The History of Tom Thumb and Other Stories.
THE HISTORY OF TOM THUMB _AND OTHER STORIES_ [Illustration] _Profusely Illustrated_ THE HISTORY OF TOM THUMB In the days of King Arthur, Merlin, the famous enchanter, was out on a journey, and stopped one day at the cottage of an honest ploughman to ask for refreshment. The ploughman's wife brought him some milk in a wooden bowl, and some brown bread on a wooden platter. Merlin could not help observing that, although everything within the cottage was particularly neat and in good order, the ploughman and his wife had the most sorrowful air, so he questioned them about the cause of their distress, and learned that they were miserable because they had no children. The poor woman declared that she would be the happiest creature in the world if she had but a son, although he were
Nathaniel May sat in his darkness, brooding over his machine. Since it
had been definitely arranged that he was to go to the Poor Farm, he
did not care how soon he went; there was no need, he told Dyer, to
keep him for the few days which had been promised.
"I had thought," he said, patiently, "that some one would take me in
and help me finish my machine--for the certain profit that I could
promise them. But nobody seems to believe in me," he ended.
"Oh, folks believe in you, all right, Mr. May," Dyer told him; "but
they don't believe in your machine. See?"
Nathaniel's face darkened. "Blind--blind!" he said.
"How did it come on you?" Dyer asked, sympathetically.
"I was not speaking of myself," Nathaniel told him, hopelessly.
There was really no doubt that the poor, gentle mind had staggered
under the weight of hope; but it was hardly more than a deepening of
old vagueness, an intensity of absorbed thought upon unpractical
things. The line between sanity and insanity is sometimes a very faint
one; no one can quite dare to say just when it has been crossed. But
this mild creature had crossed it somewhere in the beginning of his
certainty that he was going to give the world the means of seeing the
unseen. That this great gift should be flung into oblivion, all for
THE HISTORY OF TOM THUMB _AND OTHER STORIES_ [Illustration] _Profusely Illustrated_ THE HISTORY OF TOM THUMB In the days of King Arthur, Merlin, the famous enchanter, was out on a journey, and stopped one day at the cottage of an honest ploughman to ask for refreshment. The ploughman's wife brought him some milk in a wooden bowl, and some brown bread on a wooden platter. Merlin could not help observing that, although everything within the cottage was particularly neat and in good order, the ploughman and his wife had the most sorrowful air, so he questioned them about the cause of their distress, and learned that they were miserable because they had no children. The poor woman declared that she would be the happiest creature in the world if she had but a son, although he were