rs in the value of certain virtues than
during the Middle Ages--and the very best of the romances are just those
romances which illustrate that belief, though not written for a merely
ethical purpose.

But I can not better illustrate what I mean than by telling a story, which
has nothing to do with Europe, or the Middle Ages, or any particular form
of religious belief. It is not a Christian story at all; and it could not
be told you exactly as written, for there are some very curious pages in
it. But it is a good example of the worth that may lie in a mere product
of imagination.

There was a king once, in Persia or Arabia, who, at the time of his
accession to power, discovered a wonderful subterranean hall under the
garden of his palace. In one chamber of that hall stood six marvellous
statues of young girls, each statue being made out of a single diamond.
The beauty as well as the cost of the work was beyond imagination. But in
the midst of the statues, which stood in a circle, there was an empty
pedestal, and on that pedestal was a precious casket containing a letter
from the dead father of the king. The letter said:

"O my son, though these statues of girls are indeed beyond all praise,
there is yet a seventh statue incomparably more precious and beautiful
which I could not obtain before I died. It is now your duty, O my son, to
obtain that statue, that it may be placed upon the seventh pedestal. Go,
therefore, and ask my favourite slave, who is still alive, how you are to
obtain it." Then the young king went in all haste to that old slave, who
had been his father's confidant, and showed him the letter. And the old
man said, "Even now, O master, I will go with you to find that statue. But
it is in one of the three islands in which the genii dwell; and it is
necessary, above all things, that you do not fear, and that you obey my
instructions in all things. Also, remember that if you make a promise to
the Spirits of that land, the promise must be kept."

And they proceeded upon their journey through a great wilderness, in which
"nothing existed but grass and the presence of God." I can not try now to
tell you about the wonderful things that happened to them, nor about the
marvellous boat, rowed by a boatman having upon his shoulders the head of
an elephant. Suffice it to say that at last they reached the palace of the
king of the Spirits; and the king came to meet them in the form of a
beautiful old man with a long