Published by S. L. Blake & Co.
Hastings 1848
Jan. 1850
The two dates seem to indicate that Sackermena flourished for perhaps two years; but the Pocket Book itself was not a hardy plant. The big foolscap sheets were clearly more stimulating to the imagination.
The thing is child’s work throughout. From first to last it bears no trace of grown-up criticism; nor is there then or afterwards any note by her parents, teachers or friends, referring in even the most distant way to the faerie region in which the little girl must have spent so much of her time.
Another thing strikes one incidentally—considering the atmosphere in which the child was brought up—as rather curious. There is no mention of clergy at Sackermena, nor of any form of church. We are not even told that nothing of the kind existed.
Note again that the Despotic Emperor was the grand Lawgiver, General, Judge, Sage, Physician, and, in short, the Father, of his vast dominions.
CHAPTER II
SCHOOL LIFE
“You often say how happy you were as a child,” an intimate friend remarked once to Dr. Jex-Blake, “but you never talk of your school life. I expect you were a terrible pickle?”