nd of the princess. She was hardly regarded as a
creature of this earth, and all the princes, who had appeared at court
with proposals, seemed so inferior to her, that no one thought that the
princess or the king could fix their eye on any one of them. A sense of
inferiority had by degrees deterred any suitors from visiting the
court, and the wide-spread report of the excessive pride of the royal
family seemed to take away from all others the desire to see themselves
equally humbled. Nor was this report entirely without foundation. The
king, with all his mildness of disposition, had almost unconsciously
imbibed a feeling of lofty superiority, which rendered every thought of
a connexion of his daughter with a man of lower rank and obscurer
origin unendurable and impossible to be entertained. Her high and
unparalleled worth had heightened this feeling within him. He was
descended from a very old royal family of the East. His consort had
been the last of the descendants of the renowned hero Rustan. His
minstrels continually sang to him of his relationship to those
superhuman beings, who formerly ruled the world. In the magic mirror of
their art the difference between the origin of his family and that of
other men, and the splendor of his descent, appeared yet clearer, so
that it seemed to him that he was connected with the rest of the human
family through the nobler class of the poets alone. He looked around in
vain for a second Rustan, whilst he felt that the heart of his blooming
daughter, the situation of his kingdom, and his increasing age rendered
her marriage, in all points of view, most desirable. Not far from the
capital, there lived, upon a retired country-seat, an old man, who
occupied himself exclusively with the education of his only son, except
that he occasionally assisted the country people by his advice in cases
of dangerous sickness. The young man was of a serious disposition, and
devoted himself exclusively to the study of nature, in which his father
had instructed him from childhood. The old man many years before had
arrived from a distance at this peaceful and blooming region, and was
content while enjoying the beneficent peace, which the king had spread
abroad through this retreat. He took advantage of this peace to search
into the powers of nature, and impart the piecing knowledge to his son,
who gave evidence of much talent for the pursuit, and to whose
penetrating mind nature willingly confided her se