At this point, the fairy story-teller stopped and made apology for being so long. She hoped she had not been tedious. She then gave her final word:

“Good men and women, Belgians all, would [[70]]you make your country one of the best, to be always loved and honored of your children’s children, while ever attracting admiring and delighted visitors, to come to see the wonders of Belgic land? Would you?

“Then, please remember that the universe is full of fairies, though men nowadays call them ‘forces,’ and they are ever ready to help you. Do your best to allure, coax, win, tame and harness them, for your use and benefit.

“Do not count any flower too lowly, or soil too poor; for in each is a secret worth learning and, even more, worth possessing. Believe what a wise man has said, concerning even the plants that you call ‘weeds’—these which you uproot, plow under, throw out and burn. Yet each one may possess some secret charm, some virtue, or a message or science to you. For what says the seer?

“He defines a weed as a ‘plant, the virtues of which have not yet been discovered.’ ”

Now the story-teller, stepping out of fairy regions into Yankee land, would remind all who read the fairy’s message, and especially his American young friends, that the wise man, whom the fairy quoted, was our own Emerson. We forget not, either, that the white silken flags, under which Lafayette and the “sparkling Bourbonnaires” marched, were embroidered with the [[71]]fleur-de-lys. These French soldiers of 1780, who kept step with the Continentals, on the way to Yorktown, were under the Bourbon lilies. Let us remember also, that the old moot-place of the Salic Franks is still to be seen near Nijkerk, in Gelderland, the pretty town, whence came “Corlaer,” and Van Rensselaer, and the settlers of New Netherland, out of which grew the four noble states of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. [[72]]

[[Contents]]

VIII

THE IRISH PRINCESS AND HER SHIP OF SOD

The story-teller has travelled many times in the land of the Belgians. There he saw hotels named “The Seven Churches,” in one of which he slept. He asked how it was, that a hotel should be named after churches, and why there should be seven of them?