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Page 9
This theory is not an unpleasant one; I regard it as much more
acceptable than those so-called scientific demonstrations which
would make us suppose that we are descended from tree-climbing
and bug-eating simians. However, it is far from my purpose to
enter upon any argument of these questions at this time, for
Judge Methuen himself is going to write a book upon the subject,
and the edition is to be limited to two numbered and signed
copies upon Japanese vellum, of which I am to have one and the
Judge the other.
The impression I made upon Uncle Cephas must have been favorable,
for when my next birthday rolled around there came with it a book
from Uncle Cephas--my third love, Grimm's ``Household Stories.''
With the perusal of this monumental work was born that passion
for fairy tales and folklore which increased rather than
diminished with my maturer years. Even at the present time I
delight in a good fairy story, and I am grateful to Lang and to
Jacobs for the benefit they have conferred upon me and the rest
of English-reading humanity through the medium of the fairy books
and the folk tales they have translated and compiled.
Baring-Gould and Lady Wilde have done noble work in the same
realm; the writings of the former have interested me
particularly, for together with profound learning in directions
which are specially pleasing to me, Baring-Gould has a distinct
literary touch which invests his work with a grace indefinable
but delicious and persuasive.
I am so great a lover of and believer in fairy tales that I once
organized a society for the dissemination of fairy literature,
and at the first meeting of this society we resolved to demand of
the board of education to drop mathematics from the curriculum in
the public schools and to substitute therefor a four years'
course in fairy literature, to be followed, if the pupil desired,
by a post-graduate course in demonology and folk-lore. We hired
and fitted up large rooms, and the cause seemed to be flourishing
until the second month's rent fell due. It was then discovered
that the treasury was empty; and with this discovery the society
ended its existence, without having accomplished any tangible
result other than the purchase of a number of sofas and chairs,
for which Judge Methuen and I had to pay.
Still, I am of the opinion (and Judge Methuen indorses it) that
we need in this country of ours just that influence which the
fairy tale exerts. We are becoming too practical; the lust for
material gain is throttling every other consideration. Our babes
and sucklings are no longer regaled with the soothing tales of
giants, ogres, witches, and fairies; their hungry, receptive
minds are filled with stories about the pursuit and slaughter of
unoffending animals, of war and of murder, and of those
questionable practices whereby a hero is enriched and others are
impoverished. Before he is out of his swaddling-cloth the
modern youngster is convinced that the one noble purpose in life
is to get, get, get, and keep on getting of worldly material.
The fairy tale is tabooed because, as the sordid parent alleges,
it makes youth unpractical.
One consequence of this deplorable condition is, as I have
noticed (and as Judge Methuen has, too), that the human eye is
diminishing in size and fulness, and is losing its lustre. By as
much as you take the God-given grace of fancy from man, by so
much do you impoverish his eyes. The eye is so beautiful and
serves so very many noble purposes, and is, too, so ready in the
expression of tenderness, of pity, of love, of solicitude, of
compassion, of dignity, of every gentle mood and noble
inspiration, that in that metaphor which contemplates the eternal
vigilance of the Almighty we recognize the best poetic expression
of the highest human wisdom.
My nephew Timothy has three children, two boys and a girl. The
elder boy and the girl have small black eyes; they are as devoid
of fancy as a napkin is of red corpuscles; they put their pennies
into a tin bank, and they have won all the marbles and jack-
stones in the neighborhood. They do not believe in Santa Claus
or in fairies or in witches; they know that two nickels make a
dime, and their golden rule is to do others as others would do
them. The other boy (he has been christened Matthew, after me)
has a pair of large, round, deep-blue eyes, expressive of all
those emotions which a keen, active fancy begets.
Matthew can never get his fill of fairy tales, and how the dear
little fellow loves Santa Claus! He sees things at night; he
will not go to bed in the dark; he hears and understands what the
birds and crickets say, and what the night wind sings, and what
the rustling leaves tell. Wherever Matthew goes he sees
beautiful pictures and hears sweet music; to his impressionable
soul all nature speaks its wisdom and its poetry. God! how I
love that boy! And he shall never starve! A goodly share of
what I have shall go to him! But this clause in my will, which
the Judge recently drew for me, will, I warrant me, give the dear
child the greatest happiness:
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