connected
story, diligent care has been taken to select such words as might
least interrupt the effect of the beautiful English tongue in which
he wrote: therefore words introduced into our language since his time
have been as far as possible avoided.
In those Tales which have been taken from the Tragedies, as my young
readers will perceive when they come to see the source from which
these stories are derived, Shakespear's own words, with little
alteration, recur very frequently in the narrative as well as in the
dialogue; but in those made from the Comedies I found myself scarcely
ever able to turn his words into the narrative form; therefore I fear
in them I have made use of dialogue too frequently for young people
not used to the dramatic form of writing. But this fault, if it be as
I fear a fault, has been caused by my earnest wish to give as much of
Shakespear's own words as possible: and if the "_He said_" and "_She
said_" the question and the reply, should sometimes seem tedious to
their young ears, they must pardon it, because it was the only way I
knew of, in which I could give them a few hints and little foretastes
of the great pleasure which awaits them in their elder years, when
they come to the rich treasures from which these small and valueless
coins are extracted; pretending to no other merit than as faint and
imperfect stamps of Shakespear's matchless image. Faint and imperfect
images they must be called, because the beauty of his language is
too frequently destroyed by the necessity of changing many of his
excellent words into words far less expressive of his true sense,
to make it read something like prose; and even in some few places,
where his blank verse is given unaltered, as hoping from its simple
plainness to cheat the young readers into the belief that they are
reading prose, yet still his language being transplanted from its own
natural soil and wild poetic garden, it must want much of its native
beauty.
I have wished to make these Tales easy reading for very young
children. To the utmost of my ability I have constantly kept this in
my mind; but the subjects of most of them made this a very difficult
task. It was no easy matter to give the histories of men and women in
terms familiar to the apprehension of a very young mind. For young
ladies too it has been my intention chiefly to write, because boys
are generally permitted the use of their fathers' libraries at a much
earlier age than gir
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