THE NIGHTINGALE
IN China, you know, the emperor is a Chinaman, and all the people around him are Chinamen, too. The emperor’s palace, at the time of this story, was more magnificent than any other in the world, for it was made entirely of the finest porcelain. In the garden bloomed the rarest flowers, and to the most beautiful ones were tied little silver bells which tinkled perpetually, so that no one could pass the flowers without looking at and admiring them. Every feature of the garden had been carefully planned, and it was so large that the gardener himself did not know where it ended. If, however, one walked straight on, one came at last to a forest of lofty trees, and beyond the forest was the sea, deep and blue. Close to the shore, amid the foliage of the trees, lived a nightingale, and it sang so sweetly that even the poor fishermen would stop and listen, when they were out at night drawing in their nets. “Heavens! how beautiful that is!” they would say.
But they could not listen long, for they had to attend to their work; yet if they came that way the next night they would again exclaim, “How beautifully that bird sings!”
Travelers came from all the countries in the world to the city of the emperor; and they admired everything very much, especially the palace and the garden. But when they heard the nightingale they would say, “That is best of all!”
After they got home they told of their experiences, and the learned ones wrote books about the things they had seen and heard in the domains of the Chinese emperor, and they never failed to praise the nightingale. Those who were poets wrote very beautiful verses about the nightingale in the wood by the deep, blue sea.
At length some of the books came into the hands of the emperor. He sat in his golden chair and read them, and he nodded his head, well pleased by the appreciative descriptions of his city and palace and garden. Then he came to the words, “But the nightingale is best of all.”
“What is this?” said he. “The nightingale—why, I know nothing about it. Can there be such a bird in my realm, yes, and in my own garden, which I have never seen or heard? Fancy my having to discover this from a book!”
He called his chamberlain, who was so grand that when any one of lower rank dared to speak to him or ask him a question, he would only answer, “Pooh!” which means nothing at all.
“Chamberlain,” said the emperor, “these books tell of a very wonderful bird called a nightingale in the palace garden. They declare it is the finest thing in my great empire. Why have I never been informed about it?”
“This is the first time I have heard it mentioned,” said the chamberlain. “It has never been presented at court.”