(1838)
There was once a king’s son who had a larger and more beautiful
collection of books than any one else in the world, and full of splendid
copper-plate engravings. He could read and obtain information respecting
every people of every land; but not a word could he find to explain the
situation of the garden of paradise, and this was just what he most wished to
know. His grandmother had told him when he was quite a little boy, just old
enough to go to school, that each flower in the garden of paradise was a
sweet cake, that the pistils were full of rich wine, that on one flower history
was written, on another geography or tables; so those who wished to learn
their lessons had only to eat some of the cakes, and the more they ate, the
more history, geography, or tables they knew. He believed it all then; but as
he grew older, and learnt more and more, he became wise enough to
understand that the splendor of the garden of paradise must be very
different to all this. “Oh, why did Eve pluck the fruit from the tree of
knowledge? why did Adam eat the forbidden fruit?” thought the king’s son:
“if I had been there it would never have happened, and there would have
been no sin in the world.” The garden of paradise occupied all his thoughts
till he reached his seventeenth year.
One day he was walking alone in the wood, which was his greatest
pleasure, when evening came on. The clouds gathered, and the rain poured
down as if the sky had been a waterspout; and it was as dark as the bottom
of a well at midnight; sometimes he slipped over the smooth grass, or fell
over stones that projected out of the rocky ground. Every thing was
dripping with moisture, and the poor prince had not a dry thread about him.
He was obliged at last to climb over great blocks of stone, with water
spurting from the thick moss. He began to feel quite faint, when he heard a
most singular rushing noise, and saw before him a large cave, from which
came a blaze of light. In the middle of the cave an immense fire was
