Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

kindness and loved them with as big a love as it was possible to feel for creatures so very small.

It is very pleasant to imagine Antæus standing among the Pygmies, like the spire of the tallest cathedral that 5 ever was built, while they ran about at his feet; and to think that, in spite of their difference in size, there were affection and sympathy between them and him! Indeed, it has always seemed to me that the Giant needed the little people more than the Pygmies needed the Giant. 10 For, unless they had been his neighbors and wellwishers, and, as we may say, his playfellows, Antæus would not have had a single friend in the world.

No creature of his own size had ever talked with him face to face. When he stood with his head among the 15 clouds, he was quite alone, and had been so for hundreds

of years, and would be so forever. Even if he had met another Giant, Antæus would have fancied the world not big enough for two such vast personages, and would have fought him until one of the two was killed. But with 20 the Pygmies he was the most sportive, and humorous, and merry-hearted, and sweet-tempered old Giant that ever washed his face in a wet cloud.

His little friends, like all other small people, had a great opinion of their own importance, and used to 25 assume quite a patronizing air towards the Giant.

"Poor creature!" they said one to another, "he has a very dull time of it, all by himself; and we ought not to grudge wasting a little of our precious time to amuse him. He is not half so bright as we are, to be sure; and for that reason he needs us to look after his comfort and 5 happiness. Let us be kind to the old fellow. Why, if Mother Earth had not been very kind to ourselves, we might all have been Giants too."

On all their holidays the Pygmies had excellent sport with Antæus. He often stretched himself out at full 10 length on the ground, where he looked like the long ridge of a hill; and it was a good hour's walk, no doubt, for a short-legged Pygmy to journey from head to foot of the Giant. He would lay down his great hand flat on the grass, and challenge the tallest of them to clamber upon 15 it. So fearless were they that they made nothing of creeping in among the folds of his garments.

When his head lay sidewise on the earth, they would march boldly up and peep into the great cavern of his mouth, and take it all as a joke (as indeed it was meant) 20 when Antæus gave a sudden snap with his jaws, as if he were going to swallow fifty of them at once. You would have laughed to see the children dodging in and out among his hair, or swinging from his beard.

It is impossible to tell half the funny tricks that they 25

played with their huge comrade; but I do not know that anything was more curious than when a party of boys were seen running races on his forehead, to try which of them could get first round the circle of his one great eye. 5 It was another favorite feat with them to march along the bridge of his nose and jump down upon his upper lip.

If the truth must be told, they were sometimes as troublesome to the Giant as a swarm of ants or mosquitoes, especially as they had a fondness for mischief and liked 10 to prick his skin with their little swords and lances.

But Antæus took it all kindly enough; although, once in a while, when he happened to be sleepy, he would grumble out a peevish word or two, like the muttering of a tempest, and ask them to have done with their nonsense. 15 A great deal oftener, however, he watched their merriment and gambols until his huge, heavy, clumsy wits were completely stirred up by them; and then he would roar out such a tremendous volume of immeasurable laughter that the whole nation of Pygmies had to put their hands 20 to their ears, else it would have deafened them.

"Ho! ho! ho!" quoth the Giant, shaking his mountainous sides. "What a funny thing it is to be little! If I were not Antæus, I should like to be a Pygmy, just for the joke's sake."

Abridged.

Antæ'us.

[graphic][subsumed][merged small][merged small]

Heaven is not reached at a single bound;
But we build the ladder by which we rise
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,
And we mount to its summit round by round.

I count this thing to be grandly true:

That a noble deed is a step toward God, Lifting the soul from the common clod To a purer air and broader view.

We rise by the things that are under our feet;
By what we have mastered of good and gain;
By the pride deposed, and the passion slain,
And the vanquished ills that we hourly meet.

1 From Holland's "Poetical Writings." Copyright, 1879, by Charles Scribner's Sons.

[blocks in formation]

5

10

15

20

We hope, we aspire, we resolve, we trust,
When the morning calls us to life and light,

But our hearts grow weary, and ere the night
Our lives are trailing the sordid dust.

We hope, we resolve, we aspire, we pray,

And we think that we mount the air on wings
Beyond the recall of sensual things,

While our feet still cling to the heavy clay.

Wings for the angels, but feet for men!

We may borrow the wings to find the way,— We may hope, and resolve, and aspire, and pray; But our feet must rise, or we fall again.

Only in dreams is a ladder thrown

From the weary earth to the sapphire walls;
But the dreams depart, and the vision falls,
And the sleeper wakes on his pillow of stone.

Heaven is not reached at a single bound;

But we build the ladder by which we rise
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,

And we mount to its summit, round by round.

dreams: this alludes to Jacob's dream, in which he saw a ladder reaching to heaven. The story is told in the Bible, Genesis xxxviii. 10–22.

« ÎnapoiContinuă »