system of privileges was breaking up 
 and consuming away, — like straw in fire, — this little 
 tender, simple story, with its gushes of sentiment, and 
 its warm, tropical atmosphere, was being thumbed in 
 porters' lodges, and was read in wine-shops, and hidden 
 under children's pillows, and was sought after by noble 
 women, — and women who were not noble, — and by 
 priests who slipped it into their pockets with their 
 books of prayer. Even the hard, flinty-faced young 
 officer of artillery. Napoleon Bonaparte, had read it 
 with delight, and, in after-years, greeted the author 
 with the imperial demand, — ''When, M. St. Pierre, will 
 you give us another ' Paul and Virginia' } " 
 
 It is only a simple tale, tenderly told. A boy and 
 girl love each other, purely and deeply ; they have grown 
 
142 
 
 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 up together ; they are poor and untaught ; but the 
 flowers and fruits are rich around them, and the sweet- 
 est odors of the tropics are spent upon the story. Vir- 
 ginia — loving the boy — sails away from their island 
 home to win education in the old world — of France. 
 
 Paul and Virginia. 
 
 The boy grieves ; and studies that he may match in 
 himself the accomplishments which Virginia is gain- 
 ing in Europe. At last the ship is heralded which 
 speeds her back. In a frenzy of delight Paul sees the 
 great ship sweep down toward the shore. 
 
TIVO FRENCH FRIENDS. 1 43 
 
 But clouds threaten ; a wild swift storm bursts over 
 the beautiful island ; there is gloom and wreck ; and a 
 fair, lifeless form is stranded on the sands. 
 
 Poor Virginia ! Poor Paul ! 
 
 Then — two graves, with the name of the story over 
 them. And the birds sing, and the tropical flowers 
 bloom as before. 
 
 This is all there is of it. 
 
 Do you not wonder that so slender a tale could take 
 any hold upon a people who were ingulfed in the ter- 
 rors of that mad revolution } Why was it .^ 
 
 Partly, I think, because the dainty and tender tone of 
 the story-teller offered such strange contrast to the 
 fierce wrangle of daily talk ; partly also, because in the 
 breaking down of all the old society laws and habits of 
 living in France, it was a relief to catch this sweet 
 glimpse of the progress of an innocent life and inno- 
 cent love — albeit of children — under purely natural 
 influences. 
 
 It is worth your reading, were it only that you may see 
 what tender and exaggerated sentiment was relished by 
 this strange people, at a time when they were cutting 
 off heads in the public square, by hundreds. 
 
 It is specially worth reading in its French dress, for 
 its choice and simple and limpid language. 
 
 The Siherian Wanderer. 
 
 We come now to talk of the other book of which I 
 spoke. It is by Madame Cottin, and is called " Eliza- 
 beth ; or, The Exiles of Siberia." 
 
 Siberia, you know, is a country of great wastes, where 
 
144 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 snows lie fearfully deep in winter, and winds howl across 
 the bleak, vast levels ; and wolves abound. It is under 
 the dominion of Russia; and to this pitiless country the 
 emperor of Russia was wont to send prisoners of state 
 in close exile — where their names were unknown, and 
 all communication would be cut ofE ; and where they 
 would live as if dead. 
 
 Well, Elizabeth was the daughter of such a prisoner ; 
 who, with his wife, lived in a lonely habitation in the 
 midst of this dreary region. She grows up in this deso- 
 late solitude, knowing only those tender parents, and 
 their gnawing grief. She knows nothing of their crime, 
 or exile, or judge, or real name. But as she ripens into 
 girlhood the parents cannot withhold their confidence ; 
 and she comes to know of their old, and cherished, and 
 luxurious home on the Polish plains, — which is every 
 day in their memory. 
 
 From this time forth the loving daughter has but one 
 controlling thought ; and that is, — how she may restore 
 these sorrowful parents to their home, and to the world. 
 
 It is a child's purpose ; and opposed to it is the pur- 
 pose of the Autocrat of all the Russias. But then, 
 courage and persistence are noble things, and they win 
 more triumphs than you could believe. They will win 
 them over school lessons, and bad habits, and bad tem- 
 per, — just as surely as they win them in the battles of 
 the world. 
 
 So, upon the desolate plains of Siberia the fair young 
 girl plots — and plots. How could this frail creature 
 set about the undoing of an imperial edict, and the res- 
 toration of father and mother to life and happiness once 
 more } Over and over she pondered in the solemn 
 
TIVO FRENCH FRIENDS. 1 45 
 
 quietude of those wintry Siberian nights, upon all the 
 ways which might avail to gain her purpose. At last 
 came the resolve — and a very bold one it was — to 
 make the journey on foot, from their place of exile to 
 the Russian capital ; never doubting — in the fulness of 
 her faith — that if she could once gain a hearing from 
 the emperor, she could win his favor, and put an end to 
 her father's exile. 
 
 Ah ! what could she know of the depth of state crimes, 
 or of the bitterness of royal hate, or of that weary march 
 of over two thousand miles across all the breadth of 
 Russia } 
 
 She had not the courage to tell of this resolution to 
 her parents ; but kept it ever uppermost in her thoughts 
 as months and years rolled on, and she gained strength ; 
 while the dear lives she most cherished were wasting 
 with grief and toil in the wintry solitudes. 
 
 One friend she made her confidant : this was the son 
 of the governor of Tobolsk, who, in his hunting expedi- 
 tions, had come unawares upon the retired cabin of her 
 father, and thereafter repeated twice or thrice his visit. 
 He was charmed by her beauty and tenderness, and 
 would have spoken of love ; but she had no place in her 
 heart for that. Always uppermost in her thought was 
 the weary walk to be accomplished, and the pardon to 
 be sought. 
 
 The young hunter could not aid her; for intercourse 
 with the exiled family was forbidden, and he had 
 already been summoned away and ordered to regions 
 unknown. 
 
 At last, after years of waiting, — Elizabeth being now 
 eighteen, — an old priest came that way who was jour- 
 
146 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 neying to the west. It seemed her golden opportunity. 
 She declared now, for the first time, her purpose to 
 her parents. They expostulated and reasoned with her. 
 The long way was a drear one ; monarchs were remorse- 
 less ; they had grown old in exile, and could bear it to 
 the end. 
 
 But the tender girl was more unshaken and steadfast 
 than they. She bade them a tearful adieu, and with 
 the old priest by her side, turned her steps toward the 
 Russian capital. Very toilsome it was, and day followed 
 day, and week week, with wearisome walking ; and be- 
 fore the journey was half done the old priest sickened 
 and died — she nursing him and closing his eyes for 
 his last sleep — in a cabin by the way. 
 
 But still she had no thought of turning back, but 
 wearily and painfully pressed on. Week followed week, 
 and still long roads lay before her. It will make your 
 hearts ache to read the story of her toil, — of her bleed- 
 ing feet, — of her encounters with rude plunderers, — 
 her struggles with storm and snow and cliff. There 
 were great stretches of silent forest; there were broad 
 rivers to cross ; there were gloomy ravines to pass 
 through ; and her strength was failing, and she had been 
 robbed of her money, and the winter was coming on ; 
 and there was no messenger or mail to tell her of the 
 dear ones she had left in the little cabin of the exile. 
 But through all, her courage never once failed ; and at 
 last it rejoiced her heart — to see in the blazing sun- 
 light, on the edge of the Muscovite plains, the great 
 shining domes of the palace of Moscow. 
 
 Here she was a stranger in a great city ; and the 
 wilderness of the streets was full of more terrors and 
 
TWO FRENCH FRIENDS. 
 
 H7 
 
 more dangers for her than the wilderness of the vast for- 
 ests she had crossed in safety. Her very frailty, how- 
 ever, with her earnestness and her appealing look, won 
 upon passers-by ; and well-wishers befriended her, and 
 heard her story with amazement. And her story spread, 
 and made other well-wishers aid, until at last she came 
 to the feet of the emperor. 
 
 The Wanderer. 
 
 They knew — all of them — the tale she had to tell ; 
 and the eyes of all pleaded with her so strongly, that 
 her request was granted, and the father set free. 
 
 Of course the story glides on very pleasantly after 
 this. She has a government coach to carry her back 
 
148 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 over that long stretch of foot-travel ; she finds her 
 parents yet alive ; she somehow has encountered again 
 that stray son of the governor of Tobolsk ; and I believe 
 they were married, and all lived happily ever after. 
 
 It is not much of a love story however, — except of 
 parental love, — which, after all, is one of the purest 
 kinds of love. 
 
 Madame Cottin, who wrote the story, lived, as I said, 
 in the days of the French Revolution, and was married 
 in the year 1790, when she was only seventeen years 
 old. Her husband was very much older, and a rich 
 banker. I doubt if she loved him greatly ; there are 
 some things in other books of hers (for she published a 
 great many) which make me think so very strongly. 
 Still I believe she was an honest woman, and struggled 
 to do her duty. I do not think Madame Cottin's other 
 works are to be commended, or that any one reads them 
 very much nowadays. ** Elizabeth " — the book of 
 which I have given you the story — was printed in the 
 time of the First Napoleon (1806), and had an immense 
 success. There is hardly a language of Europe in 
 which it is not to be found printed now. 
 
 It is a good story. What devotion ! — so rare — so 
 true — so tender ! 
 
 Read it for this, if nothing else ; and cherish the 
 memory ever in your young hearts. 
 
 It is as good a sermon on the fifth commandment 
 as you will ever hear; and remember — that it was 
 preached by a Frenchwoman, who lived in Paris 
 through the reign of blood. 
 
VIII. 
 
 FAIRY REALM. 
 
 Ihe Grimm brothers. 
 
 NOT Giant Grim who lives in the " Pilgrim's Prog- 
 ress." Oh, no ! it is not that sort of person at all, 
 about whom I am to tell you, — but of two brothers, who 
 were born in Germany, — one at Hanau and the other 
 at Cassel, — only a little time before the outbreak of 
 that French Revolution of which I have told you 
 within the last few pages. 
 
 There were, indeed, five brothers Grimm of this fam- 
 ily ; but we have concern now only with two, — Jacob 
 and William, — who lived much together, and worked 
 together with a tender friendliness that is rare, even 
 between brothers. Their youth was full of hardships 
 The father died so early that they had only boyish 
 remembrances of him ; and the good mother — of whom 
 Jacob speaks most tenderly — was left with so small a 
 property, that she could with difficulty give them the 
 commonest schooling. But pluck and industry, with 
 occasional aid from a good aunt, helped them through. 
 
 149 
 
I50 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 You must have heard of Cassel ; or, if you have ever 
 been in Germany, the chances are that you have seen 
 it, and the palace and gardens of Wilhelmshohe. 
 
 You will remember, perhaps, that Louis Napoleon 
 was sent here after the victory of Sedan. There could 
 hardly have been a more delightful prison — where 
 he had the liberty of the grounds, and a great throng 
 of servants at his command. Every traveller delights 
 in wandering under the embowered walks of the palace 
 grounds. There are trees and flowers of all climates 
 there ; there are statues and grottoes ; there is a foun- 
 tain which, when in full blast, throws its water a hun- 
 dred and ninety feet into the air — being the highest 
 fountain in the world. Then there is a vast flight of 
 stone steps, over which the water sometimes comes 
 bounding down in torrents ; and these steps lead up to 
 the colossal Hercules, whose figure crowns the hill, and 
 looks all abroad upon gardens, and mountains, and town. 
 But even better worth seeing than this, or than the mu- 
 seums stocked with rare and curious things, is the view 
 of the lovely valley, which you get from the public 
 square of Cassel. 
 
 In the middle of this square stands the statue of the 
 Elector Frederic II. Yet he was not a man who de- 
 served a statue. He indeed brought together the beau- 
 tiful objects in the museum, and adorned the town by 
 lavish expenditure. This would have been very well, 
 if the moneys had come to him fairly. But how do you 
 suppose he won his vast wealth, — of which the traces 
 are around one everywhere at Cassel t Only by selling 
 the lives of his people. 
 
 You will remember, that in any story of the Ameri- 
 
FAIRY REALM, 15 1 
 
 can Revolution which you may have read, there is fre- 
 quent mention of the "Hessians" who fought for 
 George of England. 
 
 Well, these " Hessians," or hired soldiers, were the 
 subjects of the Elector Frederic H., of Hesse-Cassel, in 
 Germany. They were snatched from their homes and 
 families, — more than twenty-two thousand of them, 
 between the years 1776 and 1784, — and compelled to 
 fight over seas, the Elector receiving for their hire 
 more than twelve millions of dollars ; and this was a 
 sum in that day which would be equal to twenty mil- 
 lions now. 
 
 If the brothers Grimm had been of good age in the 
 time of the Elector Frederic, they might have died, 
 very likely, on the battle-fields of New Jersey. 
 
 But why have I gone over seas to the shadows of 
 Wilhelmshohe to find these Grimm brothers } Did 
 they ever invent good stories .-* No. Jacob, indeed, 
 told the story of his life ; but there is no invention in 
 it, — no fairies in it. He says, — 
 
 ''My father was too early taken from us ; and I still 
 see in spirit the black cofifin, the bearers with the yel- 
 low lemons and the rosemary in their hands, pass 
 slowly before the window. 
 
 "We children were brought up in the strict Calvin- 
 istic Church : it was rather the effect of practice and 
 example, than of much talk. The Lutherans of our 
 little town I used to regard as strangers, with whom I 
 must not be thoroughly familiar ; and of the Catholics, 
 — who were always to be recognized by their gayer 
 dress, — I had a strange sort of dread. And I still feel 
 as if I could not be thoroughly devout anywhere but in 
 
152 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 the church fitted up with the simpHcity of the reformed 
 faith ; so strongly does all belief attach to the first 
 impressions of childhood. 
 
 " Love of country was deeply impressed upon our 
 hearts, I know not how, for of that, too, little was said ; 
 but there was nothing in our parents' lives or conversa- 
 tion which could suggest any other thought : we held 
 our prince for the best in the world, our country for 
 the most favored of all countries." 
 
 And yet this was only a very few years after that 
 cruel sale of so many Hessian soldiers to be slaughtered 
 in battle ; and Jacob Grimm was born in the very year 
 — 1785 — in which Frederic II. died. 
 
 But why do I talk of the Grimms } Only because 
 these two brothers, of whom I have spoken, gathered 
 together, from old libraries, and peasants' talk, and 
 search in every quarter — through years of inquiry — 
 a most famous collection of old nursery tales, fairy 
 legends, and household stories. 
 
 And you would be surprised, if .you were to read 
 them through (which I cannot advise), to find how 
 many of our old English stories, which we always 
 thought must have had their beginning in England, 
 were known still earlier, and gave joy and terror to 
 young people ages ago, — before ever the present Eng- 
 lish language was known. Thus " Goody Two Shoes," 
 and ''Cinderella," and ''Jack the Giant-Killer," and 
 " Little Red Riding Hood," have all had their run 
 among the young folks of older countries — centuries 
 before such books were printed by "good Mr. New- 
 bery," in St. Paul's Churchyard, in London. There are 
 elves and giants, and good spirits and bad spirits, and 
 
FAIRY REALM. 
 
 153 
 
 talking birds, and singing beasts, doing all manner of 
 wondrous things, in these books of the Grimm brothers. 
 But you must not think, that, because the brothers 
 Grimm were hunting after child's stories so toilsomely, 
 they were men of no learning. They were, in fact, 
 most wise and studious men, and are known among 
 scholars as the authors of very valuable works relating 
 to the German language, to which they devoted years of 
 
 A Trio. 
 
 labor. A son of William — the younger brother — was 
 asked one day, by a playmate, about his father's " fairy 
 stories." The boy was indignant, and on getting home, 
 said, " Surely, — surely, papa, you never can have writ- 
 ten such rubbish. " 
 
 And is it rubbish } 
 
 I suppose it must be said — begging young readers 
 who still love Tom Thumb, and Bo-peep, to pardon me 
 
154 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 — that it is in one sense rubbish; just as you count 
 dolls and Noah's arks rubbish, when you have outgrown 
 such toys. But what if you could make a collection of 
 all the best dolls and toys and games which have 
 amused the children of six centuries past? Do you 
 not think it would tell you a great deal you would like 
 to know about the art, the skill, the material resources, 
 and the home life of the people who lived so long ago ? 
 
 And so these .stories — however much nonsense may 
 be in them — throw light upon the language and the 
 domestic habits and the tastes of bygone nations ; and 
 they show how some strange traditions have held place 
 from age to age ; and how certain old stories of elves, 
 or giants, or fairies, or goblins have kept life in them, 
 when great schemes of philosophy that grew up beside 
 them have died, and gone out of remembrance. 
 
 For such reasons these studious German brothers 
 gave great care and labor to that collection of house- 
 hold stories, into the pages of which you shall now take 
 a peep with me. 
 
 The Gold ^ird. 
 
 A king had a garden where golden apples grew ; but, 
 as they became ripe, one of them was stolen every 
 night. The king was angry ; and the gardener set 
 his sons to watch — turn by turn. The oldest, on his 
 night, fell asleep ; the second also fell asleep when his 
 turn came ; but the youngest son found that a gold bird 
 stole them, and he fired upon it with his bow (of course 
 there were no shot-guns), and cut away a golden feather 
 from the robber. 
 
FAIRY REALM. 1 55 
 
 This was shown to the king, who found it so beauti- 
 ful that he said he must have the bird. 
 
 Then the gardener sent his sons in search of the bird, 
 turn by turn, again. The oldest set off, and met a fox ; 
 and the fox said to him (for foxes could talk, and cats 
 could paint pictures, in that time), '' You are after the 
 Golden Bird — I know : when you have walked all day 
 you will come to two inns — one on either side of the 
 road ; go into the poorest one, and you will fare best in 
 your search." 
 
 But the boy did not like the squat, small inn, where 
 he had been advised to go, but, entering the other, had 
 a jolly time there, and forgot the bird, and forgot his 
 home, and all at home forgot him. 
 
 Then the second son set off ; and he met the fox, and 
 did not like his talk, and shot an arrow at him. He 
 chose the best-looking inn, and had a jolly time; and he 
 forgot the bird, and the king forgot him, and he forgot 
 his home. 
 
 Then the youngest son went on the search, though the 
 gardener was much afraid that harm would come to him 
 too. This son met the fox, but he listened patiently 
 to Renard ; and, as he was tired, the fox gave him a 
 seat upon his tail (as you see in the picture, which was 
 made from one of George Cruikshank's famous designs) ; 
 and away he went, with his hair whistling in the wind. 
 
 Of course he minded the fox, and stopped at the 
 humble-looking inn : he was not proud like the others. 
 In the morning the fox met him, and told him he must 
 go all day till he came to a castle, in the courts of 
 which castle the soldiers would be all asleep ; he must 
 not .wake them, but go through the corridors . of the 
 
156 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 castle till he came to a room where the gold bird would 
 be found sitting in a wooden cage. " But," said the 
 fox, " you will see a golden cage beside the wooden one : 
 do not put the bird in that, or harm will come." 
 
 Then the young fellow sat again upon the fox's tail, 
 and was whisked away till the morning was gone, and 
 the noon, and the sun had set. 
 
 Then, sure enough, he saw the high walls of the 
 castle ; and he found the soldiers snoring, and the gold 
 bird in the wooden cage, and the stolen apples of gold 
 beside it. But the golden cage that stood near by was 
 very beautiful ; so he thought he would venture to put 
 the golden bird in that ; the king and all the rest would 
 like it so much better. 
 
 He had no sooner done so than the bird set up a 
 scream that waked all the soldiers, and the soldiers 
 waked the guard, and the guard waked the king ; and 
 they took him prisoner, and would have killed him. But 
 the master of the castle said, " If he can find the 
 golden horse — and bring it to me, he shall have his 
 life, and have the golden bird." 
 
 So the young fellow set off : the fox met him, and I 
 dare say gave him a brushing for not having followed 
 his advice ; however, he took him upon his tail again in 
 search of the golden horse. They went so fast, their 
 hair whistled in the wind. But, for all that, the fox 
 found breath to tell him he would find the horse in a 
 certain castle, with the groom snoring beside him. He 
 must not wake the groom, nor put the golden saddle on 
 the horse, but an old farm saddle, and then dash away. 
 
 Well, he found the castle, and all the rest ; and he 
 thought as the groom slept so soundly he might take 
 
FAIRY REALM. 1 57 
 
 the golden saddle — it was such a splendid one! But 
 no sooner had he put it on the golden horse than the 
 groom woke, and the guard came, and the poor fellow 
 was prisoner again. 
 
 However, the people of the castle told him if he could 
 bring ** the beautiful princess " there, he might have 
 horse and saddle both. 
 
 So he went out to find "the princess;" and the fox 
 met him, and I dare say talked sharply to him ; but he set 
 him on his tail again, and whisked him away — so fast 
 their hair whistled in the wind — to another castle, 
 where the princess lived. The fox told him he must 
 snatch his chance to kiss the princess, and then she 
 would follow him ; but he must not permit her to say 
 adieu to her family. This was a strange order for the 
 fox to give, but I suppose he knew. 
 
 Now, the young fellow was tender-hearted ; and when 
 he had caught the kiss he could not say No, — when 
 the poor princess asked to take leave of her father 
 and mother. 
 
 Well, this upset every thing again ; the old king said 
 he should not have his daughter until he dug away 
 a great hill by the castle. This seemed impossible : 
 however, the fox helped him — working at night, when 
 the young fellow was sleeping off the fatigue of the 
 day. 
 
 And after a certain time the hill was gone : the 
 young gardener got his princess ; and by means of the 
 princess (and the fox) he got the golden horse ; and by 
 means of the horse (and the fox) he got the golden bird, 
 and with them all rode off toward the country of the 
 king of the golden apples. 
 
158 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 But the lazy sons, who went to the wrong inn, and 
 would not listen to the wise words of the fox, waylaid 
 him, and beat him, and took his treasures, and threw 
 him in the river. 
 
 But the fox gave him a lift with his bushy tail, and he 
 came to shore once more, and went whisking away to 
 the kingdom of the golden apples. And when his story 
 was told (I dare say the fox made it up for him), the 
 lazy, lying brothers were put out of the way, and the 
 plodding, straightforward, humble brother got his prin- 
 cess, and his horse, and his bi^d ; and, having given the 
 bird'tothe king, he had the princess for his own, and 
 lived very charmingly with her. He did not forget his 
 good friend the fox, whom he met one day in the wood 
 shortly after ;. and the fox entreated him to cut off his 
 (the fox's) head and tail. 
 
 f He hesitated a long whiJe ; but, after talking it over 
 witli.' the. princess, he did as the fox desired. And what 
 do" you suppose happened then } Why, the fox changed 
 into a man — tall and comely, and in a royal purple 
 suit ; and he turned out to be an own brother of the 
 princess, who had been lost many years before. 
 
 I suppose he lived with the married pair, and used to 
 talk with them of the old days when he was a fox, — 
 just as retired merchants talk of the old days when they 
 were "in trade." 
 
 More Queer leasts and People. 
 
 I cannot tell you of one-half the queer things told in 
 these books of old German tales, so I must skip about 
 from page to page. In one, for instance, I catch sight 
 
FAIRY REALM. 
 
 159 
 
 of a fox tied by his fore-paws to the branches of two 
 trees. How, pray, did this come about ? The story 
 says that a wolf, and a fox, and a rabbit, were bent on 
 learning to play the violin, and begged a musician to 
 teach them. 
 
 The Three Musicians. 
 
 He promised to do so, if they would obey orders. 
 So, walking through the wood with them, he ordered the 
 wolf to put his paws in the crack of a tree — which he 
 did ; and was made fast there — at his lesson. A little 
 farther on, he bent down two boughs, and ordered the 
 fox to place a paw on each, where the musician tied 
 them fast, and left the fox — to his lesson. A little far- 
 ther on, he bound the rabbit by a silken string to a tree- 
 trunk, where he presently, by bouncing about, wound 
 himself fast — to his lesson. I suppose they all com- 
 menced squeaking and howling, each in his own way — 
 which happens to a great many who commence the 
 study of music. 
 
i6o 
 
 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 They worried out of their fastenings at last, and came 
 on fast and furious to attack the musician — who had 
 meantime taught a man that understood what music 
 meant, and who defended his master, as he should. 
 The beasts had the worst of it. I don't know what the 
 moral of it is — unless that animals who have no ear 
 for music should always keep to their howling and 
 squealing, and never attack a good musician — whose 
 melody they cannot equal, and whose merit they can- 
 not know. 
 
 I espy, too, among the hobgoblins, little English Red 
 Riding Hood, or Red-cap as they call her, seated on the 
 German ground, with her basket and her pretty ways ; 
 and I find there is a new reading to her story. 
 
 Little Red-cap, 
 
 The wolf comes for her — drops soft speeches in her 
 ear — but she doubts him: she goes to her grand- 
 mamma with her comfits, and tells her how the 
 wolf tried to mislead her. 
 
 Then the great wolf comes croaking to the door: 
 
FAIRY REALM. 
 
 l6l 
 
 he has fine gifts for Grandmamma ; he will be good : 
 Riding Hood shall have fine dresses. 
 
 But no : Grandmamma is stern, and keeps the door 
 shut. The wolf climbs upon the roof — watching and 
 waiting, and waiting — 
 
 When little Red-cap comes out he will snatch her. 
 But Grandmamma bethinks herself of some savory 
 water she has ; and she and Red-cap fill a great trough 
 with it, outside the door. The wolf scents, and sniffs, 
 and sniffs, and slips down and down, and stretches his 
 neck to reach it — lower and lower — till at last, off he 
 goes — souse — into the trough, and is drowned there — 
 as all prov^ling wolves should be who would devour 
 sweet little Red-caps. 
 
 The Elves. 
 
 I meet with hosts of little elves who come by moon- 
 light and in the dark, and dance on the greensward, and 
 hang upon tree-boughs as if they grew there, and bustle 
 around babies' cradles, whispering so softly, in baby's 
 ear, that nurse never hears them. They tease selfish cur- 
 mudgeons ; and they help, with the daintiest of fingers. 
 
l62 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 a poor cobbler who is reduced to his last bit of leather : 
 they transform themselves into awl and hammer, and 
 work all through the night, making better shoes than 
 the cobbler ever could have made ; and he receives 
 double price for their work, and grows prosperous. 
 
 Mr. Cruikshank has made a delicious picture of the 
 old cobbler and his wife peeping from behind the door 
 at night, to see these little elves frolicking around his 
 bench, and putting on the gay clothes the cobbler's 
 wife has made for the little helpers. The elves put on 
 the new clothes, indeed ; but then they dashed away, 
 and were heard of no more. 
 
 We talk, you know, about being in "■ good spirits," or 
 in "bad spirits." I think those old Germans who 
 made these stories would have said instead — the good 
 elves have come ; or the bad elves have come. The 
 good elves will stay, — unless we try to dress them up 
 unnaturally, and extravagantly fine. As for the bad 
 ones, — if we never hunt after them at night, or feed 
 them with high-spiced dishes, — they will go. 
 
 The Flower with a Pearl. 
 
 One other story I must tell, of a bad fairy — a hag, in 
 fact — who lived in a great grim castle. By night she 
 became an owl ; by day she was sometimes a cat, with 
 her back in a rounded arch. If young girls went within 
 a hundred paces of her castle walls, they were changed 
 into nightingales, which the bad fairy caught, and hung 
 in cages in a certain chamber of her castle. If young 
 men came within a hundred paces, they too had a spell 
 upon them, so that they could not move except the cruel 
 fairy waved her wand, and bade them begone. 
 
FAIRY REALM. 163 
 
 Now, Jorinda and Jorindel — who were young people 
 of that region — loved each other dearly, and knew all 
 about the fairy ; but yet, as lovers will, they wandered out 
 by moonlight, without knowing how far they were going. 
 
 Jorinda was singing sweetly, — 
 
 " The ring-dove sang from the willow spray, — 
 Well-a-day! well-a-day! 
 He mourned for the fate 
 Of his lovely mate : 
 
 Well-a-day!" 
 
 Jorindel was listening, as lovers will ; and for a time 
 did not know that they had come too near the bad 
 fairy's walls, and that Jorinda was changed, and he was 
 listening only to a nightingale. He saw a dreadful owl 
 flit by ; and at dawn, lo ! — there came the dreadful fairy 
 with her cloak, and her staff, and her cage, and her nose 
 and chin almost touching, and carried off Jorinda. He 
 could not stir to help her, you know ; and, if he could, 
 — how was he to help a nightingale .-* 
 
 Then the hag waved her wand, and bade him begone. 
 He begged and pleaded ; but all the more her nose and 
 chin came clacking together, and all the more she bade 
 him begone. 
 
 In despair he went and became a shepherd — listen- 
 ing in the fields at night for the songs of the nightin- 
 gales, who reminded him of his darling Jorinda. 
 
 At last, one night he dreamed — that in the meadows 
 he found a scarlet flower, with a pearl in the middle of 
 it ; and that with this flower he marched straight up to 
 the walls of the fairy's castle, and that at a touch of 
 his flower the gates sprang open, and that he saw his 
 own Jorinda again. 
 
1 64 
 
 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 Next day he hunted to find if such a flower grew in 
 those meadows. He hunted long, — day after day, — 
 and at last found the treasure. He went straightway — 
 though the journey was long — to the castle of the cruel 
 old woman. And, sure enough, at a touch of the flower 
 the gates swung wide open. In he went, through cor- 
 ridor after corridor, till at last he heard the singing 
 
 Jorindel touches the Cage. 
 
 nightingales ; and, in the room where seven hundred 
 cages were hanging, was the wicked fairy with her 
 staff. She was mad with rage, but the flower pro- 
 tected him. 
 
 He looked around to find Jorinda ; for, lover as he 
 was, he did not want seven hundred Jorindas. 
 
 Meantime the wicked fairy — while her black cat was 
 
FAIRY REALM. 
 
 65 
 
 bristling at Jorindel — was bustling out of the door. 
 She had seized a cage to take with her. What if this 
 were the very nightingale he wanted i* He rushed after 
 her ; he touched the cage with his magic flower, and lo ! 
 the tender Jorinda, beautiful as ever, stood before him. 
 
 Of course they embraced, as lovers — after a long 
 separation — should. Then Jorindel set all the other 
 nightingales free ; and the great troop of beautiful 
 girls marched out of the castle, and the bad fairy was 
 neither found nor heard of again. 
 
 It was a good thing for Jorinda that she had a lover 
 who was constant, and who could find a flower with a 
 pearl in it. 
 
IX. 
 
 A SCOTCH MAGICIAN. 
 Ivanhoe. 
 
 T DON'T think I shall ever forget my first reading 
 of Scott's story of ''Ivanhoe" — not if I live to 
 be as old as Dr. Parr. 
 
 It was about the time when I was half through 
 Adams's Latin Grammar (which nobody studies now). 
 I was curled up in an easy-chair, with one of those gilt- 
 backed volumes in my hand, which made a long array 
 in a little upstairs book-case of a certain stone house 
 that fronts the sea. Snowing, I think, and promising 
 good sliding down hill (we knew nothing about any such 
 word as "coasting" in those days). But snow and 
 sleds and mittens were all forgotten in that charming 
 story, where I saw old Saxon England, and the brave 
 Coeur de Lion who was king, and a pretty princess, 
 and dashing men-at-arms, and heard clash of battle, 
 and bugle notes, and prayerful entreaties of a sweet 
 Jewess, and anthems in old abbeys. 
 
 All these so lingered in my mind, that when, years 
 
 i66 
 
A SCOTCH MAGICIAN. l6y 
 
 after, I went rambling through England, I wandered one 
 day all around the town of Ashby-de-la-Zouche to find 
 — if it might be found — the old tournament-ground 
 where was held the famous fete that opens so grandly 
 the story of " Ivanhoe ; " and, in going through Sher- 
 wood Forest (what is left of it), I think the Robin Hood 
 of Scott's story was as lively in my thought as the 
 Robin Hood of the old ballads. 
 
 And now the story must be told over in a few pages. 
 A few pages ! Ah, there was a time when I wished the 
 two hundred pages could be stretched into five hundred ! 
 I hear the young people of our day complain that they 
 can't like the long talks and the long descriptions ; and 
 that Scott's books are too slow for them. Well, well ! 
 I know that the day of chivalry, and of men-at-arms, 
 and "knights caparisoned," is gone by; but there are 
 old heads into which the din of those gone-by times does 
 come at odd intervals, floating musically, — and never 
 so musically as on the pages of Scott. What if we try 
 to whisk a little of this music into a page of story.'' 
 
 The first scene shows a swineherd, with rough jerkin ; 
 his tangled hair is his only cap, and a brass band is 
 around his neck, and he is talking with the fool Wamba, 
 who sits upon a bank in the forest. They are the serfs 
 of an old Saxon named Cedric, who lives near by, in a 
 great, sprawling, half-fortified country-house. And when 
 Gurth, the swineherd, and Wamba go home at night, 
 there is met a great company in the hall of Cedric, 
 their master. A famous Templar knight. Sir Brian du 
 Bois-Guilbert, is there with his retinue ; and Cedric has 
 seated by him Rowena, a beautiful princess, who is liv- 
 ing under his guardianship ; and there is a pilgrim from 
 
i68 
 
 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 the Holy Land in the company, — who is a disguised 
 knight (and the son of Cedric, but has been disinher- 
 ited by the father because he has dared to love the beau- 
 tiful Rowena) ; and there is a rich old white-bearded 
 
 ^:^N- 
 
 F&;1^^ 
 
 Swineherd and Wamba. 
 
 Jew, — Isaac of York, — who is buffeted by the com- 
 pany, but who is richer than them all. The timber roof 
 of the apartment is begrimed with smoke, that rises 
 from a great fireplace at the end of the hall. Yet the 
 meats are good, and there is wine and ale. There is 
 talk of the battles of the Crusaders in Palestine, and of 
 
A SCOTCH MAGICIAN. 169 
 
 the valiant deeds of Richard the Lion-hearted, who is 
 a prisoner (or thought to be) somewhere on the Conti- 
 nent ; and there is talk, too, of the great tournament at 
 Ashby, where all the company is going on the morrow. 
 But no one knows the secret of the disguised pilgrim, 
 who at dawn next day steals out secretly, — taking 
 Gurth with him, and telling the swineherd who he 
 really is. He befriends the Jew too ; and so, through 
 his aid, procures a steed and new armor for the battle 
 of the tournament. 
 
 The Tournament, 
 
 It was a gorgeous scene at Ashby. Prince John, the 
 usurping king (brother to Richard), was there with his 
 court, and Rowena — beautiful as ever ; and still more 
 beautiful was Rebecca, the "peerless daughter" of the 
 Jew, Isaac of York. Of course there was, too, a great 
 crowd of Saxon knights and of Norman barons, and of 
 people of all degrees, — such a crowd, in short, as 
 gathers at one of our great fairs or races. But remem- 
 ber that very few of the great people, even in this gath- 
 ering of Richard Coeur de Lion's day, could write their 
 own names ; and it was a long time before there was 
 any such thing in existence as a printed book. But yet 
 I think the show of fine feathers and silks, and coquetry, 
 was as great then as it would be in any such great as- 
 semblage now. 
 
 Well, in all the knightly sports of the early part of 
 the day, Bois-Guilbert was easily chief ; but before the 
 day ended, a new knight made his appearance on the 
 field, with visor down, unknown to all, and with only this 
 
I/O ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 device on his shield, — a young oak torn up by the 
 roots, and the word ''Disinherited." Everybody ad- 
 mired his motions and his carriage ; and everybody 
 trembled when he rode bravely up to the tents of the 
 challengers, and smote the shield of Bois-Guilbert with 
 the point of his lance. This meant deadly strife ; while, 
 before this time, all the combats had been with blunted 
 javelins. 
 
 A Strange Knight. 
 
 So the knights took up position, and at a blast from 
 the trumpets dashed forward into the middle of the 
 lists, and met with a shock that must have been a fear- 
 ful thing to see. Neither was unhorsed, though the 
 lances of both were shattered in splinters. At the 
 second trial, Bois-Guilbert rolled over in the dust, and 
 the strange knight (whose real name was Tvanhoe) was 
 declared victor. 
 
 The air rang with shouts, and Ivanhoe rode around 
 the lists to single out a fair lady who should be queen 
 
A SCOTCH MAGICIAN. 
 
 171 
 
 of the next day's fete. Of course he chose Rowena, 
 the Saxon princess, who sat beside Athelstane, who 
 was of royal Saxon blood and was her declared lover, 
 and favored by Cedric, who sat also beside her. 
 
 But neither Cedric, nor Rowena, nor Prince John 
 knew who the strange knight could be, since he had re- 
 fused to lift the visor 
 of his helmet, or to de- 
 clare his name. The 
 Jew, Isaac of York, 
 doubtless knew the 
 steed and the armor, 
 and may have whis- 
 pered what he knew 
 to Rebecca ; for when 
 Ivanhoe at evening 
 sent his man Gurth 
 to pay the Jew for his 
 equipments, the beau- 
 tiful Rebecca detained 
 the messenger at the 
 door, and paid him 
 back the money — and 
 more ; saying that so 
 true and good a knight, 
 who had befriended 
 her father, owed him nothing. 
 
 This was a most splendid thing for Rebecca to do, 
 we all thought. 
 
 The next day, there was a little army on each side in 
 the contest ; Bois-Guilbert leading one, and Ivanhoe the 
 other. For a long time the result was doubtful ; but at 
 
 Rebecca and the Messenger. 
 
172 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 last Ivanhoe was beset by three knights at once, — Bois- 
 Guilbert, Athelstane, and Front de Boeuf ; and surely 
 would have been conquered if a new party had not ap- 
 peared. This was a gigantic knight in black armor, 
 with no device, and who had acted the sluggard. He 
 rode up at sight of Ivanhoe's sore need, and, with a 
 careless blow or two from mace or battle-axe, sent Front 
 de Boeuf and Athelstane reeling in the dust. After 
 this, the victory of Ivanhoe was easy and complete. 
 
 They led him up to receive the crown from Rowena, 
 the queen of the fete ; and they unloosed his helmet, 
 though he made signs to them to forbear ; and Cedric 
 knew his son, and Rowena knew her lover, and Prince 
 John knew the favorite of the wronged King Richard, 
 whose power he was usurping. 
 
 But the poor knight was wounded grievously ; and, 
 taking off his corslet, the attendants found a spear-head 
 driven into his breast. And he was taken away to be 
 cared for, — none knew exactly by whom ; but it ap- 
 peared afterward that it was by those in the employ of 
 Rebecca, who, like many ladies of that day, was a great 
 mistress of the healing craft. 
 
 :A Castle. 
 
 A day or two later, as I remember, he was journey- 
 ing in a litter under care of the Jew and Rebecca, 
 who were attacked by outlaws ; and, after this, claimed 
 the protection of Cedric and Athelstane, and their com- 
 pany, who also were journeying through the same re- 
 gion ; but these latter did not know who was the 
 wounded man in the litter. Even if they had known, 
 
A SCOTCH MAGICIAN. 1 73 
 
 they could not have protected him against the enemies 
 who presently beset them ; for they all were taken cap- 
 tive, and lodged in the great castle of Front de Boeuf. 
 
 Ah, what a castle it was ! What dungeons ! What 
 mysterious posterns ! What embrasures, and courts, 
 and turrets, and thick walls, and secret passages ! 
 
 I see in one of its dungeons the old Jew, appealing to 
 Front de Boeuf, who threatens to draw out his teeth one 
 
 Front de Boeuf and the Jew, 
 
 by one, or to roast him by the dungeon fire, if he will 
 not disgorge his money. 
 
 I see Rebecca, beautiful and defiant, wooed by Bois- 
 Guilbert as captives are always wooed by conquerors, 
 until with proud daring she threatens to throw herself 
 from the embrasure of the window, headlong down the 
 walls. 
 
 I see Ivanhoe stretched upon his sick-couch, helpless, 
 
174 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 and listening yearningly to the sounds that come up 
 from the castle walls. I see the beautiful Rebecca — 
 who is in attendance upon him (we boys were all so 
 glad of that 1 ) — exposing herself to chance arrows from 
 Robin Hood's band, who are attacking the castle, only 
 that she may look out and report to the poor knight 
 Ivanhoe how the battle is going. She says a giant in 
 black armor is heading the attacking party, and that 
 he thunders with his great battle-axe upon the postern 
 gate as if the might of an army were in his hand. She 
 says the men go down under his strokes as if God's 
 lightning had smitten them. He knows who it must 
 be. It is — it can be no other than the Black Sluggard 
 of the tournament — Richard I. of England ! 
 
 *' Look again, Rebecca." 
 
 *' God of Abraham ! They are toppling over a great 
 stone from the battlements ; it must crush the brave 
 knight ! " 
 
 Poor Ivanhoe ! Poor captives ! 
 
 ** But no, he is safe ; he is thundering at the gate ; it 
 splinters under his blows ! Ah, the blood ! the trampled 
 men ! Great God ! are these thy children } " 
 
 Yet even now there are inner and higher walls of the 
 castle to be climbed or battered down. Never would 
 they have been taken except there had been treachery 
 within. A wretched woman — Ulrica, victim of Front 
 de Boeuf — has set a match to a great store of fuel, and 
 smoke and flame belch out : the defenders have fires to 
 fight, and their outposts are weakened ; and the attack- 
 ing party press on, and secure the citadel. I seem to 
 see smoke and flame, and crushing towers, under whose 
 ruins lie buried Front de Boeuf and the miserable Ulrica. 
 
A SCOTCH MAGIC/ AN. 
 
 175. 
 
 I see Cedric disguised as priest, and making his es- 
 cape, and flinging back bribes in scorn. 
 
 Then, upon a patch of greensward under the shadow 
 of a near grove of oaks, the victors gather slowly to 
 measure their spoil. 
 
 The Saxon Rowena is safe — so is the Jew and 
 Cedric. Athelstane has received what seems his death- 
 
 Cedric disguised as Priest. 
 
 wound. Ivanhoe has been snatched out of the jaws of 
 destruction by the arm of King Richard, who bids 
 Cedric be reconciled with his son ; which bidding, the 
 old Saxon curmudgeon cannot deny ; and he is half dis- 
 posed — now that the royal lover Athelstane is out of 
 the way — to favor the pretensions of Ivanhoe to the 
 hand and heart of Rowena. Robin Hood, in his suit of 
 green, gets free grace for all his misdeeds as outlaw, 
 
176 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 and with one of his ''merry men," — a certain jolly friar 
 of Copmanhurst, who does not know the secret of the 
 Black Knight, — the easy-going, stalwart king has a 
 sparring-match (which to every boy reader of our time 
 was delightful) ; and which ended with putting the great 
 jolly friar sprawling in the dirt. What a brave, stout 
 king was Richard, to be sure ! 
 
 But the only real grief among all who have been res- 
 cued is shown by the poor old Jew — not so much for the 
 moneys which the barons and the church people have 
 shorn him of, as for his daughter. The sweet Rebecca 
 has not been crushed, indeed, in the ruin of the castle ; 
 but she has been borne away a captive by a knight who 
 was none other than the wicked Templar, Bois-Guilbert. 
 Whither, none knew ; nor does the story of her seizure 
 come to the ears of Ivanhoe (for which, I fear, Row- 
 ena was glad), who is borne away to some religious 
 house, where he will have more orthodox, — though not 
 more gentle care than the tender Rebecca would have 
 rendered. 
 
 After this, I seem to see a great crowd of mourners 
 in some old monastery or religious house of some sort, 
 bewailing (with good eating and flagons of ale) the lost 
 Athelstane ; and in the middle of the funeral feast — 
 which the king had honored with his presence, and 
 Rowena, and the knight Ivanhoe — lo! Athelstane him- 
 self, with his grave-clothes on him, suddenly appears ! 
 Good old Walter Scott loved such surprises as he loved 
 a good dinner. The royal Saxon lover of Rowena was 
 not really dead, but had only been stunned by a fearful 
 blow. But the blow has cleared his brain, and made 
 him see that Rowena cares more for the little finger of 
 
A SCOTCH MAGICIAN. 1 77 
 
 Ivanhoe than for his whole body ; so he tells Cedric he 
 gives up his claim. 
 
 And what does Ivanhoe say ? 
 
 There is no Ivanhoe to be found. A mysterious mes- 
 senger has summoned him away ; and, though scarce 
 able to sit his horse for his sore wounds, he has put on 
 his armor, and dashed through the outlying forests. 
 He rides hard, and he rides fast, for there is a dear life 
 at stake. Whose .-* 
 
 (If we were writing a novel, we should say "Chapter 
 Second" here, and make a break. Then we should 
 begin ) 
 
 Rebecca. 
 
 We return now to Rebecca. Bois-Guilbert had in- 
 deed borne her away, and had lodged her in a great 
 house that belonged to the Knights Templars. But the 
 Grand Master of the Templars, to whom Bois-Guilbert 
 owed obedience, was a very severe man, and a very curi- 
 ous, prying man ; and he found out speedily what Bois- 
 Guilbert had done ; and he found out that this young 
 woman, beautiful as she was, was a Jewess ; and there 
 were some among the Templars who said she was a 
 sorceress too, and had practised her sorcery upon Bois- 
 Guilbert. So this Grand Master of the Templars 
 brought the poor girl to trial for sorcery, though she 
 was the most Christian and most lovable creature in the 
 whole book ! 
 
 It was a sorry, sham trial : the Templars all on one 
 side, and the poor Jewess on the other ; — for the miser- 
 able fellow, Bois-Guilbert, was afraid to open his mouth 
 
178 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS, 
 
 in her defence. He told her, indeed, that he would 
 save her, and run off with her if she would go ; but she 
 scorned him with a most brave and beautiful scorn. 
 Of course she came off badly at the trial, — as they 
 meant she should. She was condemned to be burned. 
 Only one chance for escape was left, — she might sum- 
 mon a knight to her defence, who must contend against 
 the bravest and strongest of the Templars. If her cham- 
 pion won, she might go free ; if he failed by a hair's 
 breadth, the fagots would be kindled around her. 
 
 But who would defend a Jewess } Who would be 
 champion for a suspected sorceress .-* 
 
 She craved the privilege of sending out a messenger, 
 in faint hope of finding a champion. And the messen- 
 ger rode — a good fellow — rode fast, rode far ; 'twas he 
 that found Ivanhoe, and 'twas with him that the good 
 knight left the scene of Athelstane's coming to life. 
 
 The morning came. The fagots were piled up ; the 
 match-fire was ready ; the Templars were all gathered ; 
 the stout Brien du Bois-Guilbert, armed cap-d-pie, was 
 ready for any champion ; the great warning-bell began 
 tolling — One! two! three 
 
 What dust is that rising yonder } It is — it is a 
 knight — in full armor ; he approaches — he comes in 
 plain sight. It is Ivanhoe ; but ah ! so weak, so wearied, 
 so wasted by his sickness ! There is but little hope for 
 poor Rebecca. But he enters the lists ; he braves the 
 challenger ; the trumpet sounds ; the steeds dash away 
 to the encounter, and the crash of meeting comes. 
 
 The Grand Master strains his eyes to see what figures 
 shall come out from the cloud of dust. One is down, — 
 prostrate utterly, — dying. Of course it must be the 
 
Rebecca's Trial. 
 
A SCOTCH MAGICIAN. l8l 
 
 enfeebled and fatigued Ivanhoe. But no — no — it is 
 not ! It is Bois-Guilbert who is dying. 
 
 And what is this new cloud of dust and tramp of cav- 
 alry ? It is Richard of England, who has followed hard 
 upon the track of Ivanhoe ; for he has heard of his er- 
 rand, and knows he is unfit to encounter the strongest 
 of the Templar Knights. He has brought a squadron 
 of armed men with him, too, to seize upon all traitors in 
 
 The Champion. 
 
 the ranks of the Templars ; and lo ! above the roof and 
 towers of the Grand Master of the Templars, the royal 
 standard of England is even now floating in the breeze. 
 And Rebecca is safe, and Ivanhoe is safe. 
 
 And did he marry her .^ 
 
 Ah, no ! He married the Saxon Rowena ; and they 
 had a grand wedding in York Minster, where now you 
 may see the pavement on which they walked. 
 
 One day after the wedding, — it may have been a 
 
l82 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 week later, — a visitor asked an interview with the 
 bride. The visitor was a closely veiled lady of most 
 graceful figure. You guess who it was, — Rebecca. 
 She brought a gift for the bride of Ivanhoe, — a gor- 
 geous necklace of diamonds, — so magnificent that 
 Rowena felt like refusing the gift. 
 
 '* I pray you take them, dear lady," said Rebecca. 
 *'I owe this, and more, to the good knight, — your 
 honored " — Here she broke down ; but she recovered 
 herself presently — kissed the hand of Rowena — passed 
 out. 
 
 I think Rowena was glad her visitor did not meet 
 Ivanhoe upon the stairs ; I think she was glad, too, that 
 the lovely Rebecca went over seas presently to Spanish 
 Granada ; though she pretended not to be. 
 
 I know if / had been Ivanhoe But we will not 
 
 try to mend a story of Scott's ; least of all, when we 
 crowd one of his novels into a few pages, as we have 
 done here. 
 
 Waller ScolVs Eome. 
 
 It is among the very earliest recollections of my 
 school-days, — that the master, after some exercise in 
 reading, told us youngsters — with a grave face — that 
 the great author Sir Walter Scott was dead. And I 
 think some lout of a boy down the bench — with a big 
 shock of hair, and who was a better hand at marbles 
 than he ever was at books — said, in a whisper that 
 two or three of us caught, — "I wonder who under the 
 canopy he was } " 
 
 I don't think that, for any of us, Scott was so large a 
 
A SCOTCH MAGICIAN. 183 
 
 man, in that time, as Peter Parley, — who, if I remember 
 rightly, was at about that date writing his little square 
 books of "Travels" in strange lands. 
 
 It was at a later day that we boys began to catch 
 the full flavor of Waverley, and the Heart of Mid- 
 Lothian, and of that glorious story of battles and single- 
 handed fights in which the gallant Saladin and the 
 ponderous Richard of the Lion Heart took part. We 
 may possibly have read at that tender age his ''Tales 
 of a Grandfather " (which will make good reading for 
 young people now) ; and we may have heard our lady 
 kinsfolk talk admiringly of the Lady of the Lake, 
 and of Marmion ; but we did not measure fairly the 
 full depth of the school-master's grave manner, when he 
 told us, in 1832, that Walter Scott was dead. 
 
 For my part, when I did get into the full spirit of 
 Guy Mannering and of Ivanhoe, some years later, it 
 seemed to me a great pity that a man who could 
 make such books should die at all, — and a great pity 
 that he should not go on writing them to the latest 
 generation of men. And I do not think that I had 
 wholly shaken off this feeling, when I wandered twelve 
 years later along the Tweed, — looking sharply out in 
 the Scotch mist that drifted among the hollows of the 
 hills, for the gray ruin of Melrose Abbey. 
 
 I knew that this beautiful ruin was near to the old 
 homestead of Walter Scott, toward which I had set off 
 on a foot pilgrimage, a day before, from the old border- 
 town of Berwick-upon-Tweed. If you have read any 
 Scottish history, or if you have read Miss Porter's 
 great story (as we boys thought it) of "The Scottish 
 Chiefs," you will have heard of this old border-town. 
 
l84 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 I had kept close along the banks of the river, — seeing 
 men drawing nets for salmon, — seeing charming fields 
 green with the richest June growth, — seeing shepherds 
 at sheep-washing on Tweedside, — seeing old Norham 
 Castle, and Coldstream Bridge, and the palace of the 
 Duke of Roxburgh. I had slept at Kelso, — had 
 studied the great bit of ruin which is there, and had 
 caught glimpses of Teviotdale, and of the Eildon Hills ; 
 I had dined at a drover's inn of St. Boswell's ; I had 
 trudged out of my way for a good look at Smaillholme 
 Tower, and at the farmhouse of Sandy Knowe — both 
 which you will find mention of, if you read (as you 
 should) Lockhart's Life of Scott. Dryburgh Abbey, 
 with its gloom, and rich tresses of ivy vines, — where 
 the great writer lies buried, — came later in the day ; 
 and at last, in the gloaming (which is the pretty Scotch 
 word for twilight), a stout oarsman ferried me across a 
 stream, and I toiled foot-sore into the little town of Mel- 
 rose. There is not much to be seen there but the 
 Abbey in its ghostly ruin, I slept at the George Inn, 
 dreaming — as I dare say you would have done — of 
 Ivanhoe, Rebecca, and border wars and Old Mortality. 
 
 Next morning, after a breakfast upon trout which had 
 been taken from some near stream (was it the Yarrow T) 
 I strolled two miles or so down the road, and by a little 
 green foot-gate entered upon the grounds of Abbots- 
 ford — which was the home that Walter Scott created, 
 and the home where he died. 
 
 The forest trees — not over-high at that time — under 
 which I walked were those which he had planted. I 
 found his favorite out-of-door seat, — sheltered by a 
 thicket of arbor-vitae trees, — from which there could 
 
A SCOTCH MAGICIAN. 185 
 
 be caught a glimpse of the rippled surface of the 
 Tweed, and a glimpse of the many turrets which 
 crowned the house of Abbotsford. 
 
 It was all very quiet ; quiet in the walks through the 
 wide-stretching wood ; and quiet as you came to the 
 court-yard and doorway of the beautiful house. I think 
 there was a yelp from some young hound in an out- 
 building ; there was a little twitter from some birds I 
 did not know with my American eyes ; there was the 
 pleasant and unceasing murmur of the river, rustling- 
 over its broad, pebbly bed. Beside these sounds the 
 silence was unbroken ; and when I rang the bell at the 
 entrance door, the echoes of it fairly startled me, — 
 and they startled a little terrier too, whose quick, sharp 
 bark rang noisily through the outer court of the great 
 building. 
 
 This seemed very dismal. Where, pray, were Tom 
 Purdy, and Laidlaw, and Maida, and Sibyl Gray } 
 For you must remember I was, in that day, fresh from 
 a first reading of Lockhart's Life of Scott, in which 
 all these — and many more — appear, and give life and 
 stir to the surroundings of this home of Abbotsford. 
 
 You will read that book of Lockhart's some day, and 
 you will find in it — that Tom Purdy was an old out-of- 
 door servant of Scott's, who looked after the plantation 
 and the dogs, and always accompanied the master upon 
 his hunting frolics and his mountain strolls. Laidlaw 
 did service in a more important way in-doors, — reading 
 and writing for the master of the house. Maida was a 
 noble stag-hound, whom Scott loved almost as much as 
 any creature about him, and of whom he has left a 
 charming portrait in old *' Bevis," — whose acquaintance 
 
l86 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 you will make whenever you come to read the tale of 
 " Woodstock." As for Sibyl Gray, it was the name 
 of the stout nag which carried Scott safely through 
 fords and fens. 
 
 But, as I said, there were none of them to be seen on 
 that morning — thirty odd years ago — at Abbotsford. 
 I could not even be sure that the terrier which set up 
 so shrill and discordant a barking belonged to that 
 sharp '' Mustard " family, which traces back to Dandie 
 Dinmont's home in Guy Mannering. 
 
 Only an old housekeeper was in charge ; who, though 
 she might have seen service in the family, had fallen 
 into that parrot-like way of telling visitors what things 
 were best worth seeing, that frets one terribly who goes 
 to such a place with the memory of old stories glow- 
 ing in his thought. What would you or I care, — 
 fresh from Ivanhoe, — whether a certain bit of carving 
 came from Jedburgh, or from Kelso '^. What should we 
 care about the number of jets in the chandelier in the 
 great hall } What should we care about the way in 
 which Prince Somebody — wrote his name in the visit- 
 ors' book 1 
 
 But when we catch sight of the desk at which the mas- 
 ter wrote, or of the chair in- which he sat, and of his 
 shoes, and coat, and cane, — looking as if they might 
 have been worn only yesterday, — this seems to bring 
 us nearer to the man who has written so much to cheer 
 and charm the world. There was too, I remember, a 
 little box in the corridor, — simple and iron-bound, — 
 with the line written below it, — "■ Post will close at 
 two." 
 
 It was as if we had heard the master of the house say 
 it to a guest, — *' The post will close at two." 
 
A SCOTCH MAGICIAN. 
 
 187 
 
 Perhaps the notice was in his own handwriting, — per- 
 haps not ; yet somehow, more than the library, more 
 than the portrait bust of the dead author, — more than 
 all the chatter of the well-meaning housekeeper, — it 
 brought back the halting old gentleman in his shooting- 
 coat, and with his ivory-headed cane, — hobbling with a 
 vigorous pace along the corridor, to post in that old 
 iron-bound box a chapter — maybe, of Ivanhoe. 
 
 The Chair, Coat, and Cane. 
 
 But no : Ivanhoe was written before this great pile 
 of Abbotsford was finished. Indeed, the greater part 
 of his best work was done under a roof much more 
 homely and modest, — perhaps at a farmhouse he 
 once occupied some miles away on the Esk, — per- 
 haps in the humbler building which was overbuilt 
 and swamped in this great pile of masonry. 
 
1 88 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 It is not old, as you may think : it has a vexing 
 look of newness for those who love his tales of the 
 Covenanters. Of course it was more vexing thirty-three 
 years ago than now ; but even now, if you go there, 
 
 — and all who go to Scotland are tempted to run down 
 over that thirty miles of distance which separates it 
 from Edinboro', — you will still find none of the ven- 
 erable oldness, which — going from our new country — ' 
 we love to meet. 
 
 The walls and halls of that house of Abbotsford are 
 fine ; but there are far finer ones to be seen in England 
 and Scotland. I do not know what mosses may have 
 grown over it during these thirty-three years last past, 
 to make it venerable; but — that number of years ago, 
 it wore a showy newness that was quite shocking to one 
 that had learned to think (from his books) that dear old 
 Walter Scott should have lived all his life sheltered by 
 a mossy roof, and by walls mellowed in their hue by the 
 storms, and stains, and suns of centuries. 
 
 I found no whit of this about Abbotsford. You 
 know, I dare say, that it had been only a little while his 
 home at the time of his death : only twice after its 
 completion had all the great rooms been thrown open, 
 
 — once when his son Capt. Walter Scott, of the Royal 
 Hussars, was married to a Highland heiress ; and again 
 when Sir Walter Scott, baronet and author, lay in state 
 there, and the house was thronged with mourners. 
 
 Its turrets and great stretch of courts and corridors 
 and halls tell a mournful story of that weak ambition in 
 him which sought to dignify in this way a great family 
 pride. It was an ambition that was not gratified in his 
 lifetime ; and now there is not one of his lineage or 
 name to hold possession of it. 
 
A SCOTCH MAGICIAN, 1 89 
 
 Sow and When Ee wrote. 
 
 It is not so very long ago that Scott wrote his 
 charming stories : — since Goldsmith — long since 
 Dr. Swift — since Miss Edgeworth made her fame 
 (though he died before she died) ; indeed, he is nearer 
 to our times than any I have spoken of, or shall speak 
 of, in this budget of "Old Story -Tellers." There are 
 those alive who remember well the great mystery about 
 the Waverley Novels ; — for, while everybody was read- 
 ing them, nobody could say certainly who wrote them. 
 
 Scott did not place his name upon the title-page of 
 these books ; he did not allow it to be known for years 
 — even among his intimate friends — who wrote them. 
 There were those who went to his home, and staid 
 there day after day, — joining him in his rambles over 
 the gray hills, — listening to his dinner tales, and the 
 snatches of old songs he loved to recite, — who said it 
 could never be Walter Scott, who wrote the tales at 
 which the world was wondering ; for what time could 
 such a man find for such amazing work } 
 
 But there were keener ones who noted that the mas- 
 ter of the house never, or very rarely, showed himself 
 to his guests until after ten in the morning; and be- 
 tween that hour and sunrise — at which time he rose — 
 those who were most familiar with him knew that this 
 wonderful work was done. Never, I suppose, did any 
 literary man work more rapidly. Writing thus, and 
 aiming only at those broad effects which enchanted the 
 whole world of readers, — he could not and did not give 
 that close attention to his sentences which Goldsmith 
 
igo ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 and Swift both gave, and which makes their writings 
 far safer and better as models of style. He wrote so 
 swiftly, and dashed so strongly into the current of what 
 he had to say, that he was careless about every thing 
 except what went to engage the reader, and enchain his 
 attention. 
 
 But do you say that this is the very best aim of all 
 writing } Most surely it is wise for a writer to seek to 
 engage attention ; and failing of this, he must fail of 
 any further purpose ; but if he gains this by simple 
 means, — by directness, — by clear, limpid language, 
 and no more words than the thought calls for. — and 
 such rhythmic and beguiling use of them as tempts the 
 reader to keep all in mind, he is a safer example to fol- 
 low than one who, by force of genius, can bring into 
 large use extravagant expressions, and great redundance 
 of words. 
 
 Scott has in one of his stories — *' The Talisman " — 
 an account of a trial of prowess between Saladin, the 
 Eastern monarch, and our old friend, Richard the Lion- 
 hearted. They are together somewhere on one of those 
 fairy islets of green, which are scattered over the sandy 
 wastes of Palestine. The subjects of both monarchs 
 are gathered together : there is peace between them 
 for the time ; they mingle in friendly games. The great 
 Saxon king — that is, Richard — wishes to astonish and 
 impress those light-limbed warriors of the East : so he " 
 takes a great iron mace, or, as we might say, a solid 
 iron bludgeon, and lays it upon a block which he has 
 ordered to be brought into the presence of Saladin and 
 his attendant chieftains. Then he raises his great two- 
 handed broad-sword, — not over-sharp, but immensely 
 
A SCOTCH MAGICIAN, 191 
 
 heavy, — and, sweeping it through the air, brings it 
 down with a mighty thwack upon the iron bludgeon, 
 which straightway falls clanging in two pieces, — cleft 
 apart by the force of the king's blow. 
 
 The light cimeter and the light arm of Saladin can 
 do no such thing as this : the men of Palestine know 
 it; the British warriors — looking on — all know it, 
 and cannot keep down a shout of triumph. 
 
 What then does Saladin, — whose turn to show his 
 prowess has now come } He can cleave no iron mace : 
 he looks upon the cleft bludgeon with as much wonder 
 as any. He tests coolly the edge of his cimeter : he 
 knows its keenness ; he knows what swiftness and 
 surety he can give to its sweep. He takes a scarf of 
 silken gauze — so fine that spiders might have woven 
 it, — so light, it seems to float on the air, as the Saladin 
 tosses it from him. Then — quick as lightning, he 
 draws his cimeter — strikes at the silken gauze, and 
 the scarf, cleanly divided, drifts in two parcels down 
 the wind. 
 
 Though we may admire almost evenly (as Scott 
 meant we should) these feats of hand, it is certain we 
 could never approach the doughty doing of Richard 
 unless we were possessed of his gigantic power of 
 muscle ; but skill and practice would bring one to a very 
 close approach to the deft accomplishment of Saladin. 
 
 Now, why have I brought in this little side-scene from 
 the Talisman } You must remember that I was talk- 
 ing of words and style. Do you see now my intent t 
 A man of genius — well informed as to his subject- 
 matter, and full of enthusiasm — may be sure of tri- 
 umph, through whatever cumbersome welter of words ; 
 
192 
 
 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 but a better example for you and for me to study, will 
 be the work of one who gained his victories by simple, 
 clear-cut sentences, that carry no burden of repetitions, 
 and strike straight and sharp to the mark. 
 
 Eis Life and Ways. 
 
 But how came this man to write at all ? His father, 
 who was a quiet old gentleman in Edinburgh, believed 
 
 The boy Walter Scott. 
 
 and hoped that this son Walter would keep on with him 
 in that steady office-work — it was of a legal sort — in 
 which he himself grew old. He had fears indeed, when 
 Walter was a boy, that he would slip from life early ; 
 for he had a grievous illness that left him a crippled 
 man always, — not indeed badly crippled, but with a 
 
A SCOTCH MAGICIAN. I93 
 
 slight limp in his walk, which made his cane a thing of 
 real service to him. He was a well-looking boy, — as 
 you may see from this little picture of him in his child- 
 hood ; and much of his time was passed with his grand- 
 parents and relatives out by Kelso, or Sandy Knowe ; 
 and I think he grew into a love for that region, and 
 for all of Teviotdale, and Tweedside, which he never 
 outgrew. 
 
 He did put himself to work, when the time came for 
 it, in the office of his father ; but he did not bring a 
 strong love for it. 
 
 He had read ballads out at Sandy Knowe, and had 
 listened to old wives' tales, — in those days of his ill- 
 ness, — which stuck by him ; and the Eildon Hills, and 
 the blue Une of the Cheviots, I dare say kept coming 
 into view, over his desk in Castle Street, Edinburgh. 
 
 There were young fellows too in the city — friends of 
 his — who loved the heather, and border tales, and old 
 lore, as well as he ; and we may be sure they had their 
 junketings together, and that the legal work was none 
 the better for it. There were certain ballads in their 
 times, translated from the German, so daintily done, 
 that they passed from hand to hand among the literary 
 people of Edinburgh ; and the story ran that the pretty 
 and musical translations were the work of Walter 
 Scott, — a presentable young man, of some six feet in 
 height, with a tall forehead, and bushy eyebrows, and 
 a limp in his gait. 
 
 Then came a volume or two of collected Scottish 
 minstrelsy, — much of the best work in them known to 
 have been done by the same Walter Scott, and pub- 
 lished with his name. 
 
t94 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 It did not help the law business ; and when a jingling, 
 charming poem, full of the spirit of old balladry, and 
 called ** The Lay of the Last Minstrel," appeared 
 under his name, it hurt the law business still more ; 
 and we may well believe that the old gentleman — his 
 father — shook his head despairingly. 
 
 But he received five or six hundred pounds for it, — 
 which was better worth than two or three years of his 
 law work. 
 
 Still, he tells us, he hesitated : should he give up 
 rhyme-making, and keep close to his office } 
 
 Well, if he had done so, we might possibly have 
 had the Decisions of Justice Scott,, in law calf; but 
 should we have had " Ivanhoe " } 
 
 His poems had a taking, jingling resonance, and a 
 fire, and a dash, and bold rich painting of Scotch scenery 
 in them, that made them the delight of all England and 
 Scotland. Everybody talked of the young Mr. Scott. 
 
 He married in this time a pretty Miss Carpenter, who 
 was the orphan daughter of a French mother, and 
 under the guardianship of Lord Downshire. This was 
 very much against the wish of the elder Scotts. They 
 were too old-fashioned to think well of French blood. 
 But I believe she made a good wife, though she never 
 got over her broken English, and always had over-due 
 respect for titles ; and never, I think, had full and deep 
 sympathy with the higher impulses of the great Scotch- 
 man, or any wise appreciation of his best work. Per- 
 haps I ought not to say this : certainly there was never 
 any lack of that affection, on both sides, which is, after 
 all, the thing that is most sure to make lasting domestic 
 happiness. 
 
A SCOTCH MAGICIAN. 195 
 
 Scott's poems are not yet, I think, wholly gone by. 
 Marmion and the Lady of the Lake are still read, 
 and are worth the reading, were it only for their charm- 
 ing glimpses of Scotch landscape ; and if you ever go 
 to Inversnaid and Loch Katrine, or sleep at one of the 
 little ivy-embowered inns among the Trosachs, or look 
 off from the heights of Stirling Castle, — you will be 
 glad these old poems are still printed, and that you have 
 read them. And, if you never visit those places, a read- 
 ing of the poems will almost carry you there. 
 
 But Mr. Scott could not go on making poems forever : 
 he had lifted all the blinding mists from those charming 
 Scotch lakes ; but when he carried his eight-syllabled 
 music — which was ringing in everybody's ears — to 
 England and '' Rokeby," there was a pause in the wel- 
 comes that had greeted him. Besides, Byron had begun 
 his chant in a new and more brilliant strain. 
 
 There was wisdom in his decision to strike a new 
 note in Waverley, and Guy Mannering, — a note that is 
 ringing yet. The clash of Marmion we only catch the 
 hearing of here and there, at long intervals ; but it is 
 very hard, I think, to go where you will not meet those 
 who know Dominie Samson, and Meg Merrilies. 
 
 Do you ask what I would counsel you to read among 
 these novels of Scott .^ 
 
 Well — well ! Does the maple, or the ash, or the 
 pepperidge, or the dogwood show a richer color in 
 autumn } Which of these shall we gather .^^ which shall 
 we leave ungathered } 
 
 Whatever else you may, or may not do, in the reading 
 of Scott, I say — by all means read Old Mortality ; read 
 Waverley ; read Guy Mannering ; read the Heart of 
 
196 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 Mid-Lothian ; read Ivanhoe ; and if you would be in 
 weeping mood, and sigh over distresses you cannot 
 help, — read the Bride of Lammermoor. 
 
 I have told you that Scott was not for a long time 
 known as the author of these tales, — save to a few of 
 his most intimate friends ; and the full story of it was 
 only noised widely, and to all the world, when his for- 
 tune broke down under the weight of Johnny Ballan- 
 tyne's recklessness, and Constables' (his publishers) 
 canny self-seeking, and the costs of that great pile of 
 Abbotsford, and of the profitless moorlands he had 
 with a strange ambition heaped together about his 
 home. 
 
 All this brought age to him, and blight. He strug- 
 gled bravely indeed ; he wrote in this time of breaking 
 hopes that charming story of Woodstock. 
 
 But he fought at very hard odds the battle of life, 
 after this. Great earnings were small, compared with 
 the great debts that shadowed him. 
 
 Death came too, into his new and splendid home : 
 Charlotte, his wife, the companion of so many years, 
 died. The tragedy of Lammermoor will not touch you 
 more than the story of this grief, as he has written it 
 down in a few swift, crazy words, in his Diary. 
 
 After this, the wrecked fortune, the loneliness, the 
 bitterness, weighed on him more and more. He went 
 to Paris, — seeking some facts about the life of Napo- 
 leon on which he was working. But the beauty of that 
 gay capital could not bring back the old cheer and life 
 and hopefulness to this breaking man. He went to Italy, 
 the Government placing a ship at his disposal for the 
 trip ; but Italy, with its sunny skies, and wealth of art, 
 
A SCOTCH MAGICIAN. 197 
 
 could not bring into his veins the old tides of life 
 which had run brimfull along Tweedside and Teviot- 
 dale. He came back to Abbotsford a wreck. The 
 Esk and the Yarrow murmured, as he was borne along 
 their banks, just as sweetly as they did fifty years be- 
 fore ; but ear and heart and hopes were palsied. 
 
 Sometimes a gleam of the old life seemed to return, 
 and he asked for his pens, his ink, and the old seat at 
 his table. 
 
 Could he write '^. No, the weak fingers could not 
 even grasp the pen. There was a new dog in the place 
 of old Maida ; he could pat him, and he did. He could 
 say a kind word to this and that familiar friend ; not 
 saying all he would say, and stammering through the 
 little he could say. 
 
 At last, in the sunshine on the Tweed banks, — there 
 before his doors, — he summons Lockhart, his son-in- 
 law, to his side. 
 
 "Will he have Anne (his daughter) called too } " 
 
 No, she — poor girl — has slept none the night past: 
 he will not have her disturbed. 
 
 "Lockhart," he says, "be good — be virtuous; noth- 
 ing else will bring you comfort when you come to the 
 end." 
 
 It was the end — for this great Scotchman. A half- 
 hour later, and he was wholly still. 
 
 If I had known all these things of him when our old 
 master said, "Walter Scott is dead," — I should have 
 felt very differently. 
 
X. 
 
 ROBINSON CRUSOE. 
 Fifty bounds Reward. 
 
 IN England, a great many years ago, — when Anne 
 had just become queen, and when the Duke of 
 Marlborough was making those dashing marches on the 
 Continent of Europe which went before the fearful and 
 the famous battle of Blenheim ; and when the people of 
 Boston, in New England, were talking about printing 
 their first newspaper (but had not yet done it), — there 
 appeared in the London Gazette a proclamation, offer- 
 ing a reward of fifty pounds for the arrest of a " middle- 
 sized, spare man, about forty years old, of a brown 
 complexion, and dark brown-colored hair, who wears a 
 wig, and has a hooked nose, a sharp chin, and a large 
 mole near his mouth." And the proclamation further 
 said that " he was for many years a hose-factor in Free- 
 man's yard, in Cornhill." 
 
 And what do you care about this man with a hooked 
 nose, for whose capture a reward was offered about the 
 year 1 703 ? 
 198 
 
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 
 
 199 
 
 Had he plotted to kill the queen? No. Had he 
 forged a note ? No. Had he murdered anybody } No. 
 Was he a Frenchman in disguise .'* No. 
 
 What then .? 
 
 He had written some very sharp political pamphlets, 
 which the people in authority didn't at all Hke, and were 
 determined to punish him for. 
 
 Danief Defoe. 
 
 But T suppose there were a great many hot poUtical 
 writers who were caught up in the same way in those 
 old-fashioned times, and put in the pillory or in prison 
 for the very same sort of wrong-doing, whose names we 
 don't know, and don't care to know. 
 
 Why, then, have I brought up this old proclamation 
 about this forty-year-old, hook-nosed man } 
 
200 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 Only because his name was Daniel Defoe, and be- 
 cause he wrote that most delightful of all the story- 
 books that ever were written, — Robinson Crusoe ! 
 
 To be sure, he had not written '* Robinson Crusoe " 
 at that time : if he had, perhaps the sheriff, or whoever 
 sent out the proclamation, would have described him as 
 the writer of a story-book about being cast away on a 
 desert island, and full of monstrous fables, instead of 
 describing him as a hosier of Freeman's Court. But I 
 don't know. People in authority never know or care so 
 much about the books a man writes, as about the shop 
 he keeps and the debts he owes. 
 
 But did they catch the hook-nosed man } and did 
 somebody get the fifty pounds } 
 
 Yes, they caught him ; and yes, too, — about the 
 pounds. 
 
 Poor Defoe had not only to go to prison, but to stand 
 in the pillory. Perhaps you do not know what the pil- 
 lory was. It was a movable framework of wood, so 
 arranged that a criminal was forced to stand in it with 
 his head and hands thrust through holes in a plank ; 
 and in this condition he was put on show in the public 
 streets. It was an awkward position for a man to be 
 placed in ; and when he was disliked by the crowd, he 
 was pretty sure to have mud thrown at him, and to be 
 met by jeers and hootings. What if some of our 
 thieves and forgers were to be set up in this way at the 
 head of Wall Street ! 
 
 We thank God that we have outlived the times of 
 such savage treatment. I wish we could thank God 
 that we had outlived the crimes which seem to de- 
 serve it. 
 
ROBINSON CRUSOE, 201 
 
 But Defoe, in those political writings I spoke of, had 
 said no worse things, and no more severe things, than we 
 meet with nowadays in our newspapers. Nor was the 
 crowd of street people imbittered against him : in fact, 
 they brought garlands of flowers, and placed on the pil- 
 lory, and threw roses in the street as the officers moved 
 him from place to place. 
 
 He had been befriended by King William, who died 
 only a short time before; and who — as you know — 
 had been brought over from Holland to govern England 
 in place of James the Second, who had been driven 
 away from the throne. 
 
 Ihe Culprit's Work. 
 
 What had most brought him into favor with King 
 William and his government, was a little pamphlet in 
 rhyme which he had written, — called the True-born 
 Englishman ; and this had met with great favor too, 
 from the people of London. It had been written to 
 show that those acted very unwisely who found fault 
 with King William for being a foreigner, — and to show 
 further that the whole population of England was made 
 up by the mingling of different nationalities ; and that 
 every man was to be judged by his devotion to the in- 
 terests of Britain, and not by his race or birth. This 
 would very naturally be well relished by a great city 
 population, which had come from all quarters. No book 
 — it was only a small pamphlet, to be sure — had met 
 with so large a sale for years and years. Hence, I 
 think, came those flowers which were hung upon the 
 pillory where Daniel Defoe was set up in 1703. 
 
202 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 He had written other things as well, which had made 
 him well known ; — among the rest a satire in rhyme 
 called, " Advice to the Ladies : Showing that as the 
 World goes, and is like to go, the best way is for them 
 to keep Unmarried." 
 
 You would think this a strange way to make himself 
 popular. But he says in the preface to this, — ** You 
 will say 'tis a great fault to persuade People against 
 Marriage. I answer, ' That to the utmost of my power 
 I will ever expose those Infamous, Impertinent, Cow- 
 ardly, Censorious, Sauntering, Idle Wretches, called 
 Wits and Beaux, the Plague of the Nation, and the 
 Scandal of Mankind. But if Lesbia is sure she has 
 found a Man of Honor, Religion and Virtue, I will 
 never forbid the Banns : let her love him as much as 
 she pleases, and value him as an Angel, and be married 
 to-morrow if she will.' " 
 
 Now, as every young woman thinks she has found the 
 Angel, when it comes to the fact of marriage, I think 
 other flowers would have been given to Defoe on this 
 score. 
 
 But, nevertheless, he had the prison before him ; and 
 he tells us he had an awful time there, and chafed hor- 
 ribly. He was one of those restless, impatient busy- 
 bodies, who want always to be at work, and at work in 
 their own way. He did, in fact, edit a '' Review " while 
 he was in prison, — and procured the printing of it, — 
 in which there was a great deal of sharp talk. 
 
 He was what would have been called in our time, I 
 dare say, a hot-headed radical ; and if he had been born 
 a century and a half later, would have made a capital 
 editorial writer for a slashing morning journal, in either 
 
ROBINSON CRUSOE, 203 
 
 New York or Washington. But our people in authority 
 would never have offered a reward for his arrest : they 
 would have shrugged their shoulders ; or, perhaps, have 
 given him an ofifice. 
 
 Yet, for all his political sharpness, this hook-nosed 
 man had a head for business, — or, at least, for projects 
 of business. Some four years before the prison experi- 
 ence, he had published an ''Essay on Projects," which 
 was full of excellent suggestions, but in advance of his 
 time. Dr. Franklin relates, that he fell in with a copy 
 of this book in his father's library, when a young man, 
 and that he gained ideas from it, which had great influ- 
 ence with him in after-life. 
 
 The business project into which Defoe did really 
 enter was the establishment of tile-works at Tilbury — 
 where were made first in England those queer-shaped 
 tiles for roofing, which — if you ever go there — you 
 will see on a great many of the houses of Rotterdam 
 and Amsterdam ; and some of them are to be found yet 
 upon old houses in some of our southern seaboard 
 cities. 
 
 A few years ago — in 1 860 — the workmen upon a 
 new railway cutting dug through the meadow where 
 these tile-works of Defoe had stood ; and they turned 
 up a great many broken tiles, and some curiously-shaped 
 tobacco-pipes. And it happened that some visitor, who 
 knew the history of the place, told these workmen that 
 the tiles they were turning up had been made by the 
 writer of Robinson Crusoe : straightway there was a 
 rush to gather the best fragments — most of all the 
 pipes. They had read the book. 
 
 I think I should have liked myself to lay hold of one 
 
204 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 of those pipes, and compare it with one which Robinson 
 contrived, and rejoiced over in his cavern, — though "it 
 was a clumsy thing, and only burnt red like other 
 earthern-ware." 
 
 But the prison life made an end of the pottery works. 
 He could write in Newgate, and did ; but he could not 
 superintend the tile-yard. 
 
 There were good friends of his who meanwhile were 
 bestirring themselves to loose poor Defoe from his 
 prison life. Though he was doing more work there 
 than most men were doing outside ; yet the narrow 
 bounds of the prison-yard, and the bad air, and the con- 
 tact with all sorts of wretched criminals, were wearmg 
 upon his health and strength ; so that when at last a 
 messenger came to him from one high in power — asking 
 what could be done for him ; he says that he took his 
 pen, and wrote the reply of the blind man in the Gospel, 
 '* Lord, dost thou see that I am blind, and yet ask 
 what thou shalt do for me '^. My answer is plain in my 
 misery, — Lord, that I may receive my sight." 
 
 This meant liberty ; and he was given his liberty a 
 short time afterward. 
 
 Eis Family. 
 
 I have told you he was the author of that book you 
 all know so well ; but because he wrote that book 
 you must needs want to know who was his father, and 
 what lie did, and if he had a wife or children. 
 
 Well, his father was not a man who could put his son 
 into relations with people in high place, — as Sir Wil- 
 liam Temple did for Jonathan Swift, — not far from the 
 same time. 
 
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 205 
 
 Defoe's father was a butcher — named James Foe — 
 in the parish of St. Giles, in the city of London, — where 
 Daniel was born. How his father's simple name of 
 Foe grew into Defoe, is something that I am afraid 
 could not be explained without saying that our good 
 friend Daniel had the vanity to think that the long name 
 sounded better than the short one ; — which is after all, 
 no worse a vanity than that of our lady friend, who 
 thinks a long ribbon to her hat is more becoming than 
 a short one. 
 
 Not that Defoe was ashamed of his parentage : no, 
 no, — ten times over. Always, when he speaks of his 
 father, it is with respect and love. And there is noth- 
 ing to show that he did not deserve it. He certainly 
 sent him to a good school, and would have given him 
 a training to be a clergyman ; this was not to Daniel's 
 taste, so he became a hosier, and then — failing in that 
 — went into tile-making (as we have seen), to which 
 the prison brought an end. 
 
 A British admirer says that his grandfather, Daniel 
 Foe, "kept hounds " in Northamptonshire, — as if keep- 
 ing hounds to kill foxes (for sport) were a great deal 
 better than keeping sharp knives to kill lambs (for 
 food). Perhaps so ; at least it is one of those SQcial 
 puzzles with which the Daniel Defoe who wrote the 
 True-born Englishman did not concern himself greatly. 
 Hear what he says, in what is very bad poetry cer- 
 tainly : — 
 
 " Then let us boast of Ancestors no more, 
 Or Deeds of Heroes done in days of yore ; 
 For Fame of Families is all a cheat: 
 'Tis Personal Virtue only makes us great." 
 
2d6 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 But perhaps he wrote in this way because he could 
 make no boast himself. It is poorly worth while to in- 
 quire. When we find a man writing common sense, 
 the presumption ought to be that he writes thus because 
 it is common sense. 
 
 Did the author of Robinson Crusoe have a wife and 
 children } Oh, yes ! — there were some six children, 
 and a wife, to whom Queen Anne sent a gift of a hun- 
 dred pounds — the while her husband was in prison. 
 Defoe slipped out of London the moment he was set 
 free from Newgate, — to go down and meet that wife 
 and those children, who were living just then in the 
 old town of Bury-St. -Edmunds. 
 
 [The name of that town sounds familiar : did you 
 ever hear it before } Have you ever read Pickwick } 
 Didn't Mr. Pickwick take a coach-ride in that direction 
 once 1 And was there not an Angel Inn } and a man 
 in a mulberry suit i^] 
 
 He did not go back into trade, — either hosiery or 
 tile-making ; perhaps he saw his unfitness for it. There 
 is something in a book he wrote called '* The Complete 
 Tradesman," which looks like it. 
 
 ''A wit turned Tradesman ! " he says : ''what an in- 
 congruous part of Nature is thus brought together ! No 
 apron-strings will hold hirn ; 'tis in vain to lock him in 
 behind the counter, he's gone in a moment ; instead of 
 journal and ledger, he runs away to his Virgil and 
 Horace." 
 
 But you must not believe he was very poor : some of 
 the people about Queen Anne found out that he was a 
 most serviceable writer ; and he was sent down to Scot- 
 land, under pay, to help forward some designs of the 
 
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 
 
 207 
 
 government. The Scotch did not like him, for they did 
 not hke the business he was sent upon ; and though he 
 wrote a poem on Caledonia to put them in good humor, 
 it did not succeed. 
 
 His pen was all the while busy however, but mostly 
 with political matter, which passed out of sight with the 
 occasion that called it up. There was though an ac- 
 count of the apparition of Mrs. Veal (after death, and in 
 
 House where "Robinson Crusoe" was written. 
 
 a scoured silk gown) to one Mistress Bargrave, which 
 set all the street world of London agog. It was so 
 wonderfully told ! — so well told, people thought Mrs. 
 Veal must have come to life ; and crowds went hunting 
 after Mrs. Bargrave to hear if it were really so. 
 
 Fifteen years or more after he went out of prison, 
 down to Bury-St.-Edmunds, we hear of him as living in a 
 
208 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 big house which he had built at Stoke-Newington with a 
 coach-house attached. This meant — as it does not 
 always mean now — that he had money. There were 
 some five acres of pleasure ground attached, where he 
 pleased himself with working at gardening. 
 
 He had certainly three daughters living with him 
 there, besides his wife Susannah. And his daughters 
 were quick-witted, winning girls ; Sophia being the 
 most so : she married, ten years later, a Mr. Baker, who 
 is authority for this account of them all. 
 
 And in this big, square, uncomely house, — of which 
 I show you a picture, — was written in the year 171 8 
 by this hook-nosed man — then well on toward sixty 
 years of age — " The Life and Strange Surprising Ad- 
 ventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner, who 
 lived Eight-and-Twenty Years, all alone, in an Unin- 
 habited Island on the Coast of America, near the mouth 
 of the great River Oroonoque." 
 
 Ihe Book, 
 
 Ah, what a book it was ! what a book it is ! 
 
 You do not even know the names of those political 
 pamphlets which this man wrote, and which made him a 
 friend of the great King William, and gave him fame; 
 nor do you know the names of those others which 
 brought him to prison ; nor do you know the names of 
 those later ones which made Queen Anne befriend him, 
 and kept her his friend until the queen died ; nor do 
 you know — nor do your fathers or mothers know much 
 about those other books which this man wrote upon 
 Trade, and Religious Courtship, and a score of other 
 
Robinson Crusoe. 
 
^ ROBINSON CRUSOE. 211 
 
 things ; nor are they by anybody much read or called 
 for. But as for that dear old figure — in the high goat- 
 skin cap, — and with the umbrella to match, — and the 
 long beard, — who does not know him, and all about 
 him, all over the Christian world ? 
 
 Why, long as it is since I first trembled over the sight 
 of those savage footmarks in the sand, and slept in the 
 cave, and pulled up the rope-ladder that hung down over 
 the palisades, — yet, if that dear old Robinson in his 
 tall cap and his goat-skin leggings were to march up 
 my walk on some mild spring evening, I don't think 
 I should treat him as a stranger in the least. I think I 
 should go straight to him, and clap him on the back, and 
 say, — 
 
 ** My dear Mr. Crusoe, I'm ever so glad to see you ! 
 
 " And did Friday come with you } 
 
 *' And is Poll at the station } 
 
 " And have you been to York .-* 
 
 " And do you think of going to sea again } " 
 
 I don't know any figure of the last two centuries that 
 it would be so hard to blot out of men's minds as the 
 figure of Robinson Crusoe. 
 
 How came this hook-nosed man to write it .-^ 
 
 Well — Queen Anne was dead : this had thrown him 
 somewhat off his track. Then, the people about George 
 I. who had just come to the throne did not much favor 
 Mr. Defoe ; perhaps they were afraid of him ; perhaps 
 they thought him gone by, and useless. Perhaps Han- 
 over George had too many friends of his own. 
 
 But what suggested such a subject .^ Was there really 
 a Mr. Robinson whose father lived down at Hull 1 
 
 No : but there had lived a' man named Selkirk, — 
 
212 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLFRS. 
 
 Alexander Selkirk, — in Fife, Scotland, who went mate 
 on a trading-voyage with Capt. Stradling, in a ship called 
 the Cinque Ports. 
 
 Off the island of Juan Fernandez, which is abreast 
 of Chili on the South American coast, Selkirk fell into a 
 quarrel with his captain ; and, being a high-strung young 
 fellow, he said he would rather be put ashore than to 
 sail with the captain farther. 
 
 So the captain put him ashore — with only his bed- 
 ding, a gun, and a very few such useful things. He 
 staid alone on that island four years and four months 
 before a British ship touched there by accident, and 
 brought him off. He was in goat-skin clothes, and had 
 his last shirt on when Capt. Dover took him off. 
 
 This much was all true as gospel, and was printed in 
 Woodes Rogers's account of his voyage in 171 2 (being 
 seven years before Robinson Crusoe was printed) : the 
 whole story of Woodes Rogers would have filled about 
 one column of a newspaper. 
 
 Some jealous people said Defoe stole his story of 
 Robinson Crusoe from it. 
 
 But a man can't steal a silver dinner-service out of a 
 pewter plate. 
 
 He used the incidents without question, — as any one 
 else might have done — but didn't. Ten shipwrecked 
 men might tell their stories to you or me, and yet no 
 Robinson Crusoe come of it. 
 
 There are plenty of good incidents all abroad ; it is 
 the art which builds upon them that is rare, and which, 
 in place of a jumble of words that will set the facts 
 only before you, will twist out of them a drama that 
 kindles your passions and your love, and dwells with 
 
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 21 3 
 
 you as a tender memory forever. And all this is done 
 
 — not by fine words and long words, and by what 
 young people are apt to call — splendid writing. This 
 " splendid " writing is indeed a very bad thing to aim 
 at, and the very last thing to admire. I wish all school- 
 masters thought so ; but unfortunately they do not. 
 
 How could any thing be more homely and modest 
 and straightforward than the language which Defoe 
 uses to tell the adventures of Robinson } Yet no words 
 could be better for the purpose he had in mind ; — and 
 that was — to make everybody feel that the things told 
 of did really and truly happen. 
 
 There were critics, to be sure, who, in the day of its 
 first printing, thought it was "■ carelessly written," and 
 that there was a great deal which was very '' improba- 
 ble " in it ; and they didn't imagine for a moment that 
 there was the stuff in it which would be pondered, and 
 read over and over, and admired and dearly cherished 
 
 — years and years after they and all their fair culture 
 and fine words and very names should be forgotten. 
 
 I don't at all believe that Defoe himself knew how 
 good a thing he had done. If he had, he wouldn't have 
 gone about to weaken its effect by writing a sequel to 
 Robinson ; which, though it has some curious and won- 
 derful things in it, is yet hardly worth your reading. 
 And not content with this, Defoe — under the spur, I 
 suppose, of money-making publishers, — wrote, the next 
 year, '' Serious Reflections during the life of Robinson 
 Crusoe, with his Vision of the Angelic World." 
 
 Nobody knows it or reads it. Poll and Man Friday 
 are all alive ; but the Vision of the Angelic World is 
 utterly dead. 
 
214 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 Defoe also published shortly afterward the History of 
 the Life and Adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell ; and 
 in the same year Memoirs of a Cavalier. This last, 
 however, was understood to be based upon a manuscript 
 written by another hand. The following year there 
 appeared by Defoe "■ The Life, Adventures, and Piracies 
 of the famous Captain Singleton." But I cannot tell 
 you, nor would you care to know, the names of all that 
 he wrote. The titles alone, if I were to write them out 
 in full, would fill a hundred pages as large as this. 
 
 His Religious Courtship may entertain you if you 
 happen to be of age for thinking on such a subject ; 
 and his Complete Tradesman has a great many capital 
 suggestions in it, — full of the pith which belonged to 
 Poor Richard's maxims. 
 
 He wrote also a long history of the Great Plague in 
 London, which is so dreadfully real that it would make 
 you shudder to read it. You seem to see all the sick 
 people, and the dead ones with their livid faces ; and the 
 wagons that bore the corpses go trundling every morn- 
 ing down the street. You would wonder, if you read it, 
 how old man Defoe could have gone about prying 
 amongst such fearful scenes, as if he loved grief and 
 wailing and desolation ; for he don't tell you that he 
 helped anybody, or even lifted the dead into the carts. 
 How could he .-^ He wasn't there at all. The Great 
 Plague raged and ended before Defoe was grown. He 
 may have heard old men and old women talk of it ; but 
 he couldn't have been more than two years old when it 
 first broke out. 
 
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 21$ 
 
 Good'by, Robinson! 
 
 But I will close this half-hour's talk with only dear 
 old Robinson Crusoe in our mind. Defoe wrote of him, 
 as I said, when he was well toward sixty ; and he lived 
 to be over seventy, — having a great grief to bear at the 
 last. His son deserted and deceived him as Robinson 
 Crusoe had deserted and deceived his old father at 
 York ! 
 
 "This injustice and unkmdness," writes Defoe to a 
 near friend in the last year of his life, " has ruined my 
 family, and has broken my heart. I depended on him, I 
 trusted him, I gave up my two dear unprovided children 
 into his hands ; but he had no compassion, and suffered 
 them and their poor dying mother to beg their bread at 
 his door ; himself, at the same time, living in a profu- 
 sion of plenty. It is too much for me. My heart is 
 too full. Stand by them when I am gone, and let them 
 not be wronged." 
 
 This is a true letter of Defoe's, and one of the last 
 which he ever wrote ; but the old man was sadly broken 
 in the latter years of his life, and looked too despairingly 
 upon his home affairs : it is certain that his wife did 
 not beg her bread, nor was she at that time in a dying 
 condition. But I suspect there was only too good 
 ground for his shaken confidence in the son ; and I 
 fear the poor old gentleman died without forgiving him, 
 and without being asked to forgive. 
 
 He lies buried in Bunhill Fields — where Bunyan lies 
 buried too. The epitaph which would commemorate 
 him best would be one which should say simply, *' He 
 
2l6 
 
 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 wrote the story of Robinson Crusoe." And methinks 
 a figure of the dear old adventurer in his goat-skin 
 clothes, and his goat-skin cap, might well stand upon 
 his grave. 
 
 Saving Traps from the Wreck. 
 
 Who would not know W. Who has not read the 
 book } How could people help reading it } How could 
 they help being terribly concerned about the fate of 
 
ROBINSON CRUSOE. 21/ 
 
 that madcap, who would leave that sober old father of 
 his in Hull, and that mother who cried over his fate, 
 you may be sure, more than ever you or I ? Who could 
 help reading on, when he escaped so hardly from wreck 
 and death, on the shores of England, near to Yarmouth ; 
 and fell in with such bad fellows in London ; and hesi- 
 tated, and wavered, and finally broke into new vaga- 
 bondage ; and was followed up by storms and wreck, 
 and at last, as you know, cast ashore with scarce life in 
 him, on that far-away island, where he bewailed his fate 
 for months and years, and toiled hard, and tamed his 
 goats, and planted his palisades? 
 
 A great many thousand eyes looked out with him, 
 year after year, for the sail that never came. Of course 
 there had been a great many stories of adventures writ- 
 ten before, and there have been a great many since ; 
 but never, I think, any that took such hold of the feel- 
 ings of 9,11, as this story. 
 
 Why, do you know that crowds of people believed in 
 Robinson Crusoe when Defoe was living, and continued 
 to believe in him after Defoe was dead ? I know I be- 
 lieved in him a long time myself ; though the preface, 
 and the sober-sided old school-ma'am (who caught me 
 one day at the reading of it in school-hours, and made 
 me wear a girl's bonnet for punishment), — though such 
 as these, I say, warned me that it was a fable and 
 untrue, yet I kept on, somehow, believing in Robin- 
 son, and in Poll, and Man Friday ; and thought, if I 
 ever did make a long voyage, and the ship had a yawl, 
 I would ask the captain, when he came opposite the 
 island, to "heave to," and let me go ashore in the yawl, 
 and find the cave and the creek, and very likely the 
 
2l8 
 
 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 remnants of that big canoe in the forest, which Robin- 
 son Crusoe hewed from so huge a log — that he never 
 could and never did move it. 
 
 Robinson at Honne. 
 
 I believed in that old deserted father, down in York- 
 shire : — somehow, I think he is living there yet,— 
 repining, grieving, praying, weeping ! 
 
 Oh, Robinson, Robinson ! 
 
XI. 
 
 HOW A TINKER WROTE A NOVEL. 
 
 Travels of Chrisiian, 
 
 ONCE upon a time — years and years ago — I 
 wanted some good Sunday book to read ; and 
 when the want was made known, I was helped to a big, 
 leather-bound, octavo book, which at first glance — not- 
 withstanding one or two large splotches of gilt upon the 
 back — did not look inviting. In the first place, what 
 boy wants to grapple with a big octavo ? Your precious 
 old aunt will tell you what an octavo is, — that it means 
 a book with its paper folded so as to make eight leaves 
 of every sheet, whereas a duodecimo is one of paper 
 folded so as to make twelve leaves to a sheet ; and this 
 last is therefore much handier and every way better for 
 boy use, — at least, I think so. Then it was bound in 
 full calf — very suspiciously like a dictionary, and like — 
 well, I must say it — like the Bible. I don't mean, of 
 course, to breathe one word against that venerable vol- 
 ume ; but then, you know, when a fellow wants a good 
 Sunday book, and knows just where the Bible is kept, 
 
 219 
 
220 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 and has read it ever so often, he doesn't want what 
 looks too much Hke it. 
 
 However, there I was with the big book on my knee ; 
 and there were pictures in it. These were stunning. 
 There was a picture of a man with a great pack on his 
 back, doing his best to get out of a huge bog ; and 
 there were some people standing by, who didn't seem 
 to help him much. 
 
 There was a picture of a prodigious giant, — fully as 
 large as that in Jack and the Beanstalk story, — who 
 was leading off two little men, — xDne of whom looked 
 like the man that wore the big pack, and was near sink- 
 ing in the bog. Then there was a splendid picture of 
 this same little man walking up with all the pluck in 
 the world, through a path, beside which were seated 
 two old giants, who — judging from the bones which 
 lay scattered around their seats — seemed to have been 
 amusing themselves by eating up just such little men as 
 the plucky one, who came marching up between them 
 so bravely. 
 
 In short, the pictures carried the day ; and though it 
 seemed droll Sunday work, I wanted amazingly to find 
 out how this plucky little man got through with his bogs 
 and giants. 
 • So I set to. 
 
 Christian was the man's name, and he had a family. 
 But he became pretty well satisfied that he was living in 
 a city that would certainly be destroyed ; and was very 
 much troubled about it, and couldn't sleep at night, nor 
 let his family sleep. 
 
 So it happened that this Christian, after getting some 
 directions from a man called Evangelist, "put out " one 
 
HOW A TINKER WROTE A NOVEL. 221 
 
 day, with his pack upon his back, and left his wife and 
 children. 
 
 They did indeed run out after him so soon as they 
 saw that he was fairly set off, and called to him very 
 piteously and loudly, — which is not surprising, if he 
 was a man of fair honesty ; but he — strangely enough, 
 I think — put his fingers in his ears, and cried out, — 
 " Life, life ! " I didn't, in fact, at all Hke the manner 
 in which the book makes him leave his family behind 
 him. His course may have been well enough ; but why 
 shouldn't he have taken them along with him, instead 
 of leaving his children to be looked after by that fellow 
 Great-Hear — But I mustn't tell the story in advance. 
 
 His going off in this way made a great deal of noise 
 in the neighborhood ; and a Mr. Pliable, who was some- 
 thing of a gossip, went out crossways to meet Christian, 
 and have a chat with him, and was won over to keep 
 by him, until they both tumbled into that great bog I 
 spoke of. After floundering in this for a while, — Plia- 
 ble abusing Christian for getting him in such a scrape, 
 — they both crawled out. Pliable struck back, straight 
 for home. 
 
 Christian kept on, — very wearily, with all that mire 
 upon him in addition to his pack. A Mr. Worldly-Wise- 
 man met him on the road. He was a pompous man, 
 and had the air of knowing all that it was needful for 
 anybody to know, and of having a well-filled purse 
 besides. 
 
 When he heard that Christian x^az travelling to the 
 Celestial City, he said, ** Pooh, nonsense ! " and advised 
 him to go across to the town of Morality^ where he 
 himself had a snug house, which he sometimes occu- 
 
222 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 pied. My impression is that he offered to rent it to 
 him at a low rate. He told Christian, moreover, that 
 Squire Legality, who lived there also, would take off 
 his pack for him, — which, unlike most travellers, he 
 was very anxious to be rid of : indeed, if he had valued 
 it very highly, I think Mr. Legality would have taken it 
 off all the same — if he had fallen in his way. 
 
 Christian does make a side-start on the Morality-road ; 
 but Evangelist sees him before he has gone far, and 
 puts him into the path he first chose. This takes him 
 through a wicket, — where the keeper is very kind, — 
 and brings him after a while to a place called the Inter- 
 preter's house, where he sees many wonderful things, — 
 in visions, as it were. Among the rest, two boys named 
 Patience and Passion, whom I haven't forgotten to this 
 day. Patience took things very quietly, and had a good, 
 honest, contented look; — while Passion, with heaps of 
 money, dashed it all abroad in a very reckless way. 
 
 He sees, too, here, — or thinks he sees (though it is 
 hard to tell which of the two it is), a man shut up in a 
 cage of despair, and who has a very sad time of it, beat- 
 ing against the bars of his den. 
 
 There was a house called Beautiful on his way, where 
 he was received by two excellent persons, — Discretion 
 and Charity. They took Christian to task, however, for 
 havmg set off without his wife and family ; and his ex- 
 cuses were not of the best, I thought. However, they 
 treated him well, and had him up in the morning to the 
 top of the house, from which they pointed out to him 
 the Delectable Mountains, that lay straight in his path. 
 There couldn't be a finer country than that seemed to 
 be, or than that proved to be, when he reached it at 
 
HOW A TINKER WROTE A NO VET. 
 
 223 
 
 last, 1 don't think there was any thing in the book 
 more enjoyable than that stoppage in the Delectable 
 country ; the very thought of it for years after brought 
 up the loveliest images of fountains and sweetly-flowing 
 streams, and vineyards, and the most luscious of fruits. 
 
 Passion and Patience. 
 
 I wondered why Christian did not stop there altogether. 
 But it seemed to be a road whereon every one must 
 travel — when once they had set foot upon it, — either 
 in a wrong direction or a right one. 
 
 Vanity Fair was an extraordinary place he had to pass 
 
224 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 through, with a sort of world's exhibition always going 
 on in it, — with a French Row, and an Italian Row, and 
 a British Row : I am sure there would have been an 
 American Row if the author had known as much of our 
 people as of the rest of Vanity Fair. 
 
 As for the city, it was not very unlike New York : 
 the judges were worse, I think; and Faithful, — who 
 was the best of men (at least, he seemed so), gets exe- 
 cuted there. 
 
 Christian made good speed out of it — so soon as he 
 could. 
 
 I can't undertake to give the full order of his travel ; 
 but I know he met a great monster, Apollyon, some- 
 where, a prodigious creature with scales, equal to any 
 thing in the Arabian Nights. He strode wide across 
 the way on which Christian was making his pilgrimage, 
 and gave fight to him. My heart stood in my mouth at 
 the first reading of this battle. Would Christian win ? 
 It was " nip and tuck " with them for a long time, and 
 I was not sure how it could come out. But at last Chris- 
 tian gave this Apollyon a good punch under the fifth 
 rib, and the dragon flew away 
 
 There was a Giant Despair somewhere, who lived in 
 Doubting Castle, in sight from the road. Christian was 
 warned against him (I think he was in company with 
 poor Faithful at this time), and they somehow strayed 
 into his territory, and fell asleep. 
 
 This made one's heart beat. What if the giant should 
 take a walk in their direction ! 
 
 Why don't they wake up t — we thought. But they 
 slept, and slept. And the giant did come that way, and 
 haled them into his underground dungeons. I think I 
 gave Christian up at this pass. 
 
HOW A TINKER WROTE A NOVEL. 225 
 
 This giant had a wife called Diffidence, — which 
 seemed a very funny name for a woman who advised 
 the giant — after they had gone to bed — to give Chris- 
 tian and Faithful a good sound beating every morning 
 after breakfast. 
 
 He did give them a beating, and a good many of 
 them ; and Christian would have been murdered out- 
 right if he had not bethought himself of a key he had 
 
 — all the while — in his own bosom, and which would 
 unlock any door in all Doubting Castle. 
 
 It was very stupid in him not to have thought of the 
 key before ; but he didn't. 
 
 However, he used it at last, — unlocked the dungeon 
 door, — helped up poor Faithful, — went along the stairs 
 
 — very quietly, — tried another lock, — opened that 
 (what if the giant should hear !), and it grated fearfully ; 
 unlocked another and another, and at last they were safe 
 outside once more, and made their way back to the true 
 path which they had wandered from. They set up a 
 column of some sort thereabout, — so that other people 
 shouldn't get into the grounds of Doubting Castle again 
 for want of warning. This was very good of them ; but 
 I suspect it did not serve much purpose. Almost every- 
 body stops to see Doubting Castle, and take the risk of 
 being caught by Giant Despair. 
 
 Well, this plucky, earnest Christian went on, — meet- 
 ing with hobgoblins, — worrying terribly in a certain Val- 
 ley of Humiliation, — trembling as he walked between 
 two great monsters called Pope and Pagan (he was fool- 
 ish for that, — since these giants had their teeth drawn, 
 or had worn off the sharp edges of them with long years 
 of mumbling). 
 
226 
 
 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 He enjoys himself hugely in the Delectable Moun- 
 tains — (I was sure he would), and the hospitable 
 shepherds entertain him very kindly : he reaches the 
 
 Escape from Doubting Castie. 
 
 worst in the valley of the waters of Death, but comes 
 out all right at last by. the shores of the river of Life, 
 and passes on into the streets of the Celestial City. 
 
HOW A TINKER WROTE A NOVEL, 22/ 
 
 Greai'Eeari. 
 
 Don't forget that it was a Sunday on which I first 
 read this book, and dreamed after it — of Apollyon 
 (whom I imagined a monster bat, with wings ten feet 
 long, and flapping them with a horrible, flesh-y sound) 
 — also, of Giant Despair and his deep dungeon. {If 
 Christian had happened to forget the key !) 
 
 I don't think I dreamed of old Worldly-Wiseman, or 
 Pliable, or Legality, or Pick-thank. These are humble, 
 riff-raff characters (to boys), compared with Apollyon. 
 But the day will come when grown boys will reckon 
 them worse monsters than even Apollyon, — by a great 
 deal. I know I do. 
 
 There was a second part to this story, — though both 
 parts were bound in one within the leather covers l^told 
 you of. It was too much together for one day's read- 
 ing ; but I came to it all afterward. 
 
 The second part tells the story of Christian's wife 
 and children. The good woman bewailed her husband, 
 and bethought herself sorrily if she had been always to 
 him what she should have been. She didn't for a 
 moment accuse him for not taking her with him ; it 
 appears now indeed — as if the author of the book had 
 thought better of it — that poor Christian did urge and 
 urge, over and over, that wife and children should to- 
 gether set off ; and that he did not put his fingers in his 
 ears in that selfish way until all hope seemed gone. 
 
 Of course it had made much stir in their town, that 
 Christian should have gone off in that manner ; and 
 there were all kinds of rumors as to what had happened 
 
223 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 to him, and many reports of his adventures ; there were 
 those even who undertook to say where he actually was 
 at present, and what sort of robes he was wearing, &c. 
 As if they knew ! 
 
 But Christiana — that was the name of Christian's 
 wife — did not cease to vex herself ; and after much 
 thinking, determined to set off on the same journey her 
 good husband (she thought him good now that he was 
 gone) had taken the year (it may have been two years) 
 before. 
 
 When the packing began, and the news spread, you 
 may be sure there was a new stir in the town : the 
 gossips had a great feast in talking of it ; and many of 
 them came to reason with Christiana, — and to see what 
 wardrobe she might be carrying ; and to bid her an 
 affectionate good-by, and see what hat she might be 
 wearing on the journey. 
 
 One charmmg young person, whose name was Mercy, 
 and who was no gossip at all, and never knew how 
 many flounces anybody wore to their skirts, or what 
 they cost, — determmed to go with Christiana. Chris- 
 tiana could not have had a better companion. 
 
 So they set off — children and all — this time. The 
 Slough of Despond (being the bog spoken of) was still 
 there, and in bad condition. The king of that country 
 had indeed given orders to mend this slough ; and it 
 was said thousands of loads of waste material had been 
 dumped there, — for which the bills had been paid, — 
 still there was no sign of mending, and it continued as 
 grievous and plaguing as if it had been a highway of a 
 New-England town with the regularly elected select- 
 men puttering around it. 
 
I/OIV A TINKER WROTE A NOVEL. 229 
 
 But Mercy guides them through safely ; and they go 
 in high spirits through the first wicket, and reach in 
 good time the Interpreter's house. 
 
 They see many things here — by reason, I suppose, of 
 there being women of the party — which even Christian 
 did not see ; amongst others, — a man raking everlast- 
 ingly in a muck-heap, and never looking up. He was 
 said to be a kind of stock-broker. 
 
 Great-Heart, the real hero of this second journey, 
 takes them in charge to go on to the House Beautiful, 
 and wards off a great many dangers from them on the 
 way, — putting to death on the road a stout man by the 
 name of Grim, who gave a great fright to Christiana's 
 boys. Indeed, he showed such valor that the women 
 entreated — Mercy especially — that he should keep 
 by them altogether. He seems to have done so ; at 
 least, he was always near when there was any fighting 
 to be done. 
 
 There was a dapper little lawyer called Brisk, who in- 
 troduced himself to the party at the House Beautiful, — 
 he being a temporary boarder like themselves. He was 
 a fine-spoken man, though a little airy. He greatly ad- 
 mired Mercy's housekeeping ways with her needle. He 
 asks her how much she could earn at it } 
 
 Aha, Lawyer Brisk ! But she wouldn't listen to his 
 love-making ; and I was very glad when she said ** No " 
 to him. 
 
 If, indeed, it had been Great-Heart ! 
 
 One of Christiana's boys fell sick hereabouts with 
 gripes, — from eating apples that fell from over the wall 
 of Beelzebub's garden (I dare say Matthew shook them 
 off himself). He is so poorly that they call in a Doctor 
 
230 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 Skill, who has a large practice, and puts up pills which 
 give the go-by very quickly to Beelzebub's apples. 
 
 As they go on, Great-Heart kindly shows the boys 
 where their father Christian fought with Apollyon ; and 
 he warns them all in the Valley of Humiliation to keep 
 close by him. And it was extraordinary how the phan- 
 toms and monsters that threatened and growled, van- 
 ished when Great-Heart marched straight upon them 
 without blinking. Lions, for instance, whose great feet 
 the boys can hear pattering up over the grass after them 
 in the dark, — when once they stand and face them, 
 with Great-Heart close by, — turn, and are heard no 
 more. 
 
 It's not so, however, with giant Maul : the fight with 
 him was one of the hardest in the book. What a pic- 
 ture there was of it ! I would have liked to show you 
 a copy of it ; but the printers who control these things 
 say such pictures cost immensely, and wouldn't hear 
 of it. 
 
 This Maul has a huge club, which he brandishes, and 
 fetches Great-Heart a blow with it that brings that 
 brave man to his knee. Mercy screamed, and thought 
 it had been all up with him ; and so indeed did I, — at 
 the first reading. But he gets upon his legs, and, after 
 long parrying, gives Maul a thrust between his ribs that 
 makes an end of him, and puts the boys and poor trem- 
 bling Christiana in good case once more. 
 
 I forget now where, — but at one point they came up 
 with old Honesty, — one of the very best fellows in all 
 the book. It is so refreshing to m-eet with a new char- 
 acter ! The only thing I disliked about him was his 
 putting in a favoring word when somebody hinted that 
 
HOW A TINKER WROTE A NOVEL. 23 1 
 
 Mercy should marry Matthew, — the boy who was made 
 sick with eating Beelzebub's apples. I never liked this. 
 She was too fine a woman. Yet such young fellows 
 somehow always get the fine women, and don't get — 
 over eating Beelzebub's apples. 
 
 When the party came up to the stile that led over into 
 the grounds of Doubting Castle, Great-Heart proposed 
 to go over and call out giant Despair, and make an end 
 of him. 
 
 At this point I remember my heart beat pit-a-pat again. 
 Would he do it } Would the giant come out 1 Would 
 Great-Heart have the better of him ? What if the giant 
 should throw a rock out of the windows upon him } 
 Then there were nets in those grounds, and pitfalls ; 
 and Mrs. Diffidence with her hot water and spits. 
 
 However, Great-Heart did go ; and did call him out ; 
 and did slay giant Despair, — as much as such a char- 
 acter can be slain. That Doubting Castle was pulled 
 down then and there ; but there has been a new one 
 built, with modern improvements. The gentlemen who 
 occupy it — philosophers among them — don't waylay 
 strangers in the old manner : in fact, they give them 
 strong, juicy meats to eat, and set them on the road 
 again, in high spirits, — back to the town of Morality. 
 There have been stories, however, that some of the 
 younger dwellers in Doubting Castle, have, in a fit of 
 passion, brained an innocent visitor or two, with some 
 of the old bones lying about the premises. 
 
 They push on after this without very great adven- 
 tures. They have a nice time at those dear Delectable 
 Mountains, and through a spy-glass catch a glimpse of 
 the Celestial City. Some think they see it, and some 
 think they don't. 
 
232 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 They don't mind the dangers of the Enchanted 
 Ground much. Mistress Bubble with her fawning and 
 fine jewels, and offer of soirees (I presume she gave 
 amateur theatric shows), did not wheedle them at all. 
 
 They came to Beulah at last, and to the river brink, — 
 and sang as they looked, — 
 
 " Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood 
 Stand dressed in living green." 
 
 Ah, but that Great-Heart was a noble fellow ! Mercy 
 ought to have married him; but it didn't end so. Great- 
 Heart never married. 
 
 Well, that story in the leathern covers, and as big as 
 a Bible, has been printed by hundreds of thousands, and 
 has been translated into all the languages of Europe. 
 And it was written by a travelling tinker. Think of 
 that ! 
 
 John Bunyan. 
 
 John Bunyan was his name ; and he was born in a 
 house built of timber and clay (which was standing not 
 many years ago), in the little village of Elstow, near to 
 Bedford, England. 
 
 Bedfordshire is a beautiful county : there are fine 
 farms and great houses, and beautiful parks in it ; but 
 this man, John Bunyan, was the son of a travelling 
 tinker, and was born there only a few years after the 
 pilgrims landed from the Mayflower on Plymouth Rock. 
 He says of himself that he was a wild lad, swearing 
 dreadfully, going about with his father to tinker broken 
 tea-pots, lying under hedges, having narrow escapes 
 from death — once, falling into the river Ouse, and 
 
HOW A TINKER WROTE A NOVEL. 
 
 233 
 
 another time handling an adder, and pulHng out his 
 fangs with his fingers. 
 
 But he fell in with Puritan preachers, who " waked 
 his conscience ; " for he lived just in the heart of those 
 times which are described in Walter Scott's novel of 
 ** Woodstock," and in that other novel of ** Peveril of 
 
 the Peak ; " and he didn't think much of episcopacy or 
 bishops ; and at last he took to preaching himself, — 
 having left off all his evil courses. 
 
 He married too, and had four children, — one of them, 
 poor Mary Bunyan, blind from her birth. Bunyan loved 
 this girl greatly. I think when he wrote of Mercy, — 
 he thought of Mary Bunyan. 
 
234 
 
 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 He fought in the civil wars under Cromwell, and it is 
 possible enough that he may have seen Charles the 
 First go out to execution. Maybe he was one of those 
 crazy fellows who came to Ditchley (in Scott's novel) 
 to help capture the runaway, Charles the Second, who 
 was gallivanting in that time in the household of old 
 Sir Arthur Lee. He throve while the Commonwealth 
 
 Bedford Jail. 
 
 lasted ; but when Charles the Second was called back 
 to the throne in 1660 (John Bunyan being then thirty- 
 two years old), it was a hard time for Puritans, and 
 worst of all for such Puritan of Puritans as the Puritan 
 preacher, — Bunyan. 
 
 They tried him for holding disorderly religious meet- 
 ings ; and he put a brave face on it, and contested his 
 
HOW A TINKER WROTE A NOVEL. 235 
 
 right ; but this only made the matter worse for him. and 
 they condemned him to perpetual banishment. Some- 
 how, this judgment was changed in such a way, that 
 Bunyan, in place of being shipped to Holland or Amer- 
 ica (where he would have found a parish), was clapped 
 into Bedford Jail, where he lay (he tells us) ''twelve 
 entire years." He had no book there but the Bible and 
 Fox's Book of Martyrs. He made tag-lace to support 
 his family, the while he was in jail, and bemoaned very 
 much the possible fate of his poor blind daughter 
 Mary. 
 
 While he was living his prison life, country people 
 in England were reading the newly printed book by 
 Isaac Walton, called the Complete Angler ; and during 
 the same period of time, John Milton published his 
 Paradise Lost ; and in that Bedford Jail, in those same 
 years, John Bunyan wrote the story I have told you of, 
 called the Pilgrim's Progress. 
 
 He came out of jail afterwards, — a good two hundred 
 years ago to-day, — and took to preaching again. But 
 he preached no sermon that was heard so widely, or 
 ever will be, as his preachments in the Pilgrim's 
 Progress. 
 
 He went on some errand of charity in his sixtieth 
 year, and took a fever, and died in 1688. It was the 
 very year in which the orthodox people of England had 
 set on foot the revolution which turned out the Popish 
 King James the Second, and brought in the Protestant 
 William and Mary. Poor John Bunyan would have 
 seen better times if he had lived in their day, and better 
 yet if he had lived in ours, and written in the magazines 
 as well as he wrote about Great-Heart. 
 
236 ABOUT OLD STORY-TELLERS. 
 
 Live as long as you may, you can never outlive the 
 people that he set up in his story. 
 
 Messrs. Legality, and Cheat, and Love-lust, and 
 Carnal-mind, we meet every day in society. Every boy 
 and girl of you all will go by and by — slump — into 
 some Slough of Despond ; and God help you, if the pack 
 you carry into it is big ! Always, and at all times, there 
 must be thwacking at dragons in our own valleys of 
 humiliation ; and if the teeth of giant Pope are pulled, 
 giant Despair — whatever Great-Heart may have done 
 — will be sure to catch us some day in Doubting Castle, 
 or somewhere else. 
 
 In fact, I don't much believe that Great-Heart did 
 kill him ; and think — to that extent — the work is 
 fictitious. 
 
 Giant Despair lives, you may be sure of it, — perhaps 
 not in that same old Doubting Castle, which was prob- 
 ably pulled down. But he has a great many fine resi- 
 dences — in the city, and in the country too. 
 
 And he has a new wife ; and her name is not Diffi- 
 dence now — oh, no ! but it is sometimes Dame Swag- 
 ger, and sometimes Miss Spending, and sometimes 
 Mrs. Dividends, and sometimes Lady Heartless. 
 
 As for that Valley of the Shadow of Death, — who 
 that has lived since Bunyan died, or who that shall live 
 henceforth, may escape its bewilderments and its ter- 
 rors .'' The poor tinker and preacher, — the zealous 
 writer who made his words cleave like sharp knives, 
 sleeps now quietly (to all seeming) in a grave on Bun- 
 hill Fields. And we shall have our resting-places 
 marked out too, before many more crops of autumn 
 leaves shall fall to the ground ; but evermore, the path 
 
HOW A TINKER WROTE A NOVEL. 237 
 
 to such resting-place, for such as he, and for such as 
 we, must lie straight through the awful Valley of the 
 Shadow of Death. 
 
 It would be a sad story if there were no Celestial 
 City. 
 
 Bunyan's Tomb. 
 
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