A STORY FOR CHILDREN.
The Introduction.
Dear Old Friend:—We were all sitting round the fire the other evening after dinner. The evening paper had been read and explained, and the Colonel was now nursing his wounded arm, and musingly smoking his old camp-pipe, browned to a rich mahogany in many marches among the sands of Folly Island, through the rose-gardens of Florida, and over the hills and valleys of battle-worn old Virginia; I myself, who have never yet taken kindly to pipes,—though I suppose I shall have to ere many days,—was dreaming over a fragrant Cabañas; Madame was hard at work over a pile of the week's stockings; and the children taking their last frolic about the parlor, preparatory to their unwilling Good-night and fearful departure to the hated regions above stairs;—when our neat-handed Bridget entered the room, staggering under the weight of the monthly parcel of French books, just arrived by express.
You, who live where you can see all the new books as soon as they appear, can hardly imagine the eagerness with which we poor country people, far away from publishing-houses and foreign bookstores, welcome the sight of this monthly parcel. We passed over the green and yellow duodecimos, glancing at Féval, About, Berthel, Sand, and the rest, each looking for his particular favorite among the authors, when the children, whose busy fingers had helped to untie the knots and unwrap the packages, and who were rummaging with as much eagerness as we, suddenly discovered a sober octavo, that seemed to promise well; for, after a hasty look at it, they carried it away to the library-table, and examined it, for a time, in profound silence. After a while, one little boy spoke out:—
“O, papa! this must be a real old-fashioned fairy-book, for it is full of pictures of fairies, and knights, and giants, and dwarfs, and dragons! Do read it to us, please!”
Now, my dear friend, you know that my youngsters have a most insatiate appetite for, and a most thorough appreciation of, real fairy stories, as they call them. But they are pitiless judges; they can hardly tire of Blue Beard, and Beauty and the Beast, and the Arabian Nights; but they turn up their little noses in contempt at the moral fairy stories, which some of their kind aunts have attempted to impose upon them. I myself have a secret dislike for those sham stories which deceive you into believing you are hearing about real fairies and giants, only to tell you, at the end, that the good fairy is no other than Cheerfulness, Industry, or some sister virtue, and that the giant is Luxury, Ill-Temper, or some kindred vice. Yet the children are severer critics than I. They will have nothing whatever to do with the good fairies who have no magical power, and who live in their own little bodies; nor with the wicked giants who, they can see at once, have none of the attributes of the giants of old. They swallow the pill once, thinking it a sugar-plum; but after finding it to be a pill, no amount of sugar coating will make it anything but medicine. And all boys and girls are alike in this, and will be so, let us hope, to the end of time. Even we old fellows recall those old-time stories with something of the same awe-struck admiration, and something of the same unquestioning belief, with which we listened to them, I don't know how many years ago. We sneer at the improbabilities and inconsistencies of modern fiction; but who thinks of being startled at the charming incongruities, the bold but fascinating impossibilities, of Cinderella, and Aladdin, and Puss in Boots? Don't we in our heart of hearts still believe that, a long time ago, before men grew too wicked for them, the gentle fairies really lived in their jewelled palaces under ground, and came out, now and then, to protect the youth and beauty they loved from giants, and dragons, and malicious genii, and all manner of evil things? I declare I should be ashamed of myself if I did not; and I am sure that none of us, who are good for anything, have altogether lost that old belief; and when we look back at those days of young romance, and remember the thrill with which we read of Bluebeard's punishment, and Beauty's reward, we feel that it would be better for us if they had more of that old childlike faith. And so I encourage my youngsters to read and listen to, over and over again, the same old stories that, when I was a boy, warmed my young imagination, and to eschew the dismal allegories with which well-meaning but short-sighted writers try to supply the places of Jack the Giant-killer and all his marvellous family. And so I was almost as pleased as the children, when I saw, from its quaint and grotesque pictures, that their treasure-trove was really a book of real old-fashioned fairy stories.
Of course, nothing would do but that the bedtime should be put off, and that I should read one, at least, of the stories to the young folks. As my selection won their unqualified admiration, and they are, as I have said, good critics, I send it to you for the benefit of your little people. Your studies in the Norse languages have perhaps made you familiar with the original of it; but I think it will be new to most boys and girls.
Your old chum,
Philip.