"Cousin Eustace," demanded Sweet Fern, who had been sitting at the
story-teller's feet, with his mouth wide open, "exactly how tall was
this giant?"
"O Sweet Fern, Sweet Fern!" cried the student. "Do you think that I
was there, to measure him with a yard-stick? Well, if you must know to
a hair's-breadth, I suppose he might be from three to fifteen miles
straight upward, and that he might have seated himself on Taconic, and
had Monument Mountain for a footstool."
"Dear me!" ejaculated the good little boy, with a contented sort of a
grunt, "that was a giant, sure enough! And how long was his little
finger?"
"As long as from Tanglewood to the lake," said Eustace.
"Sure enough, that was a giant!" repeated Sweet Fern, in an ecstasy at
the precision of these measurements. "And how broad, I wonder, were
the shoulders of Hercules?"
"That is what I have never been able to find out," answered the
student. "But I think they must have been a great deal broader than
mine, or than your father's, or than almost any shoulders which one
sees nowadays."
"I wish," whispered Sweet Fern, with his mouth close to the student's
ear, "that you would tell me how big were some of the oak-trees that
grew between the giant's toes."
"They were bigger," said Eustace, "than the great chestnut-tree which
stands beyond Captain Smith's house."
"Eustace," remarked Mr. Pringle, after some deliberation, "I find it
impossible to express such an opinion of this story as will be likely
to gratify, in the smallest degree, your pride of authorship. Pray let
me advise you never more to meddle with a classical myth. Your
imagination is altogether Gothic, and will inevitably Gothicize
everything that you touch. The effect is like bedaubing a marble
statue with paint. This giant, now! How can you have ventured to
thrust his huge, disproportioned mass among the seemly outlines of
Grecian fable, the tendency of which is to reduce even the extravagant
within limits, by its pervading elegance?"
"I described the giant as he appeared to me," replied the student,
rather piqued. "And, sir, if you would only bring your mind into such
a relation with these fables as is necessary in order to remodel them,
you would see at once that an old Greek had no more exclusive right
to them than a modern Yankee has. They are the common property of the
world, and of all time. The ancient poets remodeled them at pleasure,
and held them plastic in their hands; and why should they not be
plastic in my hands as well?"
Mr. Pringle could not forbear a smile.
"And besides," continued Eustace, "the moment you put any warmth of
heart, any passion or affection, any human or divine morality, into a
classic mould, you make it quite another thing from what it was
before. My own opinion is, that the Greeks, by taking possession of
these legends (which were the immemorial birthright of mankind), and
putting them into shapes of indestructible beauty, indeed, but cold
and heartless, have done all subsequent ages an incalculable injury."
"Which you, doubtless, were born to remedy," said Mr. Pringle,
laughing outright. "Well, well, go on; but take my advice, and never
put any of your travesties on paper. And, as your next effort, what if
you should try your hand on some one of the legends of Apollo?"
"Ah, sir, you propose it as an impossibility," observed the student,
after a moment's meditation; "and, to be sure, at first thought, the
idea of a Gothic Apollo strikes one rather ludicrously. But I will
turn over your suggestion in my mind, and do not quite despair of
success."
During the above discussion, the children (who understood not a word
of it) had grown very sleepy, and were now sent off to bed. Their
drowsy babble was heard, ascending the staircase, while a northwest
wind roared loudly among the tree-tops of Tanglewood, and played an
anthem around the house. Eustace Bright went back to the study, and
again endeavored to hammer out some verses, but fell asleep between
two of the rhymes.
[Illustration]