“cousin eustace,” demanded sweet fern, who had been sitting at the story-teller’s feet, with his mouth wide open, “exactly how tall was this giant?”
“o sweet fern, sweet fern!” cried the student, “do you think i was there, to measure him with a yardstick? well, if you must know to a hair’s-breadth, i suppose he might be from three to fifteen miles straight upward, and that he might have seated himself on taconic, and had monument mountain for a footstool.”
“dear me!” ejaculated the good little boy, with a contented sort of a grunt, “that was a giant, sure enough! and how long was his little finger?”
“as long as from tanglewood to the lake,” said eustace.
“sure enough, that was a giant!” repeated sweet fern, in an ecstasy at the precision of these measurements. “and how broad, i wonder, were the shoulders of hercules?”
“that is what i have never been able to find out,” answered the student. “but i think they must have been a great deal broader than mine, or than your father’s, or than almost any shoulders which one sees nowadays.”
“i wish,” whispered sweet fern, with his mouth close to the student’s ear, “that you would tell me how big were some of the oak-trees that grew between the giant’s toes.”
“they were bigger,” said eustace, “than the great chestnut-tree which stands beyond captain smith’s house.”
“eustace,” remarked mr. pringle, after some deliberation, “i find it impossible to express such an opinion of this story as will be likely to gratify, in the smallest degree, your pride of authorship. pray let me advise you never more to meddle with a classical myth. your imagination is altogether gothic, and will inevitably gothicize everything that you touch. the effect is like bedaubing a marble statue with paint. this giant, now! how can you have ventured to thrust his huge, disproportioned mass among the seemly outlines of grecian fable, the tendency of which is to reduce even the extravagant within limits, by its pervading elegance?”
“i described the giant as he appeared to me,” replied the student, rather piqued. “and, sir, if you would only bring your mind into such a relation with these fables as is necessary in order to remodel them, you would see at once that an old greek had no more exclusive right to them than a modern yankee has. they are the common property of the world, and of all time. the ancient poets remodelled them at pleasure, and held them plastic in their hands; and why should they not be plastic in my hands, as well?”
mr. pringle could not forbear a smile.
“and besides,” continued eustace, “the moment you put any warmth of heart, any passion or affection, any human or divine morality, into a classic mould, you make it quite another thing from what it was before. my own opinion is, that the greeks, by taking possession of these legends (which were the immemorial birthright of mankind), and putting them into shapes of indestructible beauty, indeed, but cold and heartless, have done all subsequent ages an incalculable injury.”
“which you, doubtless, were born to remedy,” said mr. pringle, laughing outright. “well, well, go on; but take my advice, and never put any of your travesties on paper. and, as your next effort, what if you should try your hand on some one of the legends of apollo?”
“ah, sir, you propose it as an impossibility,” observed the student, after a moment’s meditation; “and, to be sure, at first thought, the idea of a gothic apollo strikes one rather ludicrously. but i will turn over your suggestion in my mind, and do not quite despair of success.”
during the above discussion, the children (who understood not a word of it) had grown very sleepy, and were now sent off to bed. their drowsy babble was heard, ascending the staircase, while a northwest-wind roared loudly among the tree-tops of tanglewood, and played an anthem around the house. eustace bright went back to the study, and again endeavored to hammer out some verses, but fell asleep between two of the rhymes.
