“There, I have caught you!” cried Thud triumphantly. “Theories are thoughts, and acts are facts; so facts must be founded on theories, not theories on facts;” and confident that he had gained a victory, and said something very logical and clever, Thucydides quitted the room, carrying his heavy head as high as his very short neck would allow.
After attending to household arrangements, Io called her dear little Karen to take her first Scripture lesson. “I had better commence from the beginning,” thought the lady, as she placed her large picture book on the sofa open at the representation of the serpent tempting Eve. Maha took her seat on the ground at her lady’s feet, and surveyed the picture—the first which she ever had seen—with grave and thoughtful eyes.
“I am going to tell you a little of what is written inGod’s great book, the Bible,” began Io in broken Karen, which was, however, almost always intelligible to the young girl. “I am going to tell you how sin and sorrow came into the world. You see the woman in the picture: she was the first who ever lived on earth, and she is our mother—yours and mine. She lived with her husband in a beautiful garden. God placed them there—the great God who made and who loves us all.”
“I know that story,” said Maha quietly. “All we Karens who come from Bassein know it; our fathers told it to us, as their fathers told it to them.”
“What did they tell?” asked Io with interest, wondering whether it were possible that any legend of the Fall could exist amongst a race who, but a short time before, had not even a written language.
“Does the sahiba wish to hear the whole story of the first man and woman who lived in the garden?” asked Maha.
“Tell me everything that you know,” said Mrs. Coldstream.
Maha began in a half-chanting tone the following legend,[1] to which, as she went on, her lady listened not only with curiosity, but with great pleasure and surprise:
“God created man. And of what did He create man? He created man at first from earth. The creation of man was finished. He created a woman. How did He create a woman? He took a rib out of the man and created again a woman. The creation of woman was finished.”
“Why, this is just what is written in the Bible!” cried Io. “Who taught you to read the holy Book?”