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There is much truth in the saying that "old
things are best, old books are best, old friends are best." We
like to connect in thought our best-loved books and our
best-loved friends. A good friend must have some of the wisdom of a
good book, though good books often talk to us with wisdom and also
with humour and courtesy greater than any living friend may show. "Sometimes
we think books are the best friends; they never interrupt or
contradict or criticise us."
Every year in our own country about ten thousand books are
published. Most of them die in early life. Three hundred years from
now every one of this year's ten thousand books will be dead and
forgotten, except possibly thirty or forty. The very best books do
not die young. The books written about three hundred years ago that
are read to-day like Shakespeare's plays are as a rule the
books that deserve to live forever. And, "Gentle Reader," if
you are wise you will see why the old books are best: they are the
wheat, and the winds of time have blown only the chaff away.
Is it not strange that in the olden times so few poems or books
or stories were written for children? The "Iliad,"
the stories of King Arthur, the "Canterbury Tales,"
and "Gulliver's Travels" and "Robinson Crusoe," were
written for men and women.
But happily this is the children's age, and now nearly half
of all the books written are written for children. You must
remember, however, that all boys and girls are children
in the eyes of the law till they are twenty-one years old.
We know a little boy who read last week a very modern story.
The book was bound in red cloth. It had a gilt top and very modern
pictures drawn by a great artist and printed in three or four colors.
How different from the books of one hundred years ago, with
their black covers and queer pictures!
This story read by the little New York boy last week
has been read by many little boys in Iowa, and by many
little girls in Georgia. It tells about an orphan boy who
was "bound out" to a farmer who treated him cruelly. He ran
away to the Rocky Mountain region, where he had many
adventures with robbers and Indians and blizzards. He was
strong and heroic; he could shoot straight and ride the
swiftest horses, and nothing ever hurt him very much.
This, as I have said, is a modern story. It does not tell the
reader to be truthful and good. It just tells him a story of
thrilling adventures and daring escapes from danger. But the
old-fashioned story is different; and now we are getting close
to our subject.
I will tell you all about the old-fashioned stories in a
moment; but I must remind you that these old stories were written
about a hundred years ago. They were usually written to teach a
moral lesson. Dear old John Aikin, or his sister Anna
Letitia Barbauld, or Maria Edgeworth, or Jane Taylor
would say some morning at any rate, so it seems to me "I will
write a story to-day to teach boys and girls to be industrious."
And so "Busy Idleness" was written. Or one of these old
authors would decide to write a story the main object of which was
to teach little girls not to be too curious, and so "The
Inquisitive Girl" was written. Both of these stories, and many
others equally good, are found in this volume.
I could really tell you many interesting things about these
old-fashioned stories but I will do something better urge you to
read them yourself. They are quaint, delightful, and entertaining
stories, besides teaching a moral. You boys and girls should read
every one of them, and then read them again, out loud, to your
mothers or to anybody else who will listen.
Among all the old-fashioned stories in this volume I find
only one that seems to me "really funny," and that is "Uncle
David's Nonsensical Story about the Giants and Fairies." Think
of a giant so tall that "he was obliged to climb up a ladder to
comb his own hair."
But this bit of humor is not so good as a
very modern nonsense-story entitled "The Giant's Shoes,"
which I read the other day, and from which the Managing Editor
permits me to quote this little passage:
"The Giant slept for three weeks at a time, and two days after he
woke his breakfast was brought to him, consisting of bright brown
horses sprinkled on his bread and butter. Besides his boots, the
Giant had a pair of shoes, and in one of them his wife lived when
she was at home; on other occasions she lived in the other shoe. She
was a sensible, practical kind of woman, with two wooden legs and a
clothes-horse, but in other respects not rich. The wooden legs were
kept pointed at both ends, in order that if the Giant were
dissatisfied with his breakfast, he might pick up any stray people
that were within reach, using his wife as a fork; this annoyed the
inhabitants of the district, so that they built their church in a
southwesterly direction from the castle, behind the Giant's back,
that he might not be able to pick them up as they went in. But those
who stayed outside to play pitch-and-toss were exposed to great
danger and sufferings."
from Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12)
Arabian Nights |
