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Leila's Books
THE ISLAND OF THE RAINBOW, a fairy tale, and other fancies
THE ISLAND OF THE RAINBOW, a fairy tale, and other fancies
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Scanned, proofed and corrected from the original edition for your reading pleasure. It is also searchable and contains hyper-links to chapters.
***
An excerpt from the beginning of:
CHAPTER I.
How the Fairyland's End Was Broken Off.
"We shall have shortly discord in the spheres."
—Shakespeare, As You Like It.
Once upon a time, a strange and sudden accident happened in Fairyland. A piece of the solid mainland was broken sharp off, and sailed away for I cann not tell you how long a time, till it came to the confines of our part of the world, when it settled down as an island just where the rainbow dips into the sea.
Fairyland was ruled over by Oberon and Titania then, just as it is now. Of course you know all about that Fairy King and Queen, and how they had a quarrel once, which, as quarrels generally do, caused all sorts of mischief. However, they were young and inexperienced at that time, and I suppose hot tempered; but, at any rate, they soon "made it up," and their reconciliation was a very pretty affair. No doubt they have lived quite happily ever since, or some mischief-making sprite, loving gossip and evil speaking, would have been sure to bring us the tidings of another dispute.
But I must tell you the way in which the accident happened. Oberon had gone to the wars, leaving Titania Queen Regent in his absence. She had rather wished to retain, to wait at the royal table, her old favourite servant, the Indian boy. But Oberon said No; now that he was grown to be a sturdy henchman, he was more useful than ever, and could not possibly be spared from the camp. She was quite at liberty to put Puck and Peas-blossom into royal liveries if she pleased, and let them wait behind her chair. So Titania made the best of matters, and arranged her diminished household the best way she could.
It was quite a new thing for Titania to find herself sole governor of the kingdom; and she soon discovered that to rule wisely was not a very easy matter. People who had not the least right to interfere in state affairs took advantage of Oberon's absence to suggest all sorts of ridiculous plans; and the Queen had to engage three extra secretaries to answer all the silly letters she received.
Now, there was a little knot of vain foolish people who were dreadfully jealous and envious of the great appointments of State; some of them giddy and young, but others were really old enough to have known better. It was easy for a pack of rosy-cheeked merry people to laugh at sleepy-eyed old Lord Silvershine, but they could not slide on a moonbeam as he did at the rate of a thousand miles a second, and be here, and there, and everywhere in less than no time. For he had to journey half over the globe, touching with his little invisible wand of office the eyelids of all the people who had tired themselves with hard work, and so sending them fast asleep in a moment. If he had chattered and laughed and made jokes, like the people who quizzed him, that would have been the way to keep the tired folks wide awake.
It was mighty easy also to call the Duke Feather-of-light proud and ostentatious, because he never drove out with less than eight winged horses richly caparisoned to draw his state carriage. But although it is true that his coachman did once run over a flash of lightning from careless driving, I believe Matter-of-fact, one of the chief grumblers, would have liked to have been in the carriage at the very moment, to know what sort of a jerk there was, and to explain with hard words and long sentences the scientific phenomena produced by wheels passing over the " electric fluid," as he would have been sure to call it.
***
An excerpt from the beginning of:
CHAPTER I.
How the Fairyland's End Was Broken Off.
"We shall have shortly discord in the spheres."
—Shakespeare, As You Like It.
Once upon a time, a strange and sudden accident happened in Fairyland. A piece of the solid mainland was broken sharp off, and sailed away for I cann not tell you how long a time, till it came to the confines of our part of the world, when it settled down as an island just where the rainbow dips into the sea.
Fairyland was ruled over by Oberon and Titania then, just as it is now. Of course you know all about that Fairy King and Queen, and how they had a quarrel once, which, as quarrels generally do, caused all sorts of mischief. However, they were young and inexperienced at that time, and I suppose hot tempered; but, at any rate, they soon "made it up," and their reconciliation was a very pretty affair. No doubt they have lived quite happily ever since, or some mischief-making sprite, loving gossip and evil speaking, would have been sure to bring us the tidings of another dispute.
But I must tell you the way in which the accident happened. Oberon had gone to the wars, leaving Titania Queen Regent in his absence. She had rather wished to retain, to wait at the royal table, her old favourite servant, the Indian boy. But Oberon said No; now that he was grown to be a sturdy henchman, he was more useful than ever, and could not possibly be spared from the camp. She was quite at liberty to put Puck and Peas-blossom into royal liveries if she pleased, and let them wait behind her chair. So Titania made the best of matters, and arranged her diminished household the best way she could.
It was quite a new thing for Titania to find herself sole governor of the kingdom; and she soon discovered that to rule wisely was not a very easy matter. People who had not the least right to interfere in state affairs took advantage of Oberon's absence to suggest all sorts of ridiculous plans; and the Queen had to engage three extra secretaries to answer all the silly letters she received.
Now, there was a little knot of vain foolish people who were dreadfully jealous and envious of the great appointments of State; some of them giddy and young, but others were really old enough to have known better. It was easy for a pack of rosy-cheeked merry people to laugh at sleepy-eyed old Lord Silvershine, but they could not slide on a moonbeam as he did at the rate of a thousand miles a second, and be here, and there, and everywhere in less than no time. For he had to journey half over the globe, touching with his little invisible wand of office the eyelids of all the people who had tired themselves with hard work, and so sending them fast asleep in a moment. If he had chattered and laughed and made jokes, like the people who quizzed him, that would have been the way to keep the tired folks wide awake.
It was mighty easy also to call the Duke Feather-of-light proud and ostentatious, because he never drove out with less than eight winged horses richly caparisoned to draw his state carriage. But although it is true that his coachman did once run over a flash of lightning from careless driving, I believe Matter-of-fact, one of the chief grumblers, would have liked to have been in the carriage at the very moment, to know what sort of a jerk there was, and to explain with hard words and long sentences the scientific phenomena produced by wheels passing over the " electric fluid," as he would have been sure to call it.
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