Part 24
Late in the evening the Poet returned home. He had been at a concert, had heard a celebrated violin player, and was quite enchanted with his wonderful performance. It had been a complete gush of melody that he had drawn from the instrument. Sometimes it seemed like the gentle murmur of a rippling stream, sometimes like the singing of birds, sometimes like the tempest sweeping through the mighty pine forests, he fancied he heard his own heart weep, but in the sweet tones that can be heard in a woman’s charming voice. It seemed as if not only the strings of the violin made music, but its bridge, its pegs, and its sounding board. It was astonishing! The piece had been a most difficult one; but it seemed like play—as if the bow were but wandering capriciously over the strings. Such was the appearance of facility, that everyone might have supposed he could do it. The violin seemed to sound of itself, the bow to play of itself. These two seemed to do it all. One forgot the master who guided them, who gave them life and soul. Yes, they forgot the master; but the Poet thought of him. He named him, and wrote down his thoughts as follows:
“How foolish it would be of the violin and the bow, were they to be vain in their performance! And yet this is what so often we of the human species are. Poets, artists, those who make discoveries in science, military and naval commanders—we are all proud of ourselves; and yet we are all only the instruments in our Lord’s hands. To Him alone be the glory! We have nothing to arrogate to ourselves.”
This was what the Poet wrote; and he headed it with: “The Master and the Instruments.”
“Well, madam,” said the Pen to the Inkstand when they were again alone, “you heard him read aloud what I had written.”
“Yes, what I gave you to write,” said the Ink-stand. “It was a hit at you for your conceit. Strange that you cannot see that people make a fool of you! I gave you that hit pretty cleverly. I confess, though, it was rather malicious.”
“Inkholder!” cried the Pen.
“Writing stick!” cried the Inkstand.
They both felt assured that they had answered well; and it is a pleasant reflection that one has made a smart reply—one sleeps comfortably after it. And they both went to sleep; but the Poet could not sleep. His thoughts welded forth like the tones from the violin, trilling like pearls, rushing like a storm through the forest. He recognized the feeling of his own heart—he perceived the gleam from the everlasting Master.
To Him alone be the glory!
CINDERELLA
Retold by Miss Mulock
There was once an honest gentleman who took for his second wife a lady, the proudest and most disagreeable in the whole country. She had two daughters exactly like herself in all things. He also had one little girl, who resembled her dead mother, the best woman in all the world. Scarcely had the second marriage taken place, than the stepmother became jealous of the good qualities of the little girl who was so great a contrast to her own two daughters. She gave her all the menial occupations of the house; compelled her to wash the floors and staircases; to dust the bedrooms, and clean the grates; and while her sisters occupied carpeted chambers hung with mirrors, where they could see themselves from head to foot, this poor little damsel was sent to sleep in an attic, on an old straw mattress, with only one chair and not a looking-glass in the room.
She suffered all in silence, not daring to complain to her father, who was entirely ruled by his new wife. When her daily work was done, she used to sit down in the chimney corner among the ashes; from which the two sisters gave her the nickname of Cinderella. But Cinderella, however, shabbily clad, was handsomer than they were with all their fine clothes.
It happened that the king’s son gave a series of balls, to which were invited all the rank and fashion of the city, and among the rest the two elder sisters. They were very proud and happy, and occupied their whole time in deciding what they should wear; a source of new trouble to Cinderella, whose duty it was to get up their fine linen and laces, and who never could please them however much she tried. They talked of nothing but their clothes.
“I,” said the elder, “shall wear my velvet gown and my trimmings of English lace.”
“And I,” added the younger, “will have but my ordinary silk petticoat, but I shall adorn it with an upper skirt of flowered brocade, and shall put on my diamond tiara, which is a great deal finer than anything of yours.”
Here the elder sister grew angry, and the dispute began to run so high that Cinderella, who was known to have excellent taste, was called upon to decide between them. She gave them the best advice she could, and gently and submissively offered to dress them herself, and especially to arrange their hair, an accomplishment in which she excelled many a noted coiffeur. The important evening came, and she exercised all her skill to adorn the two young ladies. While she was combing out the elder’s hair, this ill-natured girl said sharply, “Cinderella, do you not wish you were going to the ball?”
“Ah, madam” (they obliged her always to say madam), “you are only mocking me; it is not my fortune to have any such pleasure.”
“You are right; people would only laugh to see a little cinder wench at a ball.”
Any other than Cinderella would have dressed the hair all awry, but she was good, and dressed it perfectly even and smooth, and as prettily as she could.
The sisters had scarcely eaten for two days, and had broken a dozen staylaces a day, in trying to make themselves slender; but to-night they broke a dozen more, and lost their tempers over and over again before they had completed their toilet. When at last the happy moment arrived, Cinderella followed them to the coach; after it had whirled them away, she sat down by the kitchen fire and cried.
Immediately her godmother, who was a fairy, appeared beside her. “What are you crying for, my little maid?”
“Oh, I wish—I wish—” Her sobs stopped her.
“You wish to go to the ball; isn’t it so?”
Cinderella nodded.
“Well then, be a good girl, and you shall go. First run into the garden and fetch me the largest pumpkin you can find.”
Cinderella did not comprehend what this had to do with her going to the ball, but being obedient and obliging, she went. Her godmother took the pumpkin, and having scooped out all its inside, struck it with her wand; it became a splendid gilt coach, lined with rose-colored satin.
“Now fetch me the mousetrap out of the pantry, my dear.”
Cinderella brought it; it contained six of the fattest, sleekest mice. The fairy lifted up the wire door, and as each mouse ran out she struck it and changed it into a beautiful black horse.
“But what shall I do for your coachman, Cinderella?”
Cinderella suggested that she had seen a large black rat in the rat trap, and he might do for want of better.
“You are right; go and look again for him.”
He was found; and the fairy made him into a most respectable coachman, with the finest whiskers imaginable. She afterward took six lizards from behind the pumpkin frame, and changed them into six footmen, all in splendid livery, who immediately jumped up behind the carriage, as if they had been footmen all their days. “Well, Cinderella, now you can go to the ball.”
“What, in these clothes?” said Cinderella piteously, looking down on her ragged frock.
Her godmother laughed, and touched her also with the wand; at which her wretched threadbare jacket became stiff with gold, and sparkling with jewels; her woolen petticoat lengthened into a gown of sweeping satin, from underneath which peeped out her little feet, no longer bare, but covered with silk stockings, and the prettiest glass slippers in the world. “Now, Cinderella, depart; but remember, if you stay one instant after midnight, your carriage will become a pumpkin, your coachman a rat, your horses mice, and your footmen lizards; while you, yourself, will be the little cinder wench you were an hour ago.”
Cinderella promised without fear, her heart was so full of joy.
Arrived at the palace, the king’s son, whom some one, probably the fairy, had told to await the coming of an uninvited princess, whom nobody knew, was standing at the entrance, ready to receive her. He offered her his hand, and led her with the utmost courtesy through the assembled guests, who stood aside to let her pass, whispering to one another, “Oh, how beautiful she is!” It might have turned the head of anyone but poor Cinderella, who was so used to be despised, that she took it all as if it were something happening in a dream.
Her triumph was complete; even the old king said to the queen, that never since her majesty’s young days had he seen so charming and elegant a person. All the court ladies scanned her eagerly, clothes and all, determining to have theirs made next day of exactly the same pattern. The king’s son himself led her out to dance, and she danced so gracefully that he admired her more and more. Indeed, at supper, which was fortunately early, his admiration quite took away his appetite. For Cinderella, herself, with an involuntary shyness, sought out her sisters; placed herself beside them and offered them all sorts of civil attentions, which coming as they supposed from a stranger, and so magnificent a lady, almost overwhelmed them with delight.
While she was talking with them, she heard the clock strike a quarter to twelve, and making a courteous adieu to the royal family, she reentered her carriage, escorted tenderly by the king’s son, and arrived in safety at her own door. There she found her godmother, who smiled approval; and of whom she begged permission to go to a second ball, the following night, to which the queen had earnestly invited her.
While she was talking, the two sisters were heard knocking at the gate, and the fairy godmother vanished, leaving Cinderella sitting in the chimney corner, rubbing her eves and pretending to be very sleepy.
“Ah,” cried the eldest sister maliciously, “it has been the most delightful ball, and there was present the most beautiful princess I ever saw, who was so exceedingly polite to us both.”
“Was she?” said Cinderella indifferently; “and who might she be?”
“Nobody knows, though everybody would give their eyes to know, especially the king’s Son.”
“Indeed!” replied Cinderella, a little more interested; “I should like to see her. Miss Javotte”—that was the elder sister’s name—“will you not let me go to-morrow, and lend me your yellow gown that you wear on Sundays?”
“What, lend my yellow gown to a cinder wench! I am not so mad as that;” at which refusal Cinderella did not complain, for if her sister really had lent her the gown, she would have been considerably embarrassed.
The next night came, and the two young ladies, richly dressed in different toilets, went to the ball.
Cinderella, more splendidly attired and beautiful than ever, followed them shortly after. “Now remember twelve o’clock,” was her godmother’s
## parting speech; and she thought she certainly should. But the prince’s
attentions to her were greater even than the first evening, and in the delight of listening to his pleasant conversation, time slipped by unperceived. While she was sitting beside him in a lovely alcove, and looking at the moon from under a bower of orange blossoms, she heard a clock strike the first stroke of twelve. She started up, and fled away as lightly as a deer.
Amazed, the prince followed, but could not catch her. Indeed he missed his lovely princess altogether, and only saw running out of the palace doors, a little dirty lass whom he had never beheld before, and of whom he certainly would never have taken the least notice. Cinderella arrived at home breathless and weary, ragged and cold, without carriage, or footman or coachman; the only remnant of her past magnificence being one of her little glass slippers—the other she had dropped in the ballroom as she ran away.
When the two sisters returned, they were full of this strange adventure, how the beautiful lady had appeared at the ball more beautiful than ever, and enchanted everyone who looked at her; and how as the clock was striking twelve she had suddenly risen up and fled through the ballroom, disappearing no one knew how or where, and dropping one of her glass slippers behind her in her flight. How the king’s son had remained inconsolable, until he chanced to pick up the little glass slipper, which he carried away in his pocket, and was seen to take it out continually, and look at it affectionately, with the air of a man very much in love; in fact, from his behavior during the remainder of the evening, all the court and royal family were convinced that he had become desperately enamored of the wearer of the little glass slipper.
Cinderella listened in silence, turning her face to the kitchen fire, and perhaps it was that which made her look so rosy, but nobody ever noticed or admired her at home, so it did not signify, and next morning she went to her weary work again just as before.
A few days after, the whole city was attracted by the sight of a herald going round with a little glass slipper in his hand, publishing with a flourish of trumpets, that the king’s son ordered this to be fitted on the foot of every lady in the kingdom, and that he wished to marry the lady whom it fitted best, or to whom it and the fellow slipper belonged. Princesses, duchesses, countesses, and simple gentlewomen all tried it on, but being a fairy slipper, it fitted nobody; and besides, nobody could produce its fellow slipper, which lay all the time safely in the pocket of Cinderella’s old linsey gown.
At last the herald came to the house of the two sisters, and though they well knew neither of themselves was the beautiful lady, they made every attempt to get their clumsy feet into the glass slipper, but in vain.
“Let me try it on,” said Cinderella from the chimney corner.
“What, you?” cried the others, bursting into shouts of laughter; but Cinderella only smiled, and held out her hand.
Her sisters cou1d not prevent her, since the command was that every young maiden in the city should try on the slipper, in order that no chance might be left untried, for the prince was nearly breaking his heart; and his father and mother were afraid that though a prince, he would actually die for love of the beautiful unknown lady.
So the herald bade Cinderella sit down on a three-legged stool in the kitchen, and himself put the slipper on her pretty little foot, which it fitted exactly; she then drew from her pocket the fellow slipper, which she also put on, and stood up—for with the touch of the magic shoes all her dress was changed likewise—no longer the poor despised cinder wench, but the beautiful lady whom the king’s son loved.
Her sisters recognized her at once. Filled with astonishment, mingled with no little alarm, they threw themselves at her feet, begging her pardon for all their former unkindness. She raised and embraced them; told them she forgave them with all her heart, and only hoped they would love her always. Then she departed with the herald to the king’s palace, and told her whole story to his majesty and the royal family, who were not in the least surprised, for everybody believed in fairies, and everybody longed to have a fairy godmother.
For the young prince, he found her more lovely and lovable than ever, and insisted upon marrying her immediately. Cinderella never went home again, but she sent for her two sisters to the palace, and with the consent of all parties married them shortly after to two rich gentlemen of the court.
LITTLE RED RIDING-HOOD
By Charles Perrault
Once upon a time there lived in a certain village a little country girl, the prettiest creature ever seen. Her mother was very fond of her, and her grandmother doted on her still more. This good woman had made for her a little red riding-hood, which became the girl so well that everybody called her Little Red Riding-Hood.
One day her mother, having made some custards, said to her:
“Go, my dear, and see how thy grandmamma does, for I hear she has been very ill; carry her a custard and this little pot of butter.”
Little Red Riding-Hood set out immediately to go to her grandmother, who lived in another village.
As she was going through the wood she met with Gaffer Wolf, who had a very great mind to eat her up, but he durst not, because of some fagot makers hard by in the forest. He asked her whither she was going. The poor child, who did not know that it was dangerous to stop and listen to a wolf, said to him:
“I am going to see my grandmamma and carry her a custard and a little pot of butter from my mamma.”
“Does she live far off?” said the Wolf.
“Oh! yes,” answered Little Red Riding-Hood; “it is beyond that mill you see there, at the first house in the village.”
“Well,” said the Wolf, “I’ll go and see her, too. I’ll go this way and you go that, and we shall see who will be there soonest.”
The Wolf began to run as fast as he could, taking the nearest way, and the little girl went by the longest, diverting herself in gathering nuts, running after butterflies, and making nosegays of such little flowers as she met with. The Wolf was not long before he got to the old woman’s house. He knocked at the door—tap, tap.
“Who’s there?”
“Your grandchild, Little Red Riding-Hood,” replied the Wolf, imitating her voice; “who has brought you a custard and a little pot of butter sent you by mamma.”
The good grandmother, who was in bed, because she was ill, cried out:
“Pull the bobbin, and the latch will go up.”
The Wolf pulled the bobbin, and the door opened, and he fell upon the good woman and ate her up in a moment, for it was above three days that he had not touched a bit. He then shut the door and went into the grandmother’s bed, expecting Little Red Riding-Hood, who came some time afterward and knocked at the door—tap, tap.
“Who’s there?”
Little Red Riding-Hood, hearing the big voice of the Wolf, was at first afraid; but believing her grandmother had got a cold and was hoarse, answered:
’Tis your grandchild, Little Red Riding-Hood, who has brought you a custard and a little pot of butter mamma sends you.”
The Wolf cried out to her, softening his voice as much as he could:
“Pull the bobbin and the latch will go up.”
Little Red Riding-Hood pulled the bobbin and the door opened.
The wolf, seeing her come in, said to her, hiding himself under the bedclothes:
“Put the custard and the little pot of butter upon the stool, and come and lie down with me.”
Little Red Riding-Hood undressed herself and went into bed, where, being greatly amazed to see how her grandmother looked in her night clothes, she said to her:
“Grandmamma, what great arms you’ve got!”
“That is the better to hug thee, my dear.”
“Grandmamma, what great legs you’ve got!”
“The better to run, my child.”
“Grandmamma, what great ears you’ve got!”
“The better to hear, my child!”
“Grandmamma, what great eyes you’ve got!”
“The better to see, my child.”
“Grandmamma, what great teeth you’ve got!”
“To eat thee up!”
And saying these words, the wicked Wolf fell upon Little Red Riding-Hood and ate her all up.
THE STORY OF THE THREE BEARS
By Robert Southey
Once upon a time there were three Bears, who lived together in a house of their own in a wood. One of them was a Little, Small, Wee Bear; and one was a Middle-sized Bear, and the other was a Great, Huge Bear. They had each a pot for their porridge, a little pot for the Little, Small, Wee Bear; and a middle-sized pot for the Middle Bear; and a great pot for the Great, Huge Bear. And they had each a chair to sit in: a little chair for the Little, Small, Wee Bear; and a middle-sized chair for the Middle Bear; and a great chair for the Great, Huge Bear. And they had each a bed to sleep in: a little bed for the Little, Small, Wee Bear; and a middle-sized bed for the Middle Bear; and a great bed for the Great, Huge Bear.
One day, after they had made the porridge for their breakfast and poured it into their porridge pots, they walked out into the wood while the porridge was cooling, that they might not burn their mouths by beginning too soon to eat it. And while they were walking a little old woman came to the house. She could not have been a good, honest, old woman; for, first, she looked in at the window, and then she peeped in at the keyhole, and, seeing nobody in the house, she lifted the latch. The door was not fastened, because the bears were good bears, who did nobody any harm, and never suspected that anybody would harm them. So the little old woman opened the door and went in; and well pleased she was when she saw the porridge on the table. If she had been a good little old woman she would have waited till the bears came home, and then, perhaps, they would have asked her to breakfast, for they were good hears—a little rough or so, as the manner of bear’s is, but for all that very good-natured and hospitable. But she was an impudent, bad old woman, and set about helping herself.
So first she tasted the porridge of the Great Huge Bear, and that was too hot for her; and she said a bad word about that. And then she tasted the porridge of the Middle Bear, and that was too cold for her; and she said a bad word about that, too. And then she went to the porridge of the Little, Small, Wee Bear, and tasted that, and that was neither too hot nor too cold, but just right; and she liked it so well that she ate it all up; but the naughty old woman said a bad word about the little porridge pot, because it did not hold enough for her.
Then the little old woman sat down in the chair of the Great, Huge Bear, and that was too hard for her. And then she sat down in the chair of the Middle Bear, and that was too soft for her. And then she sat down in the chair of the Little Small, Wee Bear, and that was neither too hard nor too soft, but just right. So she seated herself in it, and there she sat till the bottom of the chair came out, and down came she, plump upon the ground. And the naughty old woman said wicked words about that, too.