ok, for it was dreadfully long, and mainly about
the sorrows of lovers who cannot get married. That could not amuse a
small boy. In the second place, every boy should stop reading a book as
soon as he finds that he does not like it, just as you are not expected
to eat more mutton than you want to eat. Lesson books are another thing;
you have to read them, and if you do not you will get into trouble. They
are not meant to be amusing, but to teach Latin grammar, or geography,
or arithmetic, which are not gay. As to this book of Romances, if you do
not like one story, give it up and try another. If you do not like any
of them, read something else that you do like.
Now what are romances? They are grown-up people's fairy tales or
story-books, but they are the kind of story-books that grown-up people
read long ago, when there were castles and knights, and tournaments, and
the chief business of gentlemen was to ride about in full armour,
fighting, while ladies sat at home doing embroidery work, or going to
see the men tilt at tournaments, just as they go to see cricket matches
now. But they liked tournaments better, because they understood the
rules of the game. Anybody could see when one knight knocked another
down, horse and all, but many ladies do not understand leg before
wicket, or stumping.
The stories that they read were called 'romances,' but were in prose.
Before people could read they were not in prose but in poetry, and were
recited by minstrels. Mrs. Lang, who did the stories in this book, says:
'Many hundreds of years ago, when most of these stories were told in the
halls of great castles, the lives of children were very different from
what they are now. The little girls were taught by their mothers'
maidens to spin and embroider, or make simple medicines from the common
herbs, and the boys learnt to ride and tilt, and shoot with bows and
arrows; but their tasks done, no one paid any further heed to them. They
had very few games, and in the long winter evenings the man who went
from house to house, telling or singing the tales of brave deeds, must
have been welcome indeed. From him the children, who early became men
and women, heard of the evil fate that awaited cowardice and treachery,
and grew to understand that it was their duty through life to help those
that were weaker than themselves.' That was long, long ago, when nobody
but priests and a very few gentlemen could read and write. They just
listened to st
|