_SECOND READING._
Whether Midas slept as usual that night, the story does not say. But
when the earliest sunbeam shone through the window, and gilded the
ceiling over his head, it seemed to him that this bright yellow sunbeam
was reflected in rather a singular way on the white covering of the
bed. Looking more closely, what was his astonishment and delight, when
he found that this linen fabric had been transmuted to what seemed a
woven texture of the purest and brightest gold! The Golden Touch had
come to him with the first sunbeam!
Midas started up, in a kind of joyful frenzy, and ran about the room,
grasping at every thing that happened to be in his way. He seized one
of the bedposts, and it became immediately a fluted golden pillar.
He pulled aside a window-curtain in order to admit a clear spectacle
of the wonders which he was performing, and the tassel grew heavy in
his hand,--a mass of gold. He took up a book from the table; at his
first touch, it assumed the appearance of such a splendidly bound and
gilt-edged volume as one often meets with now-a-days; but on running
his fingers through the leaves, behold! it was a bundle of thin golden
plates, in which all the wisdom of the book had grown illegible.
He hurriedly put on his clothes, and was enraptured to see himself
in a magnificent suit of gold cloth, which retained its flexibility
and softness, although it burdened him a little with its weight. He
drew out his handkerchief, which little Marygold had hemmed for him;
that was likewise gold, with the dear child’s neat and pretty stitches
running all along the border, in gold thread!
Somehow or other, this last transformation did not quite please King
Midas. He would rather that his little daughter’s handiwork should have
remained just the same as when she climbed his knee and put it into his
hand.
But it was not worth while to vex himself about a trifle. Midas took
his spectacles from his pocket, and put them on his nose, in order
that he might see more distinctly what he was about. In those days,
spectacles for common people had not been invented, but were already
worn by kings; else, how could Midas have had any? To his great
perplexity, however, excellent as the glasses were, he discovered that
he could not possibly see through them. But this was the most natural
thing in the world; for, on taking them off, the transparent crystals
turned out to be plates of yellow metal, and, of course, were worthless
as spectacles, though valuable as gold. It struck Midas as rather
inconvenient, that, with all his wealth, he could never again be rich
enough to own a pair of serviceable spectacles.
“It is no great matter, nevertheless,” said he to himself, Very
philosophically. “We can not expect any great good, without its being
accompanied with some small inconvenience. The Golden Touch is worth
the sacrifice of a pair of spectacles at least, if not of one’s very
eyesight. My own eyes will serve for ordinary purposes, and little
Marygold will soon be old enough to read to me.” Wise King Midas was so
exalted by his good fortune, that the palace seemed not sufficiently
spacious to contain him. He therefore went down stairs, and smiled
on observing that the balustrade of the staircase became a bar of
burnished gold, as his hand passed over it, in his descent. He lifted
the door-latch (it was brass only a moment ago, but golden when his
fingers quitted it), and emerged into the garden. Here, as it happened,
he found a great number of beautiful roses in full bloom, and others
in all the stages of lovely bud and blossom. Very delicious was their
fragrance in the morning breeze. Their delicate blush was one of the
fairest sights in the world; so gentle, so modest, and so full of sweet
soothing, did these roses seem to be.
But Midas knew a way to make them far more precious, according to his
way of thinking, than roses had ever been before. So he took great
pains in going from bush to bush, and exercised his magic touch most
untiringly; until every individual flower and bud, and even the worms
at the heart of some of them, were changed to gold. By the time this
good work was completed, King Midas was summoned to breakfast; and as
the morning air had given him an excellent appetite, he made haste back
to the palace.
What was usually a king’s breakfast in the days of Midas, I really
do not know, and can not stop now to investigate. To the best of my
knowledge, however, on this particular morning, the breakfast consisted
of hot cakes, some nice little brook trout, roasted potatoes, fresh
boiled eggs, and coffee for King Midas himself, and a bowl of bread and
milk for his daughter Marygold.
Little Marygold had not yet made her appearance. Her father ordered her
to be called, and seating himself at table, awaited the child’s coming,
in order to begin his own breakfast. To do Midas justice, he really
loved his daughter, and loved her so much the more this morning, on
account of the good fortune which had befallen him. It was not a great
while before he heard her coming along the passage, crying bitterly.
This circumstance surprised him, because Marygold was one of the most
cheerful little people whom you would see in a summer’s day, and hardly
shed a tear in a twelvemonth.
When Midas heard her sobs, he determined to put little Marygold into
better spirits by an agreeable surprise; so, leaning across the table,
he touched his daughter’s bowl (which was a china one, with pretty
figures all around it), and changed it into gleaming gold.
Meanwhile, Marygold slowly and sadly opened the door, and showed
herself with her apron at her eyes, still sobbing as if her heart would
break.
“How now, my little lady!” cried Midas. “Pray, what is the matter with
you, this bright morning?”
Marygold, without taking the apron from her eyes, held out her hand,
in which was one of the roses which Midas had so recently changed into
gold.
“Beautiful!” exclaimed her father. “And what is there in this
magnificent golden rose to make you cry?”
“Ah, dear father!” answered the child, between her sobs, “it is not
beautiful, but the ugliest flower that ever grew! As soon as I was
dressed, I ran into the garden to gather some roses for you; because
I know you like them, and like them the better when gathered by your
little daughter. But oh, dear, dear me! What do you think has happened?
Such a sad thing! All the beautiful roses, that smelled so sweetly, and
had so many lovely blushes, are blighted and spoilt! They are grown
quite yellowy as you see this one, and have no longer any fragrance!
What can have been the matter with them?”
“Pooh, my dear little girl,--pray don’t cry about it!” said Midas, who
was ashamed to confess that he himself had wrought the change which so
greatly afflicted her. “Sit down, and eat your bread and milk. You will
find it easy enough to exchange a golden rose like that (which will
last hundreds of years), for an ordinary one which would wither in a
day.”
“I don’t care for such roses as this!” cried Marygold, tossing it
contemptuously away. “It has no smell, and the hard petals prick my
nose!”
The child now sat down to table, but was so occupied with her grief for
the blighted roses that she did not even notice the wonderful change
in her china bowl. Perhaps this was all the better; for Marygold was
accustomed to take pleasure in looking at the queer figures and strange
trees and houses that were painted on the outside of the bowl; and
those ornaments were now entirely lost in the yellow hue of the metal.
Midas, meanwhile, had poured out a cup of coffee; and, as a matter of
course, the coffee-pot, whatever metal it may have been when he took
it up, was gold when he set it down. He thought to himself that it
was rather an extravagant style of splendor, in a king of his simple
habits, to breakfast off a service of gold, and began to be puzzled
with the difficulty of keeping his treasures safe. The cupboard and the
kitchen would no longer be a secure place of deposit for articles so
valuable as golden bowls and golden coffee-pots.
Amid these thoughts, he lifted a spoonful of coffee to his lips, and,
sipping it, was astonished to perceive that, the instant his lips
touched the liquid, it became molten gold, and, the next moment,
hardened into a lump!
“Ha!” exclaimed Midas, rather aghast.
“What is the matter, father?” asked little Marygold, gazing at him,
with the tears still standing in her eyes.
“Nothing, child, nothing!” said Midas. “Take your milk before it gets
quite cold.”
He took one of the nice little trouts on his plate, and touched its
tail with his finger. To his horror, it was immediately changed from
a brook-trout into a gold fish, and looked as if it had been very
cunningly made by the nicest goldsmith in the world. Its little bones
were now golden wires; its fins and tail were thin plates of gold; and
there were the marks of the fork in it, and all the delicate, frothy
appearance of a nicely fried fish, exactly imitated in metal.
“I don’t quite see,” thought he to himself, “how I am to get any
breakfast!”
He took one of the smoking-hot cakes, and had scarcely broken it, when,
to his cruel mortification, though a moment before, it had been of the
whitest wheat, it assumed the yellow hue of Indian meal. Its solidity
and increased weight made him too bitterly sensible that it was gold.
Almost in despair, he helped himself to a boiled egg, which immediately
underwent a change similar to that of the trout and the cake.
“Well, this is terrible!” thought he, leaning back in his chair, and
looking quite enviously at little Marygold, who was now eating her
bread and milk with great satisfaction. “Such a costly breakfast before
me, and nothing that can be eaten!”
Hoping that, by dint of great dispatch, he might avoid what he now
felt to be a considerable inconvenience, King Midas next snatched a
hot potato, and attempted to cram it into his mouth, and swallow it
in a hurry. But the Golden Touch was too nimble for him. He found his
mouth full, not of mealy potato, but of solid metal, which so burnt his
tongue that he roared aloud, and, jumping up from the table, began to
dance and stamp about the room, both with pain and affright.
“Father, dear father!” cried little Marygold, who was a very
affectionate child, “pray what is the matter? Have you burnt your
mouth?”
“Ah, dear child,” groaned Midas, dolefully, “I don’t know what is to
become of your poor father!”
* * * * *
_Oh, many a shaft at random sent,_
_Finds mark, the archer little meant!_
_And many a word at random spoken,_
_May soothe, or wound, a heart that’s broken._
--_Sir Walter Scott._