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+Project Gutenberg’s The Three Golden Apples, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Three Golden Apples
+
+Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
+
+Release Date: November, 2005 [EBook #9257]
+First Posted: September 25, 2003
+Last Updated: December 15, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                 A WONDER-BOOK FOR GIRLS AND BOYS
+
+                     By Nathaniel Hawthorne
+
+
+                     THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS:
+
+  TANGLEWOOD FIRESIDE--Introductory to “The Three Golden Apples”
+   THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES
+  TANGLEWOOD FIRESIDE--After the Story
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY TO “THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES”
+
+The snow-storm lasted another day; but what became of it afterwards, I
+cannot possibly imagine.  At any rate, it entirely cleared away, during
+the night; and when the sun arose, the next morning, it shone brightly
+down on as bleak a tract of hill-country, here in Berkshire, as could be
+seen anywhere in the world.  The frost-work had so covered the
+windowpanes that it was hardly possible to get a glimpse at the scenery
+outside.  But, while waiting for breakfast, the small populace of
+Tanglewood had scratched peepholes with their finger-nails, and saw with
+vast delight that--unless it were one or two bare patches on a
+precipitous hillside, or the gray effect of the snow, intermingled with
+the black pine forest--all nature was as white as a sheet.  How
+exceedingly pleasant!  And, to make it all the better, it was cold
+enough to nip one’s nose short off!  If people have but life enough in
+them to bear it, there is nothing that so raises the spirits, and makes
+the blood ripple and dance so nimbly, like a brook down the slope of a
+hill, as a bright, hard frost.
+
+No sooner was breakfast over, than the whole party, well muffled in furs
+and woollens, floundered forth into the midst of the snow.  Well, what a
+day of frosty sport was this!  They slid down hill into the valley, a
+hundred times, nobody knows how far; and, to make it all the merrier,
+upsetting their sledges, and tumbling head over heels, quite as often as
+they came safely to the bottom.  And, once, Eustace Bright took
+Periwinkle, Sweet Fern, and Squash-blossom, on the sledge with him, by
+way of insuring a safe passage; and down they went, full speed.  But,
+behold, half-way down, the sledge hit against a hidden stump, and flung
+all four of its passengers into a heap; and, on gathering themselves up,
+there was no little Squash-blossom to be found!  Why, what could have
+become of the child?  And while they were wondering and staring about,
+up started Squash-blossom out of a snow-bank, with the reddest face you
+ever saw, and looking as if a large scarlet flower had suddenly sprouted
+up in midwinter.  Then there was a great laugh.
+
+When they had grown tired of sliding down hill, Eustace set the children
+to digging a cave in the biggest snow-drift that they could find.
+Unluckily, just as it was completed, and the party had squeezed
+themselves into the hollow, down came the roof upon their heads, and
+buried every soul of them alive!  The next moment, up popped all their
+little heads out of the ruins, and the tall student’s head in the midst
+of them, looking hoary and venerable with the snow-dust that had got
+amongst his brown curls.  And then, to punish Cousin Eustace for
+advising them to dig such a tumble-down cavern, the children attacked
+him in a body, and so bepelted him with snowballs that he was fain to
+take to his heels.
+
+So he ran away, and went into the woods, and thence to the margin of
+Shadow Brook, where he could hear the streamlet grumbling along, under
+great overhanging banks of snow and ice, which would scarcely let it see
+the light of day.  There were adamantine icicles glittering around all
+its little cascades.  Thence be strolled to the shore of the lake, and
+beheld a white, untrodden plain before him, stretching from his own feet
+to the foot of Monument Mountain.  And, it being now almost sunset,
+Eustace thought that he had never beheld anything so fresh and beautiful
+as the scene.  He was glad that the children were not with him; for
+their lively spirits and tumble-about activity would quite have chased
+away his higher and graver mood, so that he would merely have been merry
+(as he had already been, the whole day long), and would not have known
+the loveliness of the winter sunset among the hills.
+
+When the sun was fairly down, our friend Eustace went home to eat his
+supper.  After the meal was over, he betook himself to the study, with a
+purpose, I rather imagine, to write an ode, or two or three sonnets, or
+verses of some kind or other, in praise of the purple and golden clouds
+which he had seen around the setting sun.  But, before he had hammered
+out the very first rhyme, the door opened, and Primrose and Periwinkle
+made their appearance.
+
+“Go away, children!  I can’t be troubled with you now!” cried the
+student, looking over his shoulder, with the pen between his fingers.
+“What in the world do you want here?  I thought you were all in bed!”
+
+“Hear him, Periwinkle, trying to talk like a grown man!” said Primrose.
+“And he seems to forget that I am now thirteen years old, and may sit up
+almost as late as I please.  But, Cousin Eustace, you must put off your
+airs, and come with us to the drawing-room.  The children have talked so
+much about your stories, that my father wishes to hear one of them, in
+order to judge whether they are likely to do any mischief.”
+
+“Poh, poh, Primrose!” exclaimed the student, rather vexed.  “I don’t
+believe I can tell one of my stories in the presence of grown people.
+Besides, your father is a classical scholar; not that I am much afraid
+of his scholarship, neither, for I doubt not it is as rusty as an old
+case-knife, by this time.  But then he will be sure to quarrel with the
+admirable nonsense that I put into these stories, out of my own head,
+and which makes the great charm of the matter for children, like
+yourself.  No man of fifty, who has read the classical myths in his
+youth, can possibly understand my merit as a re-inventor and improver
+of them.”
+
+“All this may be very true,” said Primrose, “but come you must!  My
+father will not open his book, nor will mamma open the piano, till you
+have given us some of your nonsense, as you very correctly call it.
+So be a good boy, and come along.”
+
+Whatever he might pretend, the student was rather glad than otherwise,
+on second thoughts, to catch at the opportunity of proving to Mr.
+Pringle what an excellent faculty he had in modernizing the myths of
+ancient times.  Until twenty years of age, a young man may, indeed, be
+rather bashful about showing his poetry and his prose; but, for all
+that, he is pretty apt to think that these very productions would
+place him at the tip-top of literature, if once they could be known.
+Accordingly, without much more resistance, Eustace suffered Primrose
+and Periwinkle to drag him into the drawing-room.
+
+It was a large handsome apartment, with a semicircular window at one
+end, in the recess of which stood a marble copy of Greenough’s Angel and
+Child.  On one side of the fireplace there were many shelves of books,
+gravely but richly bound.  The white light of the astrallamp, and the
+red glow of the bright coal-fire, made the room brilliant and cheerful;
+and before the fire, in a deep arm-chair, sat Mr. Pringle, looking just
+fit to be seated in such a chair, and in such a room.  He was a tall and
+quite a handsome gentleman, with a bald brow; and was always so nicely
+dressed, that even Eustace Bright never liked to enter his presence,
+without at least pausing at the threshold to settle his shirt-collar.
+But now, as Primrose had hold of one of his hands, and Periwinkle of the
+other, he was forced to make his appearance with a rough-and-tumble sort
+of look, as if he had been rolling all day in a snow-bank.  And so he
+had.
+
+Mr. Pringle turned towards the student, benignly enough, but in a way
+that made him feel how uncombed and unbrushed he was, and how uncombed
+and unbrushed, likewise, were his mind and thoughts.
+
+“Eustace,” said Mr. Pringle, with a smile, “I find that you are
+producing a great sensation among the little public of Tanglewood, by
+the exercise of your gifts of narrative.  Primrose here, as the little
+folks choose to call her, and the rest of the children, have been so
+loud in praise of your stories, that Mrs. Pringle and myself are really
+curious to hear a specimen.  It would be so much the more gratifying to
+myself, as the stories appear to be an attempt to render the fables of
+classical antiquity into the idiom of modern fancy and feeling.  At
+least, so I judge from a few of the incidents, which have come to me
+at second hand.”
+
+“You are not exactly the auditor that I should have chosen, sir,”
+ observed the student, “for fantasies of this nature.”
+
+“Possibly not,” replied Mr. Pringle.  “I suspect, however, that a young
+author’s most useful critic is precisely the one whom he would be least
+apt to choose.  Pray oblige me, therefore.”
+
+“Sympathy, methinks, should have some little share in the critic’s
+qualifications,” murmured Eustace Bright.  “However, sir, if you will
+find patience, I will find stories.  But be kind enough to remember that
+I am addressing myself to the imagination and sympathies of the
+children, not to your own.”
+
+Accordingly, the student snatched hold of the first theme which
+presented itself.  It was suggested by a plate of apples that he
+happened to spy on the mantel-piece.
+
+
+
+THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES.
+
+Did you ever hear of the golden apples, that grew in the garden of the
+Hesperides?  Ah, those were such apples as would bring a great price,
+by the bushel, if any of them could be found growing in the orchards of
+nowadays!  But there is not, I suppose, a graft of that wonderful fruit
+on a single tree in the wide world.  Not so much as a seed of those
+apples exists any longer.
+
+And, even in the old, old, half-forgotten times, before the garden of
+the Hesperides was overrun with weeds, a great many people doubted
+whether there could be real trees that bore apples of solid gold upon
+their branches.  All had heard of them, but nobody remembered to have
+seen any.  Children, nevertheless, used to listen, open-mouthed, to
+stories of the golden apple-tree, and resolved to discover it, when they
+should be big enough.  Adventurous young men, who desired to do a braver
+thing than any of their fellows, set out in quest of this fruit.  Many
+of them returned no more; none of them brought back the apples.  No
+wonder that they found it impossible to gather them!  It is said that
+there was a dragon beneath the tree, with a hundred terrible heads,
+fifty of which were always on the watch, while the other fifty slept.
+
+In my opinion it was hardly worth running so much risk for the sake of
+a solid golden apple.  Had the apples been sweet, mellow, and juicy,
+indeed that would be another matter.  There might then have been some
+sense in trying to get at them, in spite of the hundred-headed dragon.
+
+But, as I have already told you, it was quite a common thing with young
+persons, when tired of too much peace and rest, to go in search of the
+garden of the Hesperides.  And once the adventure was undertaken by a
+hero who had enjoyed very little peace or rest since he came into the
+world.  At the time of which I am going to speak, he was wandering
+through the pleasant land of Italy, with a mighty club in his hand, and
+a bow and quiver slung across his shoulders.  He was wrapt in the skin
+of the biggest and fiercest lion that ever had been seen, and which he
+himself had killed; and though, on the whole, he was kind, and generous,
+and noble, there was a good deal of the lion’s fierceness in his heart.
+As he went on his way, he continually inquired whether that were the
+right road to the famous garden.  But none of the country people knew
+anything about the matter, and many looked as if they would have
+laughed at the question, if the stranger had not carried so very big a
+club.
+
+So he journeyed on and on, still making the same inquiry, until, at
+last, he came to the brink of a river where some beautiful young women
+sat twining wreaths of flowers.
+
+“Can you tell me, pretty maidens,” asked the stranger, “whether this is
+the right way to the garden of the Hesperides?”
+
+The young women had been having a fine time together, weaving the
+flowers into wreaths, and crowning one another’s heads.  And there
+seemed to be a kind of magic in the touch of their fingers, that made
+the flowers more fresh and dewy, and of brighter lines, and sweeter
+fragrance, while they played with them, than even when they had been
+growing on their native stems.  But, on hearing the stranger’s question,
+they dropped all their flowers on the grass, and gazed at him with
+astonishment.
+
+“The garden of the Hesperides!” cried one.  “We thought mortals had been
+weary of seeking it, after so many disappointments.  And pray,
+adventurous traveller, what do you want there?”
+
+“A certain king, who is my cousin,” replied he, “has ordered me to get
+him three of the golden apples.”
+
+“Most of the young men who go in quest of these apples,” observed
+another of the damsels, “desire to obtain them for themselves, or to
+present them to some fair maiden whom they love.  Do you, then, love
+this king, your cousin, so very much?”
+
+“Perhaps not,” replied the stranger, sighing.  “He has often been severe
+and cruel to me.  But it is my destiny to obey him.”
+
+“And do you know,” asked the damsel who had first spoken, “that a
+terrible dragon, with a hundred heads, keeps watch under the golden
+apple-tree?”
+
+“I know it well,” answered the stranger, calmly.  “But, from my cradle
+upwards, it has been my business, and almost my pastime, to deal with
+serpents and dragons.”
+
+The young women looked at his massive club, and at the shaggy lion’s
+skin which he wore, and likewise at his heroic limbs and figure; and
+they whispered to each other that the stranger appeared to be one who
+might reasonably expect to perform deeds far beyond the might of other
+men.  But, then, the dragon with a hundred heads!  What mortal, even if
+he possessed a hundred lives, could hope to escape the fangs of such a
+monster?  So kind-hearted were the maidens, that they could not bear to
+see this brave and, handsome traveller attempt what was so very
+dangerous, and devote himself, most probably, to become a meal for
+the dragon’s hundred ravenous mouths.
+
+“Go back,” cried they all,--“go back to your own home!  Your mother,
+beholding you safe and sound, will shed tears of joy; and what can she
+do more, should you win ever so great a victory?  No matter for the
+golden apples!  No matter for the king, your cruel cousin!  We do not
+wish the dragon with the hundred heads to eat you up!”
+
+The stranger seemed to grow impatient at these remonstrances.  He
+carelessly lifted his mighty club, and let it fall upon a rock that lay
+half buried in the earth, near by.  With the force of that idle blow,
+the great rock was shattered all to pieces.  It cost the stranger no
+more effort to achieve this feat of a giant’s strength than for one of
+the young maidens to touch her sister’s rosy cheek with a flower.
+
+“Do you not believe,” said he, looking at the damsels with a smile,
+“that such a blow would have crushed one of the dragon’s hundred heads?”
+
+Then he sat down on the grass, and told them the story of his life, or
+as much of it as he could remember, from the day when he was first
+cradled in a warrior’s brazen shield.  While he lay there, two immense
+serpents came gliding over the floor, and opened their hideous jaws to
+devour him; and he, a baby of a few months old, had griped one of the
+fierce snakes in each of his little fists, and strangled them to death.
+When he was but a stripling, he had killed a huge lion, almost as big as
+the one whose vast and shaggy hide he now wore upon his shoulders.  The
+next thing that he had done was to fight a battle with an ugly sort of
+monster, called a hydra, which had no less than nine heads, and
+exceedingly sharp teeth in every one of them.
+
+“But the dragon of the Hesperides, you know,” observed one of the
+damsels, “has a hundred heads!”
+
+“Nevertheless,” replied the stranger, “I would rather fight two such
+dragons than a single hydra.  For, as fast as I cut off a head, two
+others grew in its place; and, besides, there was one of the heads that
+could not possibly be killed, but kept biting as fiercely as ever, long
+after it was cut off.  So I was forced to bury it under a stone, where
+it is doubtless alive, to this vary day.  But the hydra’s body, and its
+eight other heads, will never do any further mischief.”
+
+The damsels, judging that the story was likely to last a good while, had
+been preparing a repast of bread and grapes, that the stranger might
+refresh himself in the intervals of his talk.  They took pleasure in
+helping him to this simple food; and, now and then, one of them would
+put a sweet grape between her rosy lips, lest it should make him bashful
+to eat alone.
+
+The traveller proceeded to tell how he had chased a very swift stag, for
+a twelve-month together, without ever stopping to take breath, and had
+at last caught it by the antlers, and carried it home alive.  And he had
+fought with a very odd race of people, half horses and half men, and had
+put them all to death, from a sense of duty, in order that their ugly
+figures might never be seen any more.  Besides all this, he took to
+himself great credit for having cleaned out a stable.
+
+“Do you call that a wonderful exploit?” asked one of the young maidens,
+with a smile.  “Any clown in the country has done as much!”
+
+“Had it been an ordinary stable,” replied the stranger, “I should not
+have mentioned it.  But this was so gigantic a task that it would have
+taken me all my life to perform it, if I had not luckily thought of
+turning the channel of a river through the stable-door.  That did the
+business in a very short time!”
+
+Seeing how earnestly his fair auditors listened, he next told them how
+he had shot some monstrous birds, and had caught a wild bull alive, and
+let him go again, and had tamed a number of very wild horses, and had
+conquered Hippolyta, the warlike queen of the Amazons.  He mentioned,
+likewise, that he had taken off Hippolyta’s enchanted girdle, and had
+given it to the daughter of his cousin, the king.
+
+“Was it the girdle of Venus,” inquired the prettiest of the damsels,
+“which makes women beautiful?”
+
+“No,” answered the stranger.  “It had formerly been the sword-belt of
+Mars; and it can only make the wearer valiant and courageous.”
+
+“An old sword-belt!” cried the damsel, tossing her head.  “Then I should
+not care about having it!”
+
+“You are right,” said the stranger.
+
+Going on with his wonderful narrative, he informed the maidens that as
+strange an adventure as ever happened was when he fought with Geryon,
+the six-legged man.  This was a very odd and frightful sort of figure,
+as you may well believe.  Any person, looking at his tracks in the sand
+or snow, would suppose that three sociable companions had been walking
+along together.  On hearing his footsteps at, a little distance, it was
+no more than reasonable to judge that several people must be coming.
+But it was only the strange man Geryon clattering onward, with his six
+legs!
+
+Six legs, and one gigantic body!  Certainly, he must have been a very
+queer monster to look at; and, my stars, what a waste of shoe-leather!
+
+When the stranger had finished the story of his adventures, he looked
+around at the attentive faces of the maidens.
+
+“Perhaps you may have heard of me before,” said he, modestly.  “My name
+is Hercules!”
+
+“We had already guessed it,” replied the maidens; “for your wonderful
+deeds are known all over the world.  We do not think it strange, any
+longer, that you should set out in quest of the golden apples of the
+Hesperides.  Come, sisters, let us crown the hero with flowers!”
+
+Then they flung beautiful wreaths over his stately head and mighty
+shoulders, so that the lion’s skin was almost entirely covered with
+roses.  They took possession of his ponderous club, and so entwined it
+about with the brightest, softest, and most fragrant blossoms, that not
+a finger’s breadth of its oaken substance could be seen.  It looked all
+like a huge bunch of flowers.  Lastly, they joined hands, and danced
+around him, chanting words which became poetry of their own accord, and
+grew into a choral song, in honor of the illustrious Hercules.
+
+And Hercules was rejoiced, as any other hero would have been, to know
+that these fair young girls had heard of the valiant deeds which it had
+cost him so much toil and danger to achieve.  But, still, he was not
+satisfied.  He could not think that what he had already done was worthy
+of so much honor, while there remained any bold or difficult adventure
+to be undertaken.
+
+“Dear maidens,” said he, when they paused to take breath, “now that you
+know my name, will you not tell me how I am to reach the garden of the
+Hesperides?”
+
+“Ah! must you go so soon?” they exclaimed.  “You--that have performed so
+many wonders, and spent such a toilsome life--cannot you content
+yourself to repose a little while on the margin of this peaceful river?”
+
+Hercules shook his head.
+
+“I must depart now,” said he.
+
+“We will then give you the best directions we can,” replied the damsels.
+“You must go to the sea-shore, and find out the Old One, and compel him
+to inform you where the golden apples are to be found.”
+
+“The Old One!” repeated Hercules, laughing at this odd name.  “And,
+pray, who may the Old One be?”
+
+“Why, the Old Man of the Sea, to be sure!” answered one of the damsels.
+“He has fifty daughters, whom some people call very beautiful; but we do
+not think it proper to be acquainted with them, because they have
+sea-green hair, and taper away like fishes.  You must talk with this Old
+Man of the Sea.  He is a sea-faring person, and knows all about the garden
+of the Hesperides; for it is situated in an island which he is often in
+the habit of visiting.”
+
+Hercules then asked whereabouts the Old One was most likely to be met
+with.  When the damsels had informed him, he thanked them for all their
+kindness,--for the bread and grapes with which they had fed him, the
+lovely flowers with which they had crowned him, and the songs and dances
+wherewith they had done him honor,--and he thanked them, most of all,
+for telling him the right way,--and immediately set forth upon his
+Journey.
+
+But, before he was out of hearing, one of the maidens called after him.
+
+“Keep fast hold of the Old-One, when you catch him!” cried she, smiling,
+and lifting her finger to make the caution more impressive.  “Do not be
+astonished at anything that may happen.  Only hold him fast, and he will
+tell you what you wish to know.”
+
+Hercules again thanked her, and pursued his way, while the maidens
+resumed their pleasant labor of making flower-wreaths.  They talked
+about the hero, long after he was gone.
+
+“We will crown him with the loveliest of our garlands,” said they, “when
+he returns hither with the three golden apples, after slaying the dragon
+with a hundred heads.”
+
+Meanwhile, Hercules travelled constantly onward, over hill and dale, and
+through the solitary woods.  Sometimes he swung his club aloft, and
+splintered a mighty oak with a downright blow.  His mind was so full of
+the giants and monsters with whom it was the business of his life to
+fight, that perhaps he mistook the great tree for a giant or a monster.
+And so eager was Hercules to achieve what he had undertaken, that he
+almost regretted to have spent so much time with the damsels, wasting
+idle breath upon the story of his adventures.  But thus it always is
+with persons who are destined to perform great things.  What they have
+already done seems less than nothing.  What they have taken in hand to
+do seems worth toil, danger, and life itself.
+
+Persons who happened to be passing through the forest must have been
+affrighted to see him smite the trees with his great club.  With but a
+single blow, the trunk was riven as by the stroke of lightning, and the
+broad boughs came rustling and crashing down.
+
+Hastening forward, without ever pausing or looking behind, he by and by
+heard the sea roaring at a distance.  At this sound, he increased his
+speed, and soon came to a beach, where the great surf-waves tumbled
+themselves upon the hard sand, in a long line of snowy foam.  At one end
+of the beach, however, there was a pleasant spot, where some green
+shrubbery clambered up a cliff, making its rocky face look soft and
+beautiful.  A carpet of verdant grass, largely intermixed with
+sweet-smelling clover, covered the narrow space between the bottom of the
+cliff and the sea.  And what should Hercules espy there, but an old man,
+fast asleep!
+
+But was it really and truly an old man?  Certainly, at first sight, it
+looked very like one; but, on closer inspection, it rather seemed to be
+some kind of a creature that lived in the sea.  For, on his legs and
+arms there were scales, such as fishes have; he was web-footed and
+web-fingered, after the fashion of a duck; and his long beard, being of a
+greenish tinge, had more the appearance of a tuft of sea-weed than of an
+ordinary beard.  Have you never seen a stick of timber, that has been
+long tossed about by the waves, and has got all overgrown with
+barnacles, and, at last drifting ashore, seems to have been thrown up
+from the very deepest bottom of the sea?  Well, the old man would have
+put you in mind of just such a wave-tost spar!  But Hercules, the
+instant he set eyes on this strange figure, was convinced that it could
+be no other than the Old One, who was to direct him on his way.
+
+Yes; it was the selfsame Old Man of the Sea, whom the hospitable maidens
+had talked to him about.  Thanking his stars for the lucky accident of
+finding the old fellow asleep, Hercules stole on tiptoe towards him, and
+caught him by the arm and leg.
+
+“Tell me,” cried he, before the Old One was well awake, “which is the
+way to the garden of the Hesperides?”
+
+As you may easily imagine, the Old Man of the Sea awoke in a fright.
+But his astonishment could hardly have been greater than was that of
+Hercules, the next moment.  For, all of a sudden, the Old One seemed to
+disappear out of his grasp, and he found himself holding a stag by the
+fore and hind leg!  But still he kept fast hold.  Then the stag
+disappeared, and in its stead there was a sea-bird, fluttering and
+screaming, while Hercules clutched it by the wing and claw!  But the
+bird could not get away.  Immediately afterwards, there was an ugly
+three-headed dog, which growled and barked at Hercules, and snapped
+fiercely at the hands by which he held him!  But Hercules would not let
+him go.  In another minute, instead of the three-headed dog, what should
+appear but Geryon, the six-legged man-monster, kicking at Hercules with
+five of his legs, in order to get the remaining one at liberty!  But
+Hercules held on.  By and by, no Geryou was there, but a huge snake,
+like one of those which Hercules had strangled in his babyhood, only a
+hundred times as big, and it twisted and twined about the hero’s neck
+and body, and threw its tail high into the air, and opened its deadly
+jaws as if to devour him outright; so that it was really a very terrible
+spectacle!  But Hercules was no whit disheartened, and squeezed the
+great snake so tightly that he soon began to hiss with pain.
+
+You must understand that the Old Man of the Sea, though he generally
+looked so much like the wave-beaten figure-head of a vessel, had the
+power of assuming any shape he pleased.  When he found himself so
+roughly seized by Hercules, he had been in hopes of putting him into
+such surprise and terror, by these magical transformations, that the
+hero would be glad to let him go.  If Hercules had relaxed his grasp,
+the Old One would certainly have plunged down to the very bottom of the
+sea, whence he would not soon have given himself the trouble of coming
+up, in order to answer any impertinent questions.  Ninety-nine people
+out of a hundred, I suppose, would have been frightened out of their
+wits by the very first of his ugly shapes, and would have taken to their
+heels at once.  For, one of the hardest things in this world is, to see
+the difference between real dangers and imaginary ones.
+
+But, as Hercules held on so stubbornly, and only squeezed the Old One so
+much the tighter at every change of shape, and really put him to no
+small torture, he finally thought it best to reappear in his own figure.
+So there he was again, a fishy, scaly, webfooted sort of personage, with
+something like a tuft of sea-weed at his chin.
+
+“Pray, what do you want with me?” cried the Old One, as soon as he could
+take breath; for it is quite a tiresome affair to go through so many
+false shapes.  “Why do you squeeze me so hard?  Let me go, this moment,
+or I shall begin to consider you an extremely uncivil person!”
+
+“My name is Hercules!” roared the mighty stranger.  “And you will never
+get out of my clutch, until you tell me the nearest way to the garden of
+the Hesperides!”
+
+When the old fellow heard who it was that had caught him, he saw, with
+half an eye, that it would be necessary to tell him everything that he
+wanted to know.  The Old One was an inhabitant of the sea, you must
+recollect, and roamed about everywhere, like other sea-faring people.
+Of course, he had often heard of the fame of Hercules, and of the
+wonderful things that he was constantly performing, in various parts of
+the earth, and how determined he always was to accomplish whatever he
+undertook.  He therefore made no more attempts to escape, but told the
+hero how to find the garden of the Hesperides, and likewise warned him
+of many difficulties which must be overcome, before he could arrive
+thither.
+
+“You must go on, thus and thus,” said the Old Man of the Sea, after
+taking the points of the compass, “till you come in sight of a very tall
+giant, who holds the sky on his shoulders.  And the giant, if he happens
+to be in the humor, will tell you exactly where the garden of the
+Hesperides lies.”
+
+“And if the giant happens not to be in the humor,” remarked Hercules,
+balancing his club on the tip of his finger, “perhaps I shall find means
+to persuade him!”
+
+Thanking the Old Man of the Sea, and begging his pardon for having
+squeezed him so roughly, the hero resumed his journey.  He met with a
+great many strange adventures, which would be well worth your hearing,
+if I had leisure to narrate them as minutely as they deserve.
+
+It was in this journey, if I mistake not, that he encountered a
+prodigious giant, who was so wonderfully contrived by nature, that,
+every time he touched the earth, he became ten times as strong as ever
+he had been before.  His name was Antreus.  You may see, plainly enough,
+that it was a very difficult business to fight with such a fellow; for,
+as often as he got a knock-down blow, up he started again, stronger,
+fiercer, and abler to use his weapons, than if his enemy had let him
+alone, Thus, the harder Hercules pounded the giant with his club, the
+further be seemed from winning the victory.  I have sometimes argued
+with such people, but never fought with one.  The only way in which
+Hercules found it possible to finish the battle, was by lifting Antaeus
+off his feet into the air, and squeezing, and squeezing, and squeezing
+him, until, finally, the strength was quite squeezed out of his enormous
+body.
+
+When this affair was finished, Hercules continued his travels, and went
+to the land of Egypt, where he was taken prisoner, and would have been
+put to death, if he had not slain the king of the country, and made his
+escape.  Passing through the deserts of Africa, and going as fast as he
+could, he arrived at last on the shore of the great ocean.  And here,
+unless he could walk on the crests of the billows, it seemed as if his
+journey must needs be at an end.
+
+Nothing was before him, save the foaming, dashing, measureless ocean.
+But, suddenly, as he looked towards the horizon, he saw something, a
+great way off, which he had not seen the moment before.  It gleamed very
+brightly, almost as you may have beheld the round, golden disk of the
+sun, when it rises or sets over the edge of the world.  It evidently
+drew nearer; for, at every instant, this wonderful object became larger
+and more lustrous.  At length, it had come so nigh that Hercules
+discovered it to be an immense cup or bowl, made either of gold or
+burnished brass.  How it had got afloat upon the sea, is more than I can
+tell you.  There it was, at all events, rolling on the tumultuous
+billows, which tossed it up and down, and heaved their foamy tops
+against its sides, but without ever throwing their spray over the brim.
+
+“I have seen many giants, in my time,” thought Hercules, “but never one
+that would need to drink his wine out of a cup like this!”
+
+And, true enough, what a cup it must have been!  It was as large--as
+large--but, in short, I am afraid to say how immeasurably large it was.
+To speak within bounds, it was ten times larger than a great mill-wheel;
+and, all of metal as it was, it floated over the heaving surges more
+lightly than an acorn-cup adown the brook.  The waves tumbled it onward,
+until it grazed against the shore, within a short distance of the spot
+where Hercules was standing.
+
+As soon as this happened, he knew what was to be done; for he had not
+gone through so many remarkable adventures without learning pretty well
+how to conduct himself, whenever anything came to pass a little out of
+the common rule.  It was just as clear as daylight that this marvellous
+cup had been set adrift by some unseen power, and guided hitherward, in
+order to carry Hercules across the sea, on his way to the garden of the
+Hesperides.  Accordingly, without a moment’s delay, he clambered over
+the brim, and slid down on the inside, where, spreading out his lion’s
+skin, he proceeded to take a little repose.  He had scarcely rested,
+until now, since he bade farewell to the damsels on the margin of the
+river.  The waves dashed, with a pleasant and ringing sound, against the
+circumference of the hollow cup; it rocked lightly to and fro, and the
+motion was so soothing that, it speedily rocked Hercules into an
+agreeable slumber.
+
+His nap had probably lasted a good while, when the cup chanced to graze
+against a rock, and, in consequence, immediately resounded and
+reverberated through its golden or brazen substance, a hundred times as
+loudly as ever you heard a church-bell.  The noise awoke Hercules, who
+instantly started up and gazed around him, wondering whereabouts he was.
+He was not long in discovering that the cup had floated across a great
+part of the sea, and was approaching the shore of what seemed to be an
+island.  And, on that island, what do you think he saw?
+
+No; you will never guess it, not if you were to try fifty thousand
+times!  It positively appears to me that this was the most marvellous
+spectacle that had ever been seen by Hercules, in the whole course of
+his wonderful travels and adventures.  It was a greater marvel than the
+hydra with nine heads, which kept growing twice as fast as they were cut
+off; greater than the six-legged man-monster; greater than Antreus;
+greater than anything that was ever beheld by anybody, before or since
+the days of Hercules, or than anything that remains to be beheld, by
+travellers in all time to come.  It was a giant!
+
+But such an intolerably big giant!  A giant as tall as a mountain; so
+vast a giant, that the clouds rested about his midst, like a girdle,
+and hung like a hoary beard from his chin, and flitted before his huge
+eyes, so that he could neither see Hercules nor the golden cup in which
+he was voyaging.  And, most wonderful of all, the giant held up his
+great hands and appeared to support the sky, which, so far as Hercules
+could discern through the clouds, was resting upon his head!  This does
+really seem almost too much to believe.
+
+Meanwhile, the bright cup continued to float onward, and finally touched
+the strand.  Just then a breeze wafted away the clouds from before the
+giant’s visage, and Hercules beheld it, with all its enormous features;
+eyes each of them as big as yonder lake, a nose a mile Long, and a mouth
+of the same width.  It was a countenance terrible from its enormity of
+size, but disconsolate and weary, even as you may see the faces of many
+people, nowadays, who are compelled to sustain burdens above their
+strength.  What the sky was to the giant, such are the cares of earth to
+those who let themselves be weighed down by them.  And whenever men
+undertake what is beyond the just measure of their abilities, they
+encounter precisely such a doom as had befallen this poor giant.
+
+Poor fellow!  He had evidently stood there a long while.  An ancient
+forest had been growing and decaying around his feet; and oak-trees, of
+six or seven centuries old, had sprung from the acorn, and forced
+themselves between his toes.
+
+The giant now looked down from the far height of his great eyes, and,
+perceiving Hercules, roared out, in a voice that resembled thunder,
+proceeding out of the cloud that had just flitted away from his face.
+
+“Who are you, down at my feet there?  And whence do you come, in that
+little cup?”
+
+“I am Hercules!”  thundered back the hero, in a voice pretty nearly or
+quite as loud as the giant’s own.  “And I am seeking for the garden of
+the Hesperides!”
+
+“Ho! ho! ho!” roared the giant, in a fit of immense laughter.  “That is
+a wise adventure, truly!”
+
+“And why not?”  cried Hercules, getting a little angry at the giant’s
+mirth.  “Do you think I am afraid of the dragon with a hundred heads!”
+
+Just at this time, while they were talking together, some black clouds
+gathered about the giant’s middle, and burst into a tremendous storm of
+thunder and lightning, causing such a pother that Hercules found it
+impossible to distinguish a word.  Only the giant’s immeasurable legs
+were to be seen, standing up into the obscurity of the tempest; and, now
+and then, a momentary glimpse of his whole figure, mantled in a volume
+of mist.  He seemed to be speaking, most of the time; but his big, deep,
+rough voice chimed in with the reverberations of the thunder-claps, and
+rolled away over the hills, like them.  Thus, by talking out of season,
+the foolish giant expended an incalculable quantity of breath, to no
+purpose; for the thunder spoke quite as intelligibly as he.
+
+At last, the storm swept over, as suddenly as it had come.  And there
+again was the clear sky, and the weary giant holding it up, and the
+pleasant sunshine beaming over his vast height, and illuminating it
+against the background of the sullen thunder-clouds.  So far above the
+shower had been his head, that not a hair of it was moistened by the
+rain-drops!
+
+When the giant could see Hercules still standing on the sea-shore, he
+roared out to him anew.
+
+“I am Atlas, the mightiest giant in the world!  And I hold the sky upon
+my head!”
+
+“So I see,” answered Hercules.  “But, can you show me the way to the
+garden of the Hesperides?”
+
+“What do you want there?”  asked the giant.
+
+“I want three of the golden apples,” shouted Hercules, “for my cousin,
+the king.”
+
+“There is nobody but myself,” quoth the giant, “that can go to the
+garden of the Hesperides, and gather the golden apples.  If it were not
+for this little business of holding up the sky, I would make half a
+dozen steps across the sea, and get them for you.”
+
+“You are very kind,” replied Hercules.  “And cannot you rest the sky
+upon a mountain?”
+
+“None of them are quite high enough,” said Atlas, shaking his head.
+“But, if you were to take your stand on the summit of that nearest one,
+your head would be pretty nearly on a level with mine.  You seem to be a
+fellow of some strength.  What if you should take my burden on your
+shoulders, while I do your errand for you?”
+
+Hercules, as you must be careful to remember, was a remarkably strong
+man; and though it certainly requires a great deal of muscular power to
+uphold the sky, yet, if any mortal could be supposed capable of such an
+exploit, he was the one.  Nevertheless, it seemed so difficult an
+undertaking, that, for the first time in his life, he hesitated.
+
+“Is the sky very heavy?” he inquired.
+
+“Why, not particularly so, at first,” answered the giant, shrugging his
+shoulders.  “But it gets to be a little burdensome, after a thousand
+years!”
+
+“And how long a time,” asked the hero, “will it take you to get the
+golden apples?”
+
+“O, that will be done in a few moments,” cried Atlas.  “I shall take ten
+or fifteen miles at a stride, and be at the garden and back again before
+your shoulders begin to ache.”
+
+“Well, then,” answered Hercules, “I will climb the mountain behind you
+there, and relieve you of your burden.”
+
+The truth is, Hercules had a kind heart of his own, and considered that
+he should be doing the giant a favor, by allowing him this opportunity
+for a ramble.  And, besides, he thought that it would be still more for
+his own glory, if he could boast of upholding the sky, than merely to do
+so ordinary a thing as to conquer a dragon with a hundred heads.
+Accordingly, without more words, the sky was shifted from the shoulders
+of Atlas, and placed upon those of Hercules.
+
+When this was safely accomplished, the first thing that the giant did
+was to stretch himself; and you may imagine what a prodigious spectacle
+be was then.  Next, he slowly lifted one of his feet out of the forest
+that had grown up around it; then, the other.  Then, all at once, he
+began to caper, and leap, and dance, for joy at his freedom; flinging
+himself nobody knows how high into the air, and floundering down again
+with a shock that made the earth tremble.  Then he laughed--Ho! ho!
+ho!--with a thunderous roar that was echoed from the mountains, far and
+near, as if they and the giant had been so many rejoicing brothers.
+When his joy had a little subsided, he stepped into the sea; ten miles
+at the first stride, which brought him mid-leg deep; and ten miles at
+the second, when the water came just above his knees; and ten miles more
+at the third, by which he was immersed nearly to his waist.  This was
+the greatest depth of the sea.
+
+Hercules watched the giant, as he still went onward; for it was really a
+wonderful sight, this immense human form, more than thirty miles off,
+half hidden in the ocean, but with his upper half as tall, and misty,
+and blue, as a distant mountain.  At last the gigantic shape faded
+entirely out of view.  And now Hercules began to consider what he should
+do, in case Atlas should be drowned in the sea, or if he were to be
+stung to death by the dragon with the hundred beads, which guarded the
+golden apples of the Hesperides.  If any such misfortune were to happen,
+how could he ever get rid of the sky?  And, by the by, its weight began
+already to be a little irksome to his head and shoulders.
+
+“I really pity the poor giant,” thought Hercules.  “If it wearies me so
+much in ten minutes, how must it have wearied him in a thousand years!”
+
+O my sweet little people, you have no idea what a weight there was in
+that same blue sky, which looks so soft and aerial above our heads!  And
+there, too, was the bluster of the wind, and the chill and watery
+clouds, and the blazing sun, all taking their turns to make Hercules
+uncomfortable!  He began to be afraid that the giant would never come
+back.  He gazed wistfully at the world beneath him, and acknowledged to
+himself that it was a far happier kind of life to be a shepherd at the
+foot of a mountain, than to stand on its dizzy summit, and bear up the
+firmament with his might and main.  For, of course, as you will easily
+understand, Hercules had an immense responsibility on his mind, as well
+as a weight on his head and shoulders.  Why, if he did not stand
+perfectly still, and keep the sky immovable, the sun would perhaps be
+put ajar!  Or, after nightfall, a great many of the stars might be
+loosened from their places, and shower down, like fiery rain, upon the
+people’s heads!  And how ashamed would the hero be, if, owing to his
+unsteadiness beneath its weight, the sky should crack, and show a great
+fissure quite across it!
+
+I know not how long it was before, to his unspeakable joy, he beheld the
+huge shape of the giant, like a cloud, on the far-off edge of the sea.
+At his nearer approach, Atlas held up his hand, in which Hercules could
+perceive three magnificent golden apples, as big as pumpkins, all
+banging from one branch.
+
+“I am glad to see you again,” shouted Hercules, when the giant was
+within hearing.  “So you have got the golden apples?”
+
+“Certainly, certainly,” answered Atlas; “and very fair apples they are.
+I took the finest that grew on the tree, I assure you.  Ah! it is a
+beautiful spot, that garden of the Hesperides.  Yes; and the dragon with
+a hundred heads is a sight worth any man’s seeing.  After all, you had
+better have gone for the apples yourself.”
+
+“No matter,” replied Hercules.  “You have had a pleasant ramble, and
+have done the business as well as I could.  I heartily thank you for
+your trouble.  And now, as I have a long way to go, and am rather in
+haste,--and as the king, my cousin, is anxious to receive the golden
+apples,--will you be kind enough to take the sky off my shoulders
+again?”
+
+“Why, as to that,” said the giant, chucking the golden apples into the
+air, twenty miles high, or thereabouts, and catching them as they came
+down,--“as to that, my good friend, I consider you a little
+unreasonable.  Cannot I carry the golden apples to the king, your
+cousin, much quicker than you could?  As his majesty is in such a hurry
+to get them, I promise you to take my longest strides.  And, besides, I
+have no fancy for burdening myself with the sky, just now.”
+
+Here Hercules grew impatient, and gave a great shrug of his shoulders.
+It being now twilight, you might have seen two or three stars tumble out
+of their places.  Everybody on earth looked upward in affright, thinking
+that the sky might be going to fall next.
+
+“O, that will never do!” cried Giant Atlas, with a great roar of
+laughter.  “I have not let fall so many stars within the last five
+centuries.  By the time you have stood there as long as I did, you will
+begin to learn patience!”
+
+“What!” shouted Hercules, very wrathfully, “do you intend to make me
+bear this burden forever?”
+
+“We will see about that, one of these days,” answered the giant.  “At
+all events, you ought not to complain, if you have to bear it the next
+hundred years, or perhaps the next thousand.  I bore it a good while
+longer, in spite of the back-ache.  Well, then, after a thousand years,
+if I happen to feel in the mood, we may possibly shift about again.  You
+are certainly a very strong man, and can never have a better opportunity
+to prove it.  Posterity will talk of you, I warrant it!”
+
+“Pish! a fig for its talk!” cried Hercules, with another hitch of his
+shoulders.  “Just take the sky upon your head one instant, will you?  I
+want to make a cushion of my lion’s skin, for the weight to rest upon.
+It really chafes me, and will cause unnecessary inconvenience in so many
+centuries as I am to stand here.”
+
+“That’s no more than fair, and I’ll do it!” quoth the giant; for he had
+no unkind feeling towards Hercules, and was merely acting with a too
+selfish consideration of his own ease.  “For just five minutes, then,
+I’ll take back the sky.  Only for five minutes, recollect!  I have no
+idea of spending another thousand years as I spent the last.  Variety is
+the spice of life, say I.”
+
+Ah, the thick-witted old rogue of a giant!  He threw down the golden
+apples, and received back the sky, from the head and shoulders of
+Hercules, upon his own, where it rightly belonged.  And Hercules picked
+up the three golden apples, that were as big or bigger than pumpkins,
+and straightway set out on his journey homeward, without paying the
+slightest heed to the thundering tones of the giant, who bellowed after
+him to come back.  Another forest sprang up around his feet, and grew
+ancient there; and again might be seen oak-trees, of six or seven
+centuries old, that had waxed thus again betwixt his enormous toes.
+
+And there stands the giant, to this day; or, at any rate, there stands a
+mountain as tall as he, and which bears his name; and when the thunder
+rumples about its summit, we may imagine it to be the voice of Giant
+Atlas, bellowing after Hercules!
+
+
+
+TANGLEWOOD FIRESIDE.
+
+AFTER THE STORY.
+
+“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.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg’s The Three Golden Apples, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
+
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+  <head>
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg E-text of The Three Golden Apples, by Nathaniel
+      Hawthorne
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
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+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+Project Gutenberg's The Three Golden Apples, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Three Golden Apples
+
+Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
+
+
+Release Date: November, 2005 [EBook #9257]
+First Posted: September 25, 2003
+Last Updated: December 15, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger and Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h4>
+      A WONDER-BOOK FOR GIRLS AND BOYS<br />
+    </h4>
+    <h3>
+      By Nathaniel Hawthorne<br />
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES<br />
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <p class="noindent">
+      CONTENTS: <br /><br /> <a href="#fireside">TANGLEWOOD FIRESIDE&mdash;Introductory
+      to &ldquo;The Three Golden Apples"</a><br /> <a href="#apples">THE THREE GOLDEN
+      APPLES</a><br /> <a href="#after">TANGLEWOOD FIRESIDE&mdash;After the Story</a><br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="fireside"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      INTRODUCTORY TO &ldquo;THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES&rdquo;
+     </h3>
+    <p>
+      The snow-storm lasted another day; but what became of it afterwards, I
+      cannot possibly imagine. At any rate, it entirely cleared away, during the
+      night; and when the sun arose, the next morning, it shone brightly down on
+      as bleak a tract of hill-country, here in Berkshire, as could be seen
+      anywhere in the world. The frost-work had so covered the windowpanes that
+      it was hardly possible to get a glimpse at the scenery outside. But, while
+      waiting for breakfast, the small populace of Tanglewood had scratched
+      peepholes with their finger-nails, and saw with vast delight that&mdash;unless
+      it were one or two bare patches on a precipitous hillside, or the gray
+      effect of the snow, intermingled with the black pine forest&mdash;all
+      nature was as white as a sheet. How exceedingly pleasant! And, to make it
+      all the better, it was cold enough to nip one&rsquo;s nose short off! If people
+      have but life enough in them to bear it, there is nothing that so raises
+      the spirits, and makes the blood ripple and dance so nimbly, like a brook
+      down the slope of a hill, as a bright, hard frost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No sooner was breakfast over, than the whole party, well muffled in furs
+      and woollens, floundered forth into the midst of the snow. Well, what a
+      day of frosty sport was this! They slid down hill into the valley, a
+      hundred times, nobody knows how far; and, to make it all the merrier,
+      upsetting their sledges, and tumbling head over heels, quite as often as
+      they came safely to the bottom. And, once, Eustace Bright took Periwinkle,
+      Sweet Fern, and Squash-blossom, on the sledge with him, by way of insuring
+      a safe passage; and down they went, full speed. But, behold, half-way
+      down, the sledge hit against a hidden stump, and flung all four of its
+      passengers into a heap; and, on gathering themselves up, there was no
+      little Squash-blossom to be found! Why, what could have become of the
+      child? And while they were wondering and staring about, up started
+      Squash-blossom out of a snow-bank, with the reddest face you ever saw, and
+      looking as if a large scarlet flower had suddenly sprouted up in
+      midwinter. Then there was a great laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they had grown tired of sliding down hill, Eustace set the children
+      to digging a cave in the biggest snow-drift that they could find.
+      Unluckily, just as it was completed, and the party had squeezed themselves
+      into the hollow, down came the roof upon their heads, and buried every
+      soul of them alive! The next moment, up popped all their little heads out
+      of the ruins, and the tall student&rsquo;s head in the midst of them, looking
+      hoary and venerable with the snow-dust that had got amongst his brown
+      curls. And then, to punish Cousin Eustace for advising them to dig such a
+      tumble-down cavern, the children attacked him in a body, and so bepelted
+      him with snowballs that he was fain to take to his heels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So he ran away, and went into the woods, and thence to the margin of
+      Shadow Brook, where he could hear the streamlet grumbling along, under
+      great overhanging banks of snow and ice, which would scarcely let it see
+      the light of day. There were adamantine icicles glittering around all its
+      little cascades. Thence be strolled to the shore of the lake, and beheld a
+      white, untrodden plain before him, stretching from his own feet to the
+      foot of Monument Mountain. And, it being now almost sunset, Eustace
+      thought that he had never beheld anything so fresh and beautiful as the
+      scene. He was glad that the children were not with him; for their lively
+      spirits and tumble-about activity would quite have chased away his higher
+      and graver mood, so that he would merely have been merry (as he had
+      already been, the whole day long), and would not have known the loveliness
+      of the winter sunset among the hills.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the sun was fairly down, our friend Eustace went home to eat his
+      supper. After the meal was over, he betook himself to the study, with a
+      purpose, I rather imagine, to write an ode, or two or three sonnets, or
+      verses of some kind or other, in praise of the purple and golden clouds
+      which he had seen around the setting sun. But, before he had hammered out
+      the very first rhyme, the door opened, and Primrose and Periwinkle made
+      their appearance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go away, children! I can&rsquo;t be troubled with you now!&rdquo; cried the student,
+      looking over his shoulder, with the pen between his fingers. &ldquo;What in the
+      world do you want here? I thought you were all in bed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hear him, Periwinkle, trying to talk like a grown man!&rdquo; said Primrose.
+      &ldquo;And he seems to forget that I am now thirteen years old, and may sit up
+      almost as late as I please. But, Cousin Eustace, you must put off your
+      airs, and come with us to the drawing-room. The children have talked so
+      much about your stories, that my father wishes to hear one of them, in
+      order to judge whether they are likely to do any mischief.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poh, poh, Primrose!&rdquo; exclaimed the student, rather vexed. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t
+      believe I can tell one of my stories in the presence of grown people.
+      Besides, your father is a classical scholar; not that I am much afraid of
+      his scholarship, neither, for I doubt not it is as rusty as an old
+      case-knife, by this time. But then he will be sure to quarrel with the
+      admirable nonsense that I put into these stories, out of my own head, and
+      which makes the great charm of the matter for children, like yourself. No
+      man of fifty, who has read the classical myths in his youth, can possibly
+      understand my merit as a re-inventor and improver of them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All this may be very true,&rdquo; said Primrose, &ldquo;but come you must! My father
+      will not open his book, nor will mamma open the piano, till you have given
+      us some of your nonsense, as you very correctly call it. So be a good boy,
+      and come along.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Whatever he might pretend, the student was rather glad than otherwise, on
+      second thoughts, to catch at the opportunity of proving to Mr. Pringle
+      what an excellent faculty he had in modernizing the myths of ancient
+      times. Until twenty years of age, a young man may, indeed, be rather
+      bashful about showing his poetry and his prose; but, for all that, he is
+      pretty apt to think that these very productions would place him at the
+      tip-top of literature, if once they could be known. Accordingly, without
+      much more resistance, Eustace suffered Primrose and Periwinkle to drag him
+      into the drawing-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a large handsome apartment, with a semicircular window at one end,
+      in the recess of which stood a marble copy of Greenough&rsquo;s Angel and Child.
+      On one side of the fireplace there were many shelves of books, gravely but
+      richly bound. The white light of the astrallamp, and the red glow of the
+      bright coal-fire, made the room brilliant and cheerful; and before the
+      fire, in a deep arm-chair, sat Mr. Pringle, looking just fit to be seated
+      in such a chair, and in such a room. He was a tall and quite a handsome
+      gentleman, with a bald brow; and was always so nicely dressed, that even
+      Eustace Bright never liked to enter his presence, without at least pausing
+      at the threshold to settle his shirt-collar. But now, as Primrose had hold
+      of one of his hands, and Periwinkle of the other, he was forced to make
+      his appearance with a rough-and-tumble sort of look, as if he had been
+      rolling all day in a snow-bank. And so he had.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Pringle turned towards the student, benignly enough, but in a way that
+      made him feel how uncombed and unbrushed he was, and how uncombed and
+      unbrushed, likewise, were his mind and thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eustace,&rdquo; said Mr. Pringle, with a smile, &ldquo;I find that you are producing
+      a great sensation among the little public of Tanglewood, by the exercise
+      of your gifts of narrative. Primrose here, as the little folks choose to
+      call her, and the rest of the children, have been so loud in praise of
+      your stories, that Mrs. Pringle and myself are really curious to hear a
+      specimen. It would be so much the more gratifying to myself, as the
+      stories appear to be an attempt to render the fables of classical
+      antiquity into the idiom of modern fancy and feeling. At least, so I judge
+      from a few of the incidents, which have come to me at second hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not exactly the auditor that I should have chosen, sir,&rdquo; observed
+      the student, &ldquo;for fantasies of this nature.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Possibly not,&rdquo; replied Mr. Pringle. &ldquo;I suspect, however, that a young
+      author&rsquo;s most useful critic is precisely the one whom he would be least
+      apt to choose. Pray oblige me, therefore.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sympathy, methinks, should have some little share in the critic&rsquo;s
+      qualifications,&rdquo; murmured Eustace Bright. &ldquo;However, sir, if you will find
+      patience, I will find stories. But be kind enough to remember that I am
+      addressing myself to the imagination and sympathies of the children, not
+      to your own.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Accordingly, the student snatched hold of the first theme which presented
+      itself. It was suggested by a plate of apples that he happened to spy on
+      the mantel-piece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="apples"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Did you ever hear of the golden apples, that grew in the garden of the
+      Hesperides? Ah, those were such apples as would bring a great price, by
+      the bushel, if any of them could be found growing in the orchards of
+      nowadays! But there is not, I suppose, a graft of that wonderful fruit on
+      a single tree in the wide world. Not so much as a seed of those apples
+      exists any longer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And, even in the old, old, half-forgotten times, before the garden of the
+      Hesperides was overrun with weeds, a great many people doubted whether
+      there could be real trees that bore apples of solid gold upon their
+      branches. All had heard of them, but nobody remembered to have seen any.
+      Children, nevertheless, used to listen, open-mouthed, to stories of the
+      golden apple-tree, and resolved to discover it, when they should be big
+      enough. Adventurous young men, who desired to do a braver thing than any
+      of their fellows, set out in quest of this fruit. Many of them returned no
+      more; none of them brought back the apples. No wonder that they found it
+      impossible to gather them! It is said that there was a dragon beneath the
+      tree, with a hundred terrible heads, fifty of which were always on the
+      watch, while the other fifty slept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In my opinion it was hardly worth running so much risk for the sake of a
+      solid golden apple. Had the apples been sweet, mellow, and juicy, indeed
+      that would be another matter. There might then have been some sense in
+      trying to get at them, in spite of the hundred-headed dragon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, as I have already told you, it was quite a common thing with young
+      persons, when tired of too much peace and rest, to go in search of the
+      garden of the Hesperides. And once the adventure was undertaken by a hero
+      who had enjoyed very little peace or rest since he came into the world. At
+      the time of which I am going to speak, he was wandering through the
+      pleasant land of Italy, with a mighty club in his hand, and a bow and
+      quiver slung across his shoulders. He was wrapt in the skin of the biggest
+      and fiercest lion that ever had been seen, and which he himself had
+      killed; and though, on the whole, he was kind, and generous, and noble,
+      there was a good deal of the lion&rsquo;s fierceness in his heart. As he went on
+      his way, he continually inquired whether that were the right road to the
+      famous garden. But none of the country people knew anything about the
+      matter, and many looked as if they would have laughed at the question, if
+      the stranger had not carried so very big a club.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So he journeyed on and on, still making the same inquiry, until, at last,
+      he came to the brink of a river where some beautiful young women sat
+      twining wreaths of flowers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you tell me, pretty maidens,&rdquo; asked the stranger, &ldquo;whether this is
+      the right way to the garden of the Hesperides?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young women had been having a fine time together, weaving the flowers
+      into wreaths, and crowning one another&rsquo;s heads. And there seemed to be a
+      kind of magic in the touch of their fingers, that made the flowers more
+      fresh and dewy, and of brighter lines, and sweeter fragrance, while they
+      played with them, than even when they had been growing on their native
+      stems. But, on hearing the stranger&rsquo;s question, they dropped all their
+      flowers on the grass, and gazed at him with astonishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The garden of the Hesperides!&rdquo; cried one. &ldquo;We thought mortals had been
+      weary of seeking it, after so many disappointments. And pray, adventurous
+      traveller, what do you want there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A certain king, who is my cousin,&rdquo; replied he, &ldquo;has ordered me to get him
+      three of the golden apples.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Most of the young men who go in quest of these apples,&rdquo; observed another
+      of the damsels, &ldquo;desire to obtain them for themselves, or to present them
+      to some fair maiden whom they love. Do you, then, love this king, your
+      cousin, so very much?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps not,&rdquo; replied the stranger, sighing. &ldquo;He has often been severe
+      and cruel to me. But it is my destiny to obey him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And do you know,&rdquo; asked the damsel who had first spoken, &ldquo;that a terrible
+      dragon, with a hundred heads, keeps watch under the golden apple-tree?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it well,&rdquo; answered the stranger, calmly. &ldquo;But, from my cradle
+      upwards, it has been my business, and almost my pastime, to deal with
+      serpents and dragons.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young women looked at his massive club, and at the shaggy lion&rsquo;s skin
+      which he wore, and likewise at his heroic limbs and figure; and they
+      whispered to each other that the stranger appeared to be one who might
+      reasonably expect to perform deeds far beyond the might of other men. But,
+      then, the dragon with a hundred heads! What mortal, even if he possessed a
+      hundred lives, could hope to escape the fangs of such a monster? So
+      kind-hearted were the maidens, that they could not bear to see this brave
+      and, handsome traveller attempt what was so very dangerous, and devote
+      himself, most probably, to become a meal for the dragon&rsquo;s hundred ravenous
+      mouths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go back,&rdquo; cried they all,&mdash;&ldquo;go back to your own home! Your mother,
+      beholding you safe and sound, will shed tears of joy; and what can she do
+      more, should you win ever so great a victory? No matter for the golden
+      apples! No matter for the king, your cruel cousin! We do not wish the
+      dragon with the hundred heads to eat you up!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger seemed to grow impatient at these remonstrances. He
+      carelessly lifted his mighty club, and let it fall upon a rock that lay
+      half buried in the earth, near by. With the force of that idle blow, the
+      great rock was shattered all to pieces. It cost the stranger no more
+      effort to achieve this feat of a giant&rsquo;s strength than for one of the
+      young maidens to touch her sister&rsquo;s rosy cheek with a flower.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you not believe,&rdquo; said he, looking at the damsels with a smile, &ldquo;that
+      such a blow would have crushed one of the dragon&rsquo;s hundred heads?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he sat down on the grass, and told them the story of his life, or as
+      much of it as he could remember, from the day when he was first cradled in
+      a warrior&rsquo;s brazen shield. While he lay there, two immense serpents came
+      gliding over the floor, and opened their hideous jaws to devour him; and
+      he, a baby of a few months old, had griped one of the fierce snakes in
+      each of his little fists, and strangled them to death. When he was but a
+      stripling, he had killed a huge lion, almost as big as the one whose vast
+      and shaggy hide he now wore upon his shoulders. The next thing that he had
+      done was to fight a battle with an ugly sort of monster, called a hydra,
+      which had no less than nine heads, and exceedingly sharp teeth in every
+      one of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the dragon of the Hesperides, you know,&rdquo; observed one of the damsels,
+      &ldquo;has a hundred heads!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nevertheless,&rdquo; replied the stranger, &ldquo;I would rather fight two such
+      dragons than a single hydra. For, as fast as I cut off a head, two others
+      grew in its place; and, besides, there was one of the heads that could not
+      possibly be killed, but kept biting as fiercely as ever, long after it was
+      cut off. So I was forced to bury it under a stone, where it is doubtless
+      alive, to this vary day. But the hydra&rsquo;s body, and its eight other heads,
+      will never do any further mischief.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The damsels, judging that the story was likely to last a good while, had
+      been preparing a repast of bread and grapes, that the stranger might
+      refresh himself in the intervals of his talk. They took pleasure in
+      helping him to this simple food; and, now and then, one of them would put
+      a sweet grape between her rosy lips, lest it should make him bashful to
+      eat alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The traveller proceeded to tell how he had chased a very swift stag, for a
+      twelve-month together, without ever stopping to take breath, and had at
+      last caught it by the antlers, and carried it home alive. And he had
+      fought with a very odd race of people, half horses and half men, and had
+      put them all to death, from a sense of duty, in order that their ugly
+      figures might never be seen any more. Besides all this, he took to himself
+      great credit for having cleaned out a stable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you call that a wonderful exploit?&rdquo; asked one of the young maidens,
+      with a smile. &ldquo;Any clown in the country has done as much!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Had it been an ordinary stable,&rdquo; replied the stranger, &ldquo;I should not have
+      mentioned it. But this was so gigantic a task that it would have taken me
+      all my life to perform it, if I had not luckily thought of turning the
+      channel of a river through the stable-door. That did the business in a
+      very short time!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Seeing how earnestly his fair auditors listened, he next told them how he
+      had shot some monstrous birds, and had caught a wild bull alive, and let
+      him go again, and had tamed a number of very wild horses, and had
+      conquered Hippolyta, the warlike queen of the Amazons. He mentioned,
+      likewise, that he had taken off Hippolyta&rsquo;s enchanted girdle, and had
+      given it to the daughter of his cousin, the king.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was it the girdle of Venus,&rdquo; inquired the prettiest of the damsels,
+      &ldquo;which makes women beautiful?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; answered the stranger. &ldquo;It had formerly been the sword-belt of Mars;
+      and it can only make the wearer valiant and courageous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An old sword-belt!&rdquo; cried the damsel, tossing her head. &ldquo;Then I should
+      not care about having it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are right,&rdquo; said the stranger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Going on with his wonderful narrative, he informed the maidens that as
+      strange an adventure as ever happened was when he fought with Geryon, the
+      six-legged man. This was a very odd and frightful sort of figure, as you
+      may well believe. Any person, looking at his tracks in the sand or snow,
+      would suppose that three sociable companions had been walking along
+      together. On hearing his footsteps at, a little distance, it was no more
+      than reasonable to judge that several people must be coming. But it was
+      only the strange man Geryon clattering onward, with his six legs!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Six legs, and one gigantic body! Certainly, he must have been a very queer
+      monster to look at; and, my stars, what a waste of shoe-leather!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the stranger had finished the story of his adventures, he looked
+      around at the attentive faces of the maidens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you may have heard of me before,&rdquo; said he, modestly. &ldquo;My name is
+      Hercules!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We had already guessed it,&rdquo; replied the maidens; &ldquo;for your wonderful
+      deeds are known all over the world. We do not think it strange, any
+      longer, that you should set out in quest of the golden apples of the
+      Hesperides. Come, sisters, let us crown the hero with flowers!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then they flung beautiful wreaths over his stately head and mighty
+      shoulders, so that the lion&rsquo;s skin was almost entirely covered with roses.
+      They took possession of his ponderous club, and so entwined it about with
+      the brightest, softest, and most fragrant blossoms, that not a finger&rsquo;s
+      breadth of its oaken substance could be seen. It looked all like a huge
+      bunch of flowers. Lastly, they joined hands, and danced around him,
+      chanting words which became poetry of their own accord, and grew into a
+      choral song, in honor of the illustrious Hercules.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Hercules was rejoiced, as any other hero would have been, to know that
+      these fair young girls had heard of the valiant deeds which it had cost
+      him so much toil and danger to achieve. But, still, he was not satisfied.
+      He could not think that what he had already done was worthy of so much
+      honor, while there remained any bold or difficult adventure to be
+      undertaken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear maidens,&rdquo; said he, when they paused to take breath, &ldquo;now that you
+      know my name, will you not tell me how I am to reach the garden of the
+      Hesperides?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! must you go so soon?&rdquo; they exclaimed. &ldquo;You&mdash;that have performed
+      so many wonders, and spent such a toilsome life&mdash;cannot you content
+      yourself to repose a little while on the margin of this peaceful river?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hercules shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must depart now,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will then give you the best directions we can,&rdquo; replied the damsels.
+      &ldquo;You must go to the sea-shore, and find out the Old One, and compel him to
+      inform you where the golden apples are to be found.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Old One!&rdquo; repeated Hercules, laughing at this odd name. &ldquo;And, pray,
+      who may the Old One be?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, the Old Man of the Sea, to be sure!&rdquo; answered one of the damsels.
+      &ldquo;He has fifty daughters, whom some people call very beautiful; but we do
+      not think it proper to be acquainted with them, because they have
+      sea-green hair, and taper away like fishes. You must talk with this Old
+      Man of the Sea. He is a sea-faring person, and knows all about the garden
+      of the Hesperides; for it is situated in an island which he is often in
+      the habit of visiting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hercules then asked whereabouts the Old One was most likely to be met
+      with. When the damsels had informed him, he thanked them for all their
+      kindness,&mdash;for the bread and grapes with which they had fed him, the
+      lovely flowers with which they had crowned him, and the songs and dances
+      wherewith they had done him honor,&mdash;and he thanked them, most of all,
+      for telling him the right way,&mdash;and immediately set forth upon his
+      Journey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, before he was out of hearing, one of the maidens called after him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Keep fast hold of the Old-One, when you catch him!&rdquo; cried she, smiling,
+      and lifting her finger to make the caution more impressive. &ldquo;Do not be
+      astonished at anything that may happen. Only hold him fast, and he will
+      tell you what you wish to know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hercules again thanked her, and pursued his way, while the maidens resumed
+      their pleasant labor of making flower-wreaths. They talked about the hero,
+      long after he was gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will crown him with the loveliest of our garlands,&rdquo; said they, &ldquo;when
+      he returns hither with the three golden apples, after slaying the dragon
+      with a hundred heads.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, Hercules travelled constantly onward, over hill and dale, and
+      through the solitary woods. Sometimes he swung his club aloft, and
+      splintered a mighty oak with a downright blow. His mind was so full of the
+      giants and monsters with whom it was the business of his life to fight,
+      that perhaps he mistook the great tree for a giant or a monster. And so
+      eager was Hercules to achieve what he had undertaken, that he almost
+      regretted to have spent so much time with the damsels, wasting idle breath
+      upon the story of his adventures. But thus it always is with persons who
+      are destined to perform great things. What they have already done seems
+      less than nothing. What they have taken in hand to do seems worth toil,
+      danger, and life itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Persons who happened to be passing through the forest must have been
+      affrighted to see him smite the trees with his great club. With but a
+      single blow, the trunk was riven as by the stroke of lightning, and the
+      broad boughs came rustling and crashing down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hastening forward, without ever pausing or looking behind, he by and by
+      heard the sea roaring at a distance. At this sound, he increased his
+      speed, and soon came to a beach, where the great surf-waves tumbled
+      themselves upon the hard sand, in a long line of snowy foam. At one end of
+      the beach, however, there was a pleasant spot, where some green shrubbery
+      clambered up a cliff, making its rocky face look soft and beautiful. A
+      carpet of verdant grass, largely intermixed with sweet-smelling clover,
+      covered the narrow space between the bottom of the cliff and the sea. And
+      what should Hercules espy there, but an old man, fast asleep!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But was it really and truly an old man? Certainly, at first sight, it
+      looked very like one; but, on closer inspection, it rather seemed to be
+      some kind of a creature that lived in the sea. For, on his legs and arms
+      there were scales, such as fishes have; he was web-footed and
+      web-fingered, after the fashion of a duck; and his long beard, being of a
+      greenish tinge, had more the appearance of a tuft of sea-weed than of an
+      ordinary beard. Have you never seen a stick of timber, that has been long
+      tossed about by the waves, and has got all overgrown with barnacles, and,
+      at last drifting ashore, seems to have been thrown up from the very
+      deepest bottom of the sea? Well, the old man would have put you in mind of
+      just such a wave-tost spar! But Hercules, the instant he set eyes on this
+      strange figure, was convinced that it could be no other than the Old One,
+      who was to direct him on his way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes; it was the selfsame Old Man of the Sea, whom the hospitable maidens
+      had talked to him about. Thanking his stars for the lucky accident of
+      finding the old fellow asleep, Hercules stole on tiptoe towards him, and
+      caught him by the arm and leg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me,&rdquo; cried he, before the Old One was well awake, &ldquo;which is the way
+      to the garden of the Hesperides?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As you may easily imagine, the Old Man of the Sea awoke in a fright. But
+      his astonishment could hardly have been greater than was that of Hercules,
+      the next moment. For, all of a sudden, the Old One seemed to disappear out
+      of his grasp, and he found himself holding a stag by the fore and hind
+      leg! But still he kept fast hold. Then the stag disappeared, and in its
+      stead there was a sea-bird, fluttering and screaming, while Hercules
+      clutched it by the wing and claw! But the bird could not get away.
+      Immediately afterwards, there was an ugly three-headed dog, which growled
+      and barked at Hercules, and snapped fiercely at the hands by which he held
+      him! But Hercules would not let him go. In another minute, instead of the
+      three-headed dog, what should appear but Geryon, the six-legged
+      man-monster, kicking at Hercules with five of his legs, in order to get
+      the remaining one at liberty! But Hercules held on. By and by, no Geryou
+      was there, but a huge snake, like one of those which Hercules had
+      strangled in his babyhood, only a hundred times as big, and it twisted and
+      twined about the hero&rsquo;s neck and body, and threw its tail high into the
+      air, and opened its deadly jaws as if to devour him outright; so that it
+      was really a very terrible spectacle! But Hercules was no whit
+      disheartened, and squeezed the great snake so tightly that he soon began
+      to hiss with pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You must understand that the Old Man of the Sea, though he generally
+      looked so much like the wave-beaten figure-head of a vessel, had the power
+      of assuming any shape he pleased. When he found himself so roughly seized
+      by Hercules, he had been in hopes of putting him into such surprise and
+      terror, by these magical transformations, that the hero would be glad to
+      let him go. If Hercules had relaxed his grasp, the Old One would certainly
+      have plunged down to the very bottom of the sea, whence he would not soon
+      have given himself the trouble of coming up, in order to answer any
+      impertinent questions. Ninety-nine people out of a hundred, I suppose,
+      would have been frightened out of their wits by the very first of his ugly
+      shapes, and would have taken to their heels at once. For, one of the
+      hardest things in this world is, to see the difference between real
+      dangers and imaginary ones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, as Hercules held on so stubbornly, and only squeezed the Old One so
+      much the tighter at every change of shape, and really put him to no small
+      torture, he finally thought it best to reappear in his own figure. So
+      there he was again, a fishy, scaly, webfooted sort of personage, with
+      something like a tuft of sea-weed at his chin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pray, what do you want with me?&rdquo; cried the Old One, as soon as he could
+      take breath; for it is quite a tiresome affair to go through so many false
+      shapes. &ldquo;Why do you squeeze me so hard? Let me go, this moment, or I shall
+      begin to consider you an extremely uncivil person!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My name is Hercules!&rdquo; roared the mighty stranger. &ldquo;And you will never get
+      out of my clutch, until you tell me the nearest way to the garden of the
+      Hesperides!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When the old fellow heard who it was that had caught him, he saw, with
+      half an eye, that it would be necessary to tell him everything that he
+      wanted to know. The Old One was an inhabitant of the sea, you must
+      recollect, and roamed about everywhere, like other sea-faring people. Of
+      course, he had often heard of the fame of Hercules, and of the wonderful
+      things that he was constantly performing, in various parts of the earth,
+      and how determined he always was to accomplish whatever he undertook. He
+      therefore made no more attempts to escape, but told the hero how to find
+      the garden of the Hesperides, and likewise warned him of many difficulties
+      which must be overcome, before he could arrive thither.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must go on, thus and thus,&rdquo; said the Old Man of the Sea, after taking
+      the points of the compass, &ldquo;till you come in sight of a very tall giant,
+      who holds the sky on his shoulders. And the giant, if he happens to be in
+      the humor, will tell you exactly where the garden of the Hesperides lies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if the giant happens not to be in the humor,&rdquo; remarked Hercules,
+      balancing his club on the tip of his finger, &ldquo;perhaps I shall find means
+      to persuade him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thanking the Old Man of the Sea, and begging his pardon for having
+      squeezed him so roughly, the hero resumed his journey. He met with a great
+      many strange adventures, which would be well worth your hearing, if I had
+      leisure to narrate them as minutely as they deserve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in this journey, if I mistake not, that he encountered a prodigious
+      giant, who was so wonderfully contrived by nature, that, every time he
+      touched the earth, he became ten times as strong as ever he had been
+      before. His name was Antreus. You may see, plainly enough, that it was a
+      very difficult business to fight with such a fellow; for, as often as he
+      got a knock-down blow, up he started again, stronger, fiercer, and abler
+      to use his weapons, than if his enemy had let him alone, Thus, the harder
+      Hercules pounded the giant with his club, the further be seemed from
+      winning the victory. I have sometimes argued with such people, but never
+      fought with one. The only way in which Hercules found it possible to
+      finish the battle, was by lifting Antaeus off his feet into the air, and
+      squeezing, and squeezing, and squeezing him, until, finally, the strength
+      was quite squeezed out of his enormous body.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When this affair was finished, Hercules continued his travels, and went to
+      the land of Egypt, where he was taken prisoner, and would have been put to
+      death, if he had not slain the king of the country, and made his escape.
+      Passing through the deserts of Africa, and going as fast as he could, he
+      arrived at last on the shore of the great ocean. And here, unless he could
+      walk on the crests of the billows, it seemed as if his journey must needs
+      be at an end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing was before him, save the foaming, dashing, measureless ocean. But,
+      suddenly, as he looked towards the horizon, he saw something, a great way
+      off, which he had not seen the moment before. It gleamed very brightly,
+      almost as you may have beheld the round, golden disk of the sun, when it
+      rises or sets over the edge of the world. It evidently drew nearer; for,
+      at every instant, this wonderful object became larger and more lustrous.
+      At length, it had come so nigh that Hercules discovered it to be an
+      immense cup or bowl, made either of gold or burnished brass. How it had
+      got afloat upon the sea, is more than I can tell you. There it was, at all
+      events, rolling on the tumultuous billows, which tossed it up and down,
+      and heaved their foamy tops against its sides, but without ever throwing
+      their spray over the brim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have seen many giants, in my time,&rdquo; thought Hercules, &ldquo;but never one
+      that would need to drink his wine out of a cup like this!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And, true enough, what a cup it must have been! It was as large&mdash;as
+      large&mdash;but, in short, I am afraid to say how immeasurably large it
+      was. To speak within bounds, it was ten times larger than a great
+      mill-wheel; and, all of metal as it was, it floated over the heaving
+      surges more lightly than an acorn-cup adown the brook. The waves tumbled
+      it onward, until it grazed against the shore, within a short distance of
+      the spot where Hercules was standing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as this happened, he knew what was to be done; for he had not gone
+      through so many remarkable adventures without learning pretty well how to
+      conduct himself, whenever anything came to pass a little out of the common
+      rule. It was just as clear as daylight that this marvellous cup had been
+      set adrift by some unseen power, and guided hitherward, in order to carry
+      Hercules across the sea, on his way to the garden of the Hesperides.
+      Accordingly, without a moment&rsquo;s delay, he clambered over the brim, and
+      slid down on the inside, where, spreading out his lion&rsquo;s skin, he
+      proceeded to take a little repose. He had scarcely rested, until now,
+      since he bade farewell to the damsels on the margin of the river. The
+      waves dashed, with a pleasant and ringing sound, against the circumference
+      of the hollow cup; it rocked lightly to and fro, and the motion was so
+      soothing that, it speedily rocked Hercules into an agreeable slumber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His nap had probably lasted a good while, when the cup chanced to graze
+      against a rock, and, in consequence, immediately resounded and
+      reverberated through its golden or brazen substance, a hundred times as
+      loudly as ever you heard a church-bell. The noise awoke Hercules, who
+      instantly started up and gazed around him, wondering whereabouts he was.
+      He was not long in discovering that the cup had floated across a great
+      part of the sea, and was approaching the shore of what seemed to be an
+      island. And, on that island, what do you think he saw?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No; you will never guess it, not if you were to try fifty thousand times!
+      It positively appears to me that this was the most marvellous spectacle
+      that had ever been seen by Hercules, in the whole course of his wonderful
+      travels and adventures. It was a greater marvel than the hydra with nine
+      heads, which kept growing twice as fast as they were cut off; greater than
+      the six-legged man-monster; greater than Antreus; greater than anything
+      that was ever beheld by anybody, before or since the days of Hercules, or
+      than anything that remains to be beheld, by travellers in all time to
+      come. It was a giant!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But such an intolerably big giant! A giant as tall as a mountain; so vast
+      a giant, that the clouds rested about his midst, like a girdle, and hung
+      like a hoary beard from his chin, and flitted before his huge eyes, so
+      that he could neither see Hercules nor the golden cup in which he was
+      voyaging. And, most wonderful of all, the giant held up his great hands
+      and appeared to support the sky, which, so far as Hercules could discern
+      through the clouds, was resting upon his head! This does really seem
+      almost too much to believe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, the bright cup continued to float onward, and finally touched
+      the strand. Just then a breeze wafted away the clouds from before the
+      giant&rsquo;s visage, and Hercules beheld it, with all its enormous features;
+      eyes each of them as big as yonder lake, a nose a mile Long, and a mouth
+      of the same width. It was a countenance terrible from its enormity of
+      size, but disconsolate and weary, even as you may see the faces of many
+      people, nowadays, who are compelled to sustain burdens above their
+      strength. What the sky was to the giant, such are the cares of earth to
+      those who let themselves be weighed down by them. And whenever men
+      undertake what is beyond the just measure of their abilities, they
+      encounter precisely such a doom as had befallen this poor giant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor fellow! He had evidently stood there a long while. An ancient forest
+      had been growing and decaying around his feet; and oak-trees, of six or
+      seven centuries old, had sprung from the acorn, and forced themselves
+      between his toes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The giant now looked down from the far height of his great eyes, and,
+      perceiving Hercules, roared out, in a voice that resembled thunder,
+      proceeding out of the cloud that had just flitted away from his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who are you, down at my feet there? And whence do you come, in that
+      little cup?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am Hercules!&rdquo; thundered back the hero, in a voice pretty nearly or
+      quite as loud as the giant&rsquo;s own. &ldquo;And I am seeking for the garden of the
+      Hesperides!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ho! ho! ho!&rdquo; roared the giant, in a fit of immense laughter. &ldquo;That is a
+      wise adventure, truly!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And why not?&rdquo; cried Hercules, getting a little angry at the giant&rsquo;s
+      mirth. &ldquo;Do you think I am afraid of the dragon with a hundred heads!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Just at this time, while they were talking together, some black clouds
+      gathered about the giant&rsquo;s middle, and burst into a tremendous storm of
+      thunder and lightning, causing such a pother that Hercules found it
+      impossible to distinguish a word. Only the giant&rsquo;s immeasurable legs were
+      to be seen, standing up into the obscurity of the tempest; and, now and
+      then, a momentary glimpse of his whole figure, mantled in a volume of
+      mist. He seemed to be speaking, most of the time; but his big, deep, rough
+      voice chimed in with the reverberations of the thunder-claps, and rolled
+      away over the hills, like them. Thus, by talking out of season, the
+      foolish giant expended an incalculable quantity of breath, to no purpose;
+      for the thunder spoke quite as intelligibly as he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, the storm swept over, as suddenly as it had come. And there again
+      was the clear sky, and the weary giant holding it up, and the pleasant
+      sunshine beaming over his vast height, and illuminating it against the
+      background of the sullen thunder-clouds. So far above the shower had been
+      his head, that not a hair of it was moistened by the rain-drops!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the giant could see Hercules still standing on the sea-shore, he
+      roared out to him anew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am Atlas, the mightiest giant in the world! And I hold the sky upon my
+      head!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So I see,&rdquo; answered Hercules. &ldquo;But, can you show me the way to the garden
+      of the Hesperides?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you want there?&rdquo; asked the giant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want three of the golden apples,&rdquo; shouted Hercules, &ldquo;for my cousin, the
+      king.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is nobody but myself,&rdquo; quoth the giant, &ldquo;that can go to the garden
+      of the Hesperides, and gather the golden apples. If it were not for this
+      little business of holding up the sky, I would make half a dozen steps
+      across the sea, and get them for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very kind,&rdquo; replied Hercules. &ldquo;And cannot you rest the sky upon a
+      mountain?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None of them are quite high enough,&rdquo; said Atlas, shaking his head. &ldquo;But,
+      if you were to take your stand on the summit of that nearest one, your
+      head would be pretty nearly on a level with mine. You seem to be a fellow
+      of some strength. What if you should take my burden on your shoulders,
+      while I do your errand for you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hercules, as you must be careful to remember, was a remarkably strong man;
+      and though it certainly requires a great deal of muscular power to uphold
+      the sky, yet, if any mortal could be supposed capable of such an exploit,
+      he was the one. Nevertheless, it seemed so difficult an undertaking, that,
+      for the first time in his life, he hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is the sky very heavy?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, not particularly so, at first,&rdquo; answered the giant, shrugging his
+      shoulders. &ldquo;But it gets to be a little burdensome, after a thousand
+      years!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how long a time,&rdquo; asked the hero, &ldquo;will it take you to get the golden
+      apples?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, that will be done in a few moments,&rdquo; cried Atlas. &ldquo;I shall take ten or
+      fifteen miles at a stride, and be at the garden and back again before your
+      shoulders begin to ache.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then,&rdquo; answered Hercules, &ldquo;I will climb the mountain behind you
+      there, and relieve you of your burden.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The truth is, Hercules had a kind heart of his own, and considered that he
+      should be doing the giant a favor, by allowing him this opportunity for a
+      ramble. And, besides, he thought that it would be still more for his own
+      glory, if he could boast of upholding the sky, than merely to do so
+      ordinary a thing as to conquer a dragon with a hundred heads. Accordingly,
+      without more words, the sky was shifted from the shoulders of Atlas, and
+      placed upon those of Hercules.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When this was safely accomplished, the first thing that the giant did was
+      to stretch himself; and you may imagine what a prodigious spectacle be was
+      then. Next, he slowly lifted one of his feet out of the forest that had
+      grown up around it; then, the other. Then, all at once, he began to caper,
+      and leap, and dance, for joy at his freedom; flinging himself nobody knows
+      how high into the air, and floundering down again with a shock that made
+      the earth tremble. Then he laughed&mdash;Ho! ho! ho!&mdash;with a
+      thunderous roar that was echoed from the mountains, far and near, as if
+      they and the giant had been so many rejoicing brothers. When his joy had a
+      little subsided, he stepped into the sea; ten miles at the first stride,
+      which brought him mid-leg deep; and ten miles at the second, when the
+      water came just above his knees; and ten miles more at the third, by which
+      he was immersed nearly to his waist. This was the greatest depth of the
+      sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hercules watched the giant, as he still went onward; for it was really a
+      wonderful sight, this immense human form, more than thirty miles off, half
+      hidden in the ocean, but with his upper half as tall, and misty, and blue,
+      as a distant mountain. At last the gigantic shape faded entirely out of
+      view. And now Hercules began to consider what he should do, in case Atlas
+      should be drowned in the sea, or if he were to be stung to death by the
+      dragon with the hundred beads, which guarded the golden apples of the
+      Hesperides. If any such misfortune were to happen, how could he ever get
+      rid of the sky? And, by the by, its weight began already to be a little
+      irksome to his head and shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I really pity the poor giant,&rdquo; thought Hercules. &ldquo;If it wearies me so
+      much in ten minutes, how must it have wearied him in a thousand years!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      O my sweet little people, you have no idea what a weight there was in that
+      same blue sky, which looks so soft and aerial above our heads! And there,
+      too, was the bluster of the wind, and the chill and watery clouds, and the
+      blazing sun, all taking their turns to make Hercules uncomfortable! He
+      began to be afraid that the giant would never come back. He gazed
+      wistfully at the world beneath him, and acknowledged to himself that it
+      was a far happier kind of life to be a shepherd at the foot of a mountain,
+      than to stand on its dizzy summit, and bear up the firmament with his
+      might and main. For, of course, as you will easily understand, Hercules
+      had an immense responsibility on his mind, as well as a weight on his head
+      and shoulders. Why, if he did not stand perfectly still, and keep the sky
+      immovable, the sun would perhaps be put ajar! Or, after nightfall, a great
+      many of the stars might be loosened from their places, and shower down,
+      like fiery rain, upon the people&rsquo;s heads! And how ashamed would the hero
+      be, if, owing to his unsteadiness beneath its weight, the sky should
+      crack, and show a great fissure quite across it!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I know not how long it was before, to his unspeakable joy, he beheld the
+      huge shape of the giant, like a cloud, on the far-off edge of the sea. At
+      his nearer approach, Atlas held up his hand, in which Hercules could
+      perceive three magnificent golden apples, as big as pumpkins, all banging
+      from one branch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad to see you again,&rdquo; shouted Hercules, when the giant was within
+      hearing. &ldquo;So you have got the golden apples?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, certainly,&rdquo; answered Atlas; &ldquo;and very fair apples they are. I
+      took the finest that grew on the tree, I assure you. Ah! it is a beautiful
+      spot, that garden of the Hesperides. Yes; and the dragon with a hundred
+      heads is a sight worth any man&rsquo;s seeing. After all, you had better have
+      gone for the apples yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No matter,&rdquo; replied Hercules. &ldquo;You have had a pleasant ramble, and have
+      done the business as well as I could. I heartily thank you for your
+      trouble. And now, as I have a long way to go, and am rather in haste,&mdash;and
+      as the king, my cousin, is anxious to receive the golden apples,&mdash;will
+      you be kind enough to take the sky off my shoulders again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, as to that,&rdquo; said the giant, chucking the golden apples into the
+      air, twenty miles high, or thereabouts, and catching them as they came
+      down,&mdash;&ldquo;as to that, my good friend, I consider you a little
+      unreasonable. Cannot I carry the golden apples to the king, your cousin,
+      much quicker than you could? As his majesty is in such a hurry to get
+      them, I promise you to take my longest strides. And, besides, I have no
+      fancy for burdening myself with the sky, just now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Hercules grew impatient, and gave a great shrug of his shoulders. It
+      being now twilight, you might have seen two or three stars tumble out of
+      their places. Everybody on earth looked upward in affright, thinking that
+      the sky might be going to fall next.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O, that will never do!&rdquo; cried Giant Atlas, with a great roar of laughter.
+      &ldquo;I have not let fall so many stars within the last five centuries. By the
+      time you have stood there as long as I did, you will begin to learn
+      patience!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What!&rdquo; shouted Hercules, very wrathfully, &ldquo;do you intend to make me bear
+      this burden forever?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will see about that, one of these days,&rdquo; answered the giant. &ldquo;At all
+      events, you ought not to complain, if you have to bear it the next hundred
+      years, or perhaps the next thousand. I bore it a good while longer, in
+      spite of the back-ache. Well, then, after a thousand years, if I happen to
+      feel in the mood, we may possibly shift about again. You are certainly a
+      very strong man, and can never have a better opportunity to prove it.
+      Posterity will talk of you, I warrant it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pish! a fig for its talk!&rdquo; cried Hercules, with another hitch of his
+      shoulders. &ldquo;Just take the sky upon your head one instant, will you? I want
+      to make a cushion of my lion&rsquo;s skin, for the weight to rest upon. It
+      really chafes me, and will cause unnecessary inconvenience in so many
+      centuries as I am to stand here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s no more than fair, and I&rsquo;ll do it!&rdquo; quoth the giant; for he had no
+      unkind feeling towards Hercules, and was merely acting with a too selfish
+      consideration of his own ease. &ldquo;For just five minutes, then, I&rsquo;ll take
+      back the sky. Only for five minutes, recollect! I have no idea of spending
+      another thousand years as I spent the last. Variety is the spice of life,
+      say I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah, the thick-witted old rogue of a giant! He threw down the golden
+      apples, and received back the sky, from the head and shoulders of
+      Hercules, upon his own, where it rightly belonged. And Hercules picked up
+      the three golden apples, that were as big or bigger than pumpkins, and
+      straightway set out on his journey homeward, without paying the slightest
+      heed to the thundering tones of the giant, who bellowed after him to come
+      back. Another forest sprang up around his feet, and grew ancient there;
+      and again might be seen oak-trees, of six or seven centuries old, that had
+      waxed thus again betwixt his enormous toes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And there stands the giant, to this day; or, at any rate, there stands a
+      mountain as tall as he, and which bears his name; and when the thunder
+      rumples about its summit, we may imagine it to be the voice of Giant
+      Atlas, bellowing after Hercules!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /> <a name="after"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      TANGLEWOOD FIRESIDE.
+    </h3>
+    <h4>
+      AFTER THE STORY.
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cousin Eustace,&rdquo; demanded Sweet Fern, who had been sitting at the
+      story-teller&rsquo;s feet, with his mouth wide open, &ldquo;exactly how tall was this
+      giant?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O Sweet Fern, Sweet Fern!&rdquo; cried the student, &ldquo;do you think I was there,
+      to measure him with a yardstick? Well, if you must know to a
+      hair&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear me!&rdquo; ejaculated the good little boy, with a contented sort of a
+      grunt, &ldquo;that was a giant, sure enough! And how long was his little
+      finger?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As long as from Tanglewood to the lake,&rdquo; said Eustace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure enough, that was a giant!&rdquo; repeated Sweet Fern, in an ecstasy at the
+      precision of these measurements. &ldquo;And how broad, I wonder, were the
+      shoulders of Hercules?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is what I have never been able to find out,&rdquo; answered the student.
+      &ldquo;But I think they must have been a great deal broader than mine, or than
+      your father&rsquo;s, or than almost any shoulders which one sees nowadays.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish,&rdquo; whispered Sweet Fern, with his mouth close to the student&rsquo;s ear,
+      &ldquo;that you would tell me how big were some of the oak-trees that grew
+      between the giant&rsquo;s toes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They were bigger,&rdquo; said Eustace, &ldquo;than the great chestnut-tree which
+      stands beyond Captain Smith&rsquo;s house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eustace,&rdquo; remarked Mr. Pringle, after some deliberation, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I described the giant as he appeared to me,&rdquo; replied the student, rather
+      piqued. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Pringle could not forbear a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And besides,&rdquo; continued Eustace, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which you, doubtless, were born to remedy,&rdquo; said Mr. Pringle, laughing
+      outright. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, sir, you propose it as an impossibility,&rdquo; observed the student, after
+      a moment&rsquo;s meditation; &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
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+</pre>
+  </body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg's The Three Golden Apples, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Three Golden Apples
+
+Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
+
+Posting Date: December 21, 2010 [EBook #9257]
+Release Date: November, 2005
+First Posted: September 25, 2003
+Last Updated: February 6, 2007
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger.  HTML version by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                 A WONDER-BOOK FOR GIRLS AND BOYS
+
+                     By Nathaniel Hawthorne
+
+
+                     THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS:
+
+  TANGLEWOOD FIRESIDE--Introductory to "The Three Golden Apples"
+  THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES
+  TANGLEWOOD FIRESIDE--After the Story
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY TO "THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES"
+
+The snow-storm lasted another day; but what became of it afterwards, I
+cannot possibly imagine.  At any rate, it entirely cleared away, during
+the night; and when the sun arose, the next morning, it shone brightly
+down on as bleak a tract of hill-country, here in Berkshire, as could be
+seen anywhere in the world.  The frost-work had so covered the
+windowpanes that it was hardly possible to get a glimpse at the scenery
+outside.  But, while waiting for breakfast, the small populace of
+Tanglewood had scratched peepholes with their finger-nails, and saw with
+vast delight that--unless it were one or two bare patches on a
+precipitous hillside, or the gray effect of the snow, intermingled with
+the black pine forest--all nature was as white as a sheet.  How
+exceedingly pleasant!  And, to make it all the better, it was cold
+enough to nip one's nose short off!  If people have but life enough in
+them to bear it, there is nothing that so raises the spirits, and makes
+the blood ripple and dance so nimbly, like a brook down the slope of a
+hill, as a bright, hard frost.
+
+No sooner was breakfast over, than the whole party, well muffled in furs
+and woollens, floundered forth into the midst of the snow.  Well, what a
+day of frosty sport was this!  They slid down hill into the valley, a
+hundred times, nobody knows how far; and, to make it all the merrier,
+upsetting their sledges, and tumbling head over heels, quite as often as
+they came safely to the bottom.  And, once, Eustace Bright took
+Periwinkle, Sweet Fern, and Squash-blossom, on the sledge with him, by
+way of insuring a safe passage; and down they went, full speed.  But,
+behold, half-way down, the sledge hit against a hidden stump, and flung
+all four of its passengers into a heap; and, on gathering themselves up,
+there was no little Squash-blossom to be found!  Why, what could have
+become of the child?  And while they were wondering and staring about,
+up started Squash-blossom out of a snow-bank, with the reddest face you
+ever saw, and looking as if a large scarlet flower had suddenly sprouted
+up in midwinter.  Then there was a great laugh.
+
+When they had grown tired of sliding down hill, Eustace set the children
+to digging a cave in the biggest snow-drift that they could find.
+Unluckily, just as it was completed, and the party had squeezed
+themselves into the hollow, down came the roof upon their heads, and
+buried every soul of them alive!  The next moment, up popped all their
+little heads out of the ruins, and the tall student's head in the midst
+of them, looking hoary and venerable with the snow-dust that had got
+amongst his brown curls.  And then, to punish Cousin Eustace for
+advising them to dig such a tumble-down cavern, the children attacked
+him in a body, and so bepelted him with snowballs that he was fain to
+take to his heels.
+
+So he ran away, and went into the woods, and thence to the margin of
+Shadow Brook, where he could hear the streamlet grumbling along, under
+great overhanging banks of snow and ice, which would scarcely let it see
+the light of day.  There were adamantine icicles glittering around all
+its little cascades.  Thence be strolled to the shore of the lake, and
+beheld a white, untrodden plain before him, stretching from his own feet
+to the foot of Monument Mountain.  And, it being now almost sunset,
+Eustace thought that he had never beheld anything so fresh and beautiful
+as the scene.  He was glad that the children were not with him; for
+their lively spirits and tumble-about activity would quite have chased
+away his higher and graver mood, so that he would merely have been merry
+(as he had already been, the whole day long), and would not have known
+the loveliness of the winter sunset among the hills.
+
+When the sun was fairly down, our friend Eustace went home to eat his
+supper.  After the meal was over, he betook himself to the study, with a
+purpose, I rather imagine, to write an ode, or two or three sonnets, or
+verses of some kind or other, in praise of the purple and golden clouds
+which he had seen around the setting sun.  But, before he had hammered
+out the very first rhyme, the door opened, and Primrose and Periwinkle
+made their appearance.
+
+"Go away, children!  I can't be troubled with you now!" cried the
+student, looking over his shoulder, with the pen between his fingers.
+"What in the world do you want here?  I thought you were all in bed!"
+
+"Hear him, Periwinkle, trying to talk like a grown man!" said Primrose.
+"And he seems to forget that I am now thirteen years old, and may sit up
+almost as late as I please.  But, Cousin Eustace, you must put off your
+airs, and come with us to the drawing-room.  The children have talked so
+much about your stories, that my father wishes to hear one of them, in
+order to judge whether they are likely to do any mischief."
+
+"Poh, poh, Primrose!" exclaimed the student, rather vexed.  "I don't
+believe I can tell one of my stories in the presence of grown people.
+Besides, your father is a classical scholar; not that I am much afraid
+of his scholarship, neither, for I doubt not it is as rusty as an old
+case-knife, by this time.  But then he will be sure to quarrel with the
+admirable nonsense that I put into these stories, out of my own head,
+and which makes the great charm of the matter for children, like
+yourself.  No man of fifty, who has read the classical myths in his
+youth, can possibly understand my merit as a re-inventor and improver
+of them."
+
+"All this may be very true," said Primrose, "but come you must!  My
+father will not open his book, nor will mamma open the piano, till you
+have given us some of your nonsense, as you very correctly call it.
+So be a good boy, and come along."
+
+Whatever he might pretend, the student was rather glad than otherwise,
+on second thoughts, to catch at the opportunity of proving to Mr.
+Pringle what an excellent faculty he had in modernizing the myths of
+ancient times.  Until twenty years of age, a young man may, indeed, be
+rather bashful about showing his poetry and his prose; but, for all
+that, he is pretty apt to think that these very productions would
+place him at the tip-top of literature, if once they could be known.
+Accordingly, without much more resistance, Eustace suffered Primrose
+and Periwinkle to drag him into the drawing-room.
+
+It was a large handsome apartment, with a semicircular window at one
+end, in the recess of which stood a marble copy of Greenough's Angel and
+Child.  On one side of the fireplace there were many shelves of books,
+gravely but richly bound.  The white light of the astrallamp, and the
+red glow of the bright coal-fire, made the room brilliant and cheerful;
+and before the fire, in a deep arm-chair, sat Mr. Pringle, looking just
+fit to be seated in such a chair, and in such a room.  He was a tall and
+quite a handsome gentleman, with a bald brow; and was always so nicely
+dressed, that even Eustace Bright never liked to enter his presence,
+without at least pausing at the threshold to settle his shirt-collar.
+But now, as Primrose had hold of one of his hands, and Periwinkle of the
+other, he was forced to make his appearance with a rough-and-tumble sort
+of look, as if he had been rolling all day in a snow-bank.  And so he
+had.
+
+Mr. Pringle turned towards the student, benignly enough, but in a way
+that made him feel how uncombed and unbrushed he was, and how uncombed
+and unbrushed, likewise, were his mind and thoughts.
+
+"Eustace," said Mr. Pringle, with a smile, "I find that you are
+producing a great sensation among the little public of Tanglewood, by
+the exercise of your gifts of narrative.  Primrose here, as the little
+folks choose to call her, and the rest of the children, have been so
+loud in praise of your stories, that Mrs. Pringle and myself are really
+curious to hear a specimen.  It would be so much the more gratifying to
+myself, as the stories appear to be an attempt to render the fables of
+classical antiquity into the idiom of modern fancy and feeling.  At
+least, so I judge from a few of the incidents, which have come to me
+at second hand."
+
+"You are not exactly the auditor that I should have chosen, sir,"
+observed the student, "for fantasies of this nature."
+
+"Possibly not," replied Mr. Pringle.  "I suspect, however, that a young
+author's most useful critic is precisely the one whom he would be least
+apt to choose.  Pray oblige me, therefore."
+
+"Sympathy, methinks, should have some little share in the critic's
+qualifications," murmured Eustace Bright.  "However, sir, if you will
+find patience, I will find stories.  But be kind enough to remember that
+I am addressing myself to the imagination and sympathies of the
+children, not to your own."
+
+Accordingly, the student snatched hold of the first theme which
+presented itself.  It was suggested by a plate of apples that he
+happened to spy on the mantel-piece.
+
+
+
+THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES.
+
+Did you ever hear of the golden apples, that grew in the garden of the
+Hesperides?  Ah, those were such apples as would bring a great price,
+by the bushel, if any of them could be found growing in the orchards of
+nowadays!  But there is not, I suppose, a graft of that wonderful fruit
+on a single tree in the wide world.  Not so much as a seed of those
+apples exists any longer.
+
+And, even in the old, old, half-forgotten times, before the garden of
+the Hesperides was overrun with weeds, a great many people doubted
+whether there could be real trees that bore apples of solid gold upon
+their branches.  All had heard of them, but nobody remembered to have
+seen any.  Children, nevertheless, used to listen, open-mouthed, to
+stories of the golden apple-tree, and resolved to discover it, when they
+should be big enough.  Adventurous young men, who desired to do a braver
+thing than any of their fellows, set out in quest of this fruit.  Many
+of them returned no more; none of them brought back the apples.  No
+wonder that they found it impossible to gather them!  It is said that
+there was a dragon beneath the tree, with a hundred terrible heads,
+fifty of which were always on the watch, while the other fifty slept.
+
+In my opinion it was hardly worth running so much risk for the sake of
+a solid golden apple.  Had the apples been sweet, mellow, and juicy,
+indeed that would be another matter.  There might then have been some
+sense in trying to get at them, in spite of the hundred-headed dragon.
+
+But, as I have already told you, it was quite a common thing with young
+persons, when tired of too much peace and rest, to go in search of the
+garden of the Hesperides.  And once the adventure was undertaken by a
+hero who had enjoyed very little peace or rest since he came into the
+world.  At the time of which I am going to speak, he was wandering
+through the pleasant land of Italy, with a mighty club in his hand, and
+a bow and quiver slung across his shoulders.  He was wrapt in the skin
+of the biggest and fiercest lion that ever had been seen, and which he
+himself had killed; and though, on the whole, he was kind, and generous,
+and noble, there was a good deal of the lion's fierceness in his heart.
+As he went on his way, he continually inquired whether that were the
+right road to the famous garden.  But none of the country people knew
+anything about the matter, and many looked as if they would have
+laughed at the question, if the stranger had not carried so very big a
+club.
+
+So he journeyed on and on, still making the same inquiry, until, at
+last, he came to the brink of a river where some beautiful young women
+sat twining wreaths of flowers.
+
+"Can you tell me, pretty maidens," asked the stranger, "whether this is
+the right way to the garden of the Hesperides?"
+
+The young women had been having a fine time together, weaving the
+flowers into wreaths, and crowning one another's heads.  And there
+seemed to be a kind of magic in the touch of their fingers, that made
+the flowers more fresh and dewy, and of brighter lines, and sweeter
+fragrance, while they played with them, than even when they had been
+growing on their native stems.  But, on hearing the stranger's question,
+they dropped all their flowers on the grass, and gazed at him with
+astonishment.
+
+"The garden of the Hesperides!" cried one.  "We thought mortals had been
+weary of seeking it, after so many disappointments.  And pray,
+adventurous traveller, what do you want there?"
+
+"A certain king, who is my cousin," replied he, "has ordered me to get
+him three of the golden apples."
+
+"Most of the young men who go in quest of these apples," observed
+another of the damsels, "desire to obtain them for themselves, or to
+present them to some fair maiden whom they love.  Do you, then, love
+this king, your cousin, so very much?"
+
+"Perhaps not," replied the stranger, sighing.  "He has often been severe
+and cruel to me.  But it is my destiny to obey him."
+
+"And do you know," asked the damsel who had first spoken, "that a
+terrible dragon, with a hundred heads, keeps watch under the golden
+apple-tree?"
+
+"I know it well," answered the stranger, calmly.  "But, from my cradle
+upwards, it has been my business, and almost my pastime, to deal with
+serpents and dragons."
+
+The young women looked at his massive club, and at the shaggy lion's
+skin which he wore, and likewise at his heroic limbs and figure; and
+they whispered to each other that the stranger appeared to be one who
+might reasonably expect to perform deeds far beyond the might of other
+men.  But, then, the dragon with a hundred heads!  What mortal, even if
+he possessed a hundred lives, could hope to escape the fangs of such a
+monster?  So kind-hearted were the maidens, that they could not bear to
+see this brave and, handsome traveller attempt what was so very
+dangerous, and devote himself, most probably, to become a meal for
+the dragon's hundred ravenous mouths.
+
+"Go back," cried they all,--"go back to your own home!  Your mother,
+beholding you safe and sound, will shed tears of joy; and what can she
+do more, should you win ever so great a victory?  No matter for the
+golden apples!  No matter for the king, your cruel cousin!  We do not
+wish the dragon with the hundred heads to eat you up!"
+
+The stranger seemed to grow impatient at these remonstrances.  He
+carelessly lifted his mighty club, and let it fall upon a rock that lay
+half buried in the earth, near by.  With the force of that idle blow,
+the great rock was shattered all to pieces.  It cost the stranger no
+more effort to achieve this feat of a giant's strength than for one of
+the young maidens to touch her sister's rosy cheek with a flower.
+
+"Do you not believe," said he, looking at the damsels with a smile,
+"that such a blow would have crushed one of the dragon's hundred heads?"
+
+Then he sat down on the grass, and told them the story of his life, or
+as much of it as he could remember, from the day when he was first
+cradled in a warrior's brazen shield.  While he lay there, two immense
+serpents came gliding over the floor, and opened their hideous jaws to
+devour him; and he, a baby of a few months old, had griped one of the
+fierce snakes in each of his little fists, and strangled them to death.
+When he was but a stripling, he had killed a huge lion, almost as big as
+the one whose vast and shaggy hide he now wore upon his shoulders.  The
+next thing that he had done was to fight a battle with an ugly sort of
+monster, called a hydra, which had no less than nine heads, and
+exceedingly sharp teeth in every one of them.
+
+"But the dragon of the Hesperides, you know," observed one of the
+damsels, "has a hundred heads!"
+
+"Nevertheless," replied the stranger, "I would rather fight two such
+dragons than a single hydra.  For, as fast as I cut off a head, two
+others grew in its place; and, besides, there was one of the heads that
+could not possibly be killed, but kept biting as fiercely as ever, long
+after it was cut off.  So I was forced to bury it under a stone, where
+it is doubtless alive, to this vary day.  But the hydra's body, and its
+eight other heads, will never do any further mischief."
+
+The damsels, judging that the story was likely to last a good while, had
+been preparing a repast of bread and grapes, that the stranger might
+refresh himself in the intervals of his talk.  They took pleasure in
+helping him to this simple food; and, now and then, one of them would
+put a sweet grape between her rosy lips, lest it should make him bashful
+to eat alone.
+
+The traveller proceeded to tell how he had chased a very swift stag, for
+a twelve-month together, without ever stopping to take breath, and had
+at last caught it by the antlers, and carried it home alive.  And he had
+fought with a very odd race of people, half horses and half men, and had
+put them all to death, from a sense of duty, in order that their ugly
+figures might never be seen any more.  Besides all this, he took to
+himself great credit for having cleaned out a stable.
+
+"Do you call that a wonderful exploit?" asked one of the young maidens,
+with a smile.  "Any clown in the country has done as much!"
+
+"Had it been an ordinary stable," replied the stranger, "I should not
+have mentioned it.  But this was so gigantic a task that it would have
+taken me all my life to perform it, if I had not luckily thought of
+turning the channel of a river through the stable-door.  That did the
+business in a very short time!"
+
+Seeing how earnestly his fair auditors listened, he next told them how
+he had shot some monstrous birds, and had caught a wild bull alive, and
+let him go again, and had tamed a number of very wild horses, and had
+conquered Hippolyta, the warlike queen of the Amazons.  He mentioned,
+likewise, that he had taken off Hippolyta's enchanted girdle, and had
+given it to the daughter of his cousin, the king.
+
+"Was it the girdle of Venus," inquired the prettiest of the damsels,
+"which makes women beautiful?"
+
+"No," answered the stranger.  "It had formerly been the sword-belt of
+Mars; and it can only make the wearer valiant and courageous."
+
+"An old sword-belt!" cried the damsel, tossing her head.  "Then I should
+not care about having it!"
+
+"You are right," said the stranger.
+
+Going on with his wonderful narrative, he informed the maidens that as
+strange an adventure as ever happened was when he fought with Geryon,
+the six-legged man.  This was a very odd and frightful sort of figure,
+as you may well believe.  Any person, looking at his tracks in the sand
+or snow, would suppose that three sociable companions had been walking
+along together.  On hearing his footsteps at, a little distance, it was
+no more than reasonable to judge that several people must be coming.
+But it was only the strange man Geryon clattering onward, with his six
+legs!
+
+Six legs, and one gigantic body!  Certainly, he must have been a very
+queer monster to look at; and, my stars, what a waste of shoe-leather!
+
+When the stranger had finished the story of his adventures, he looked
+around at the attentive faces of the maidens.
+
+"Perhaps you may have heard of me before," said he, modestly.  "My name
+is Hercules!"
+
+"We had already guessed it," replied the maidens; "for your wonderful
+deeds are known all over the world.  We do not think it strange, any
+longer, that you should set out in quest of the golden apples of the
+Hesperides.  Come, sisters, let us crown the hero with flowers!"
+
+Then they flung beautiful wreaths over his stately head and mighty
+shoulders, so that the lion's skin was almost entirely covered with
+roses.  They took possession of his ponderous club, and so entwined it
+about with the brightest, softest, and most fragrant blossoms, that not
+a finger's breadth of its oaken substance could be seen.  It looked all
+like a huge bunch of flowers.  Lastly, they joined hands, and danced
+around him, chanting words which became poetry of their own accord, and
+grew into a choral song, in honor of the illustrious Hercules.
+
+And Hercules was rejoiced, as any other hero would have been, to know
+that these fair young girls had heard of the valiant deeds which it had
+cost him so much toil and danger to achieve.  But, still, he was not
+satisfied.  He could not think that what he had already done was worthy
+of so much honor, while there remained any bold or difficult adventure
+to be undertaken.
+
+"Dear maidens," said he, when they paused to take breath, "now that you
+know my name, will you not tell me how I am to reach the garden of the
+Hesperides?"
+
+"Ah! must you go so soon?" they exclaimed.  "You--that have performed so
+many wonders, and spent such a toilsome life--cannot you content
+yourself to repose a little while on the margin of this peaceful river?"
+
+Hercules shook his head.
+
+"I must depart now," said he.
+
+"We will then give you the best directions we can," replied the damsels.
+"You must go to the sea-shore, and find out the Old One, and compel him
+to inform you where the golden apples are to be found."
+
+"The Old One!" repeated Hercules, laughing at this odd name.  "And,
+pray, who may the Old One be?"
+
+"Why, the Old Man of the Sea, to be sure!" answered one of the damsels.
+"He has fifty daughters, whom some people call very beautiful; but we do
+not think it proper to be acquainted with them, because they have
+sea-green hair, and taper away like fishes.  You must talk with this Old
+Man of the Sea.  He is a sea-faring person, and knows all about the garden
+of the Hesperides; for it is situated in an island which he is often in
+the habit of visiting."
+
+Hercules then asked whereabouts the Old One was most likely to be met
+with.  When the damsels had informed him, he thanked them for all their
+kindness,--for the bread and grapes with which they had fed him, the
+lovely flowers with which they had crowned him, and the songs and dances
+wherewith they had done him honor,--and he thanked them, most of all,
+for telling him the right way,--and immediately set forth upon his
+Journey.
+
+But, before he was out of hearing, one of the maidens called after him.
+
+"Keep fast hold of the Old-One, when you catch him!" cried she, smiling,
+and lifting her finger to make the caution more impressive.  "Do not be
+astonished at anything that may happen.  Only hold him fast, and he will
+tell you what you wish to know."
+
+Hercules again thanked her, and pursued his way, while the maidens
+resumed their pleasant labor of making flower-wreaths.  They talked
+about the hero, long after he was gone.
+
+"We will crown him with the loveliest of our garlands," said they, "when
+he returns hither with the three golden apples, after slaying the dragon
+with a hundred heads."
+
+Meanwhile, Hercules travelled constantly onward, over hill and dale, and
+through the solitary woods.  Sometimes he swung his club aloft, and
+splintered a mighty oak with a downright blow.  His mind was so full of
+the giants and monsters with whom it was the business of his life to
+fight, that perhaps he mistook the great tree for a giant or a monster.
+And so eager was Hercules to achieve what he had undertaken, that he
+almost regretted to have spent so much time with the damsels, wasting
+idle breath upon the story of his adventures.  But thus it always is
+with persons who are destined to perform great things.  What they have
+already done seems less than nothing.  What they have taken in hand to
+do seems worth toil, danger, and life itself.
+
+Persons who happened to be passing through the forest must have been
+affrighted to see him smite the trees with his great club.  With but a
+single blow, the trunk was riven as by the stroke of lightning, and the
+broad boughs came rustling and crashing down.
+
+Hastening forward, without ever pausing or looking behind, he by and by
+heard the sea roaring at a distance.  At this sound, he increased his
+speed, and soon came to a beach, where the great surf-waves tumbled
+themselves upon the hard sand, in a long line of snowy foam.  At one end
+of the beach, however, there was a pleasant spot, where some green
+shrubbery clambered up a cliff, making its rocky face look soft and
+beautiful.  A carpet of verdant grass, largely intermixed with
+sweet-smelling clover, covered the narrow space between the bottom of the
+cliff and the sea.  And what should Hercules espy there, but an old man,
+fast asleep!
+
+But was it really and truly an old man?  Certainly, at first sight, it
+looked very like one; but, on closer inspection, it rather seemed to be
+some kind of a creature that lived in the sea.  For, on his legs and
+arms there were scales, such as fishes have; he was web-footed and
+web-fingered, after the fashion of a duck; and his long beard, being of a
+greenish tinge, had more the appearance of a tuft of sea-weed than of an
+ordinary beard.  Have you never seen a stick of timber, that has been
+long tossed about by the waves, and has got all overgrown with
+barnacles, and, at last drifting ashore, seems to have been thrown up
+from the very deepest bottom of the sea?  Well, the old man would have
+put you in mind of just such a wave-tost spar!  But Hercules, the
+instant he set eyes on this strange figure, was convinced that it could
+be no other than the Old One, who was to direct him on his way.
+
+Yes; it was the selfsame Old Man of the Sea, whom the hospitable maidens
+had talked to him about.  Thanking his stars for the lucky accident of
+finding the old fellow asleep, Hercules stole on tiptoe towards him, and
+caught him by the arm and leg.
+
+"Tell me," cried he, before the Old One was well awake, "which is the
+way to the garden of the Hesperides?"
+
+As you may easily imagine, the Old Man of the Sea awoke in a fright.
+But his astonishment could hardly have been greater than was that of
+Hercules, the next moment.  For, all of a sudden, the Old One seemed to
+disappear out of his grasp, and he found himself holding a stag by the
+fore and hind leg!  But still he kept fast hold.  Then the stag
+disappeared, and in its stead there was a sea-bird, fluttering and
+screaming, while Hercules clutched it by the wing and claw!  But the
+bird could not get away.  Immediately afterwards, there was an ugly
+three-headed dog, which growled and barked at Hercules, and snapped
+fiercely at the hands by which he held him!  But Hercules would not let
+him go.  In another minute, instead of the three-headed dog, what should
+appear but Geryon, the six-legged man-monster, kicking at Hercules with
+five of his legs, in order to get the remaining one at liberty!  But
+Hercules held on.  By and by, no Geryou was there, but a huge snake,
+like one of those which Hercules had strangled in his babyhood, only a
+hundred times as big, and it twisted and twined about the hero's neck
+and body, and threw its tail high into the air, and opened its deadly
+jaws as if to devour him outright; so that it was really a very terrible
+spectacle!  But Hercules was no whit disheartened, and squeezed the
+great snake so tightly that he soon began to hiss with pain.
+
+You must understand that the Old Man of the Sea, though he generally
+looked so much like the wave-beaten figure-head of a vessel, had the
+power of assuming any shape he pleased.  When he found himself so
+roughly seized by Hercules, he had been in hopes of putting him into
+such surprise and terror, by these magical transformations, that the
+hero would be glad to let him go.  If Hercules had relaxed his grasp,
+the Old One would certainly have plunged down to the very bottom of the
+sea, whence he would not soon have given himself the trouble of coming
+up, in order to answer any impertinent questions.  Ninety-nine people
+out of a hundred, I suppose, would have been frightened out of their
+wits by the very first of his ugly shapes, and would have taken to their
+heels at once.  For, one of the hardest things in this world is, to see
+the difference between real dangers and imaginary ones.
+
+But, as Hercules held on so stubbornly, and only squeezed the Old One so
+much the tighter at every change of shape, and really put him to no
+small torture, he finally thought it best to reappear in his own figure.
+So there he was again, a fishy, scaly, webfooted sort of personage, with
+something like a tuft of sea-weed at his chin.
+
+"Pray, what do you want with me?" cried the Old One, as soon as he could
+take breath; for it is quite a tiresome affair to go through so many
+false shapes.  "Why do you squeeze me so hard?  Let me go, this moment,
+or I shall begin to consider you an extremely uncivil person!"
+
+"My name is Hercules!" roared the mighty stranger.  "And you will never
+get out of my clutch, until you tell me the nearest way to the garden of
+the Hesperides!"
+
+When the old fellow heard who it was that had caught him, he saw, with
+half an eye, that it would be necessary to tell him everything that he
+wanted to know.  The Old One was an inhabitant of the sea, you must
+recollect, and roamed about everywhere, like other sea-faring people.
+Of course, he had often heard of the fame of Hercules, and of the
+wonderful things that he was constantly performing, in various parts of
+the earth, and how determined he always was to accomplish whatever he
+undertook.  He therefore made no more attempts to escape, but told the
+hero how to find the garden of the Hesperides, and likewise warned him
+of many difficulties which must be overcome, before he could arrive
+thither.
+
+"You must go on, thus and thus," said the Old Man of the Sea, after
+taking the points of the compass, "till you come in sight of a very tall
+giant, who holds the sky on his shoulders.  And the giant, if he happens
+to be in the humor, will tell you exactly where the garden of the
+Hesperides lies."
+
+"And if the giant happens not to be in the humor," remarked Hercules,
+balancing his club on the tip of his finger, "perhaps I shall find means
+to persuade him!"
+
+Thanking the Old Man of the Sea, and begging his pardon for having
+squeezed him so roughly, the hero resumed his journey.  He met with a
+great many strange adventures, which would be well worth your hearing,
+if I had leisure to narrate them as minutely as they deserve.
+
+It was in this journey, if I mistake not, that he encountered a
+prodigious giant, who was so wonderfully contrived by nature, that,
+every time he touched the earth, he became ten times as strong as ever
+he had been before.  His name was Antreus.  You may see, plainly enough,
+that it was a very difficult business to fight with such a fellow; for,
+as often as he got a knock-down blow, up he started again, stronger,
+fiercer, and abler to use his weapons, than if his enemy had let him
+alone, Thus, the harder Hercules pounded the giant with his club, the
+further be seemed from winning the victory.  I have sometimes argued
+with such people, but never fought with one.  The only way in which
+Hercules found it possible to finish the battle, was by lifting Antaeus
+off his feet into the air, and squeezing, and squeezing, and squeezing
+him, until, finally, the strength was quite squeezed out of his enormous
+body.
+
+When this affair was finished, Hercules continued his travels, and went
+to the land of Egypt, where he was taken prisoner, and would have been
+put to death, if he had not slain the king of the country, and made his
+escape.  Passing through the deserts of Africa, and going as fast as he
+could, he arrived at last on the shore of the great ocean.  And here,
+unless he could walk on the crests of the billows, it seemed as if his
+journey must needs be at an end.
+
+Nothing was before him, save the foaming, dashing, measureless ocean.
+But, suddenly, as he looked towards the horizon, he saw something, a
+great way off, which he had not seen the moment before.  It gleamed very
+brightly, almost as you may have beheld the round, golden disk of the
+sun, when it rises or sets over the edge of the world.  It evidently
+drew nearer; for, at every instant, this wonderful object became larger
+and more lustrous.  At length, it had come so nigh that Hercules
+discovered it to be an immense cup or bowl, made either of gold or
+burnished brass.  How it had got afloat upon the sea, is more than I can
+tell you.  There it was, at all events, rolling on the tumultuous
+billows, which tossed it up and down, and heaved their foamy tops
+against its sides, but without ever throwing their spray over the brim.
+
+"I have seen many giants, in my time," thought Hercules, "but never one
+that would need to drink his wine out of a cup like this!"
+
+And, true enough, what a cup it must have been!  It was as large--as
+large--but, in short, I am afraid to say how immeasurably large it was.
+To speak within bounds, it was ten times larger than a great mill-wheel;
+and, all of metal as it was, it floated over the heaving surges more
+lightly than an acorn-cup adown the brook.  The waves tumbled it onward,
+until it grazed against the shore, within a short distance of the spot
+where Hercules was standing.
+
+As soon as this happened, he knew what was to be done; for he had not
+gone through so many remarkable adventures without learning pretty well
+how to conduct himself, whenever anything came to pass a little out of
+the common rule.  It was just as clear as daylight that this marvellous
+cup had been set adrift by some unseen power, and guided hitherward, in
+order to carry Hercules across the sea, on his way to the garden of the
+Hesperides.  Accordingly, without a moment's delay, he clambered over
+the brim, and slid down on the inside, where, spreading out his lion's
+skin, he proceeded to take a little repose.  He had scarcely rested,
+until now, since he bade farewell to the damsels on the margin of the
+river.  The waves dashed, with a pleasant and ringing sound, against the
+circumference of the hollow cup; it rocked lightly to and fro, and the
+motion was so soothing that, it speedily rocked Hercules into an
+agreeable slumber.
+
+His nap had probably lasted a good while, when the cup chanced to graze
+against a rock, and, in consequence, immediately resounded and
+reverberated through its golden or brazen substance, a hundred times as
+loudly as ever you heard a church-bell.  The noise awoke Hercules, who
+instantly started up and gazed around him, wondering whereabouts he was.
+He was not long in discovering that the cup had floated across a great
+part of the sea, and was approaching the shore of what seemed to be an
+island.  And, on that island, what do you think he saw?
+
+No; you will never guess it, not if you were to try fifty thousand
+times!  It positively appears to me that this was the most marvellous
+spectacle that had ever been seen by Hercules, in the whole course of
+his wonderful travels and adventures.  It was a greater marvel than the
+hydra with nine heads, which kept growing twice as fast as they were cut
+off; greater than the six-legged man-monster; greater than Antreus;
+greater than anything that was ever beheld by anybody, before or since
+the days of Hercules, or than anything that remains to be beheld, by
+travellers in all time to come.  It was a giant!
+
+But such an intolerably big giant!  A giant as tall as a mountain; so
+vast a giant, that the clouds rested about his midst, like a girdle,
+and hung like a hoary beard from his chin, and flitted before his huge
+eyes, so that he could neither see Hercules nor the golden cup in which
+he was voyaging.  And, most wonderful of all, the giant held up his
+great hands and appeared to support the sky, which, so far as Hercules
+could discern through the clouds, was resting upon his head!  This does
+really seem almost too much to believe.
+
+Meanwhile, the bright cup continued to float onward, and finally touched
+the strand.  Just then a breeze wafted away the clouds from before the
+giant's visage, and Hercules beheld it, with all its enormous features;
+eyes each of them as big as yonder lake, a nose a mile Long, and a mouth
+of the same width.  It was a countenance terrible from its enormity of
+size, but disconsolate and weary, even as you may see the faces of many
+people, nowadays, who are compelled to sustain burdens above their
+strength.  What the sky was to the giant, such are the cares of earth to
+those who let themselves be weighed down by them.  And whenever men
+undertake what is beyond the just measure of their abilities, they
+encounter precisely such a doom as had befallen this poor giant.
+
+Poor fellow!  He had evidently stood there a long while.  An ancient
+forest had been growing and decaying around his feet; and oak-trees, of
+six or seven centuries old, had sprung from the acorn, and forced
+themselves between his toes.
+
+The giant now looked down from the far height of his great eyes, and,
+perceiving Hercules, roared out, in a voice that resembled thunder,
+proceeding out of the cloud that had just flitted away from his face.
+
+"Who are you, down at my feet there?  And whence do you come, in that
+little cup?"
+
+"I am Hercules!"  thundered back the hero, in a voice pretty nearly or
+quite as loud as the giant's own.  "And I am seeking for the garden of
+the Hesperides!"
+
+"Ho! ho! ho!" roared the giant, in a fit of immense laughter.  "That is
+a wise adventure, truly!"
+
+"And why not?"  cried Hercules, getting a little angry at the giant's
+mirth.  "Do you think I am afraid of the dragon with a hundred heads!"
+
+Just at this time, while they were talking together, some black clouds
+gathered about the giant's middle, and burst into a tremendous storm of
+thunder and lightning, causing such a pother that Hercules found it
+impossible to distinguish a word.  Only the giant's immeasurable legs
+were to be seen, standing up into the obscurity of the tempest; and, now
+and then, a momentary glimpse of his whole figure, mantled in a volume
+of mist.  He seemed to be speaking, most of the time; but his big, deep,
+rough voice chimed in with the reverberations of the thunder-claps, and
+rolled away over the hills, like them.  Thus, by talking out of season,
+the foolish giant expended an incalculable quantity of breath, to no
+purpose; for the thunder spoke quite as intelligibly as he.
+
+At last, the storm swept over, as suddenly as it had come.  And there
+again was the clear sky, and the weary giant holding it up, and the
+pleasant sunshine beaming over his vast height, and illuminating it
+against the background of the sullen thunder-clouds.  So far above the
+shower had been his head, that not a hair of it was moistened by the
+rain-drops!
+
+When the giant could see Hercules still standing on the sea-shore, he
+roared out to him anew.
+
+"I am Atlas, the mightiest giant in the world!  And I hold the sky upon
+my head!"
+
+"So I see," answered Hercules.  "But, can you show me the way to the
+garden of the Hesperides?"
+
+"What do you want there?"  asked the giant.
+
+"I want three of the golden apples," shouted Hercules, "for my cousin,
+the king."
+
+"There is nobody but myself," quoth the giant, "that can go to the
+garden of the Hesperides, and gather the golden apples.  If it were not
+for this little business of holding up the sky, I would make half a
+dozen steps across the sea, and get them for you."
+
+"You are very kind," replied Hercules.  "And cannot you rest the sky
+upon a mountain?"
+
+"None of them are quite high enough," said Atlas, shaking his head.
+"But, if you were to take your stand on the summit of that nearest one,
+your head would be pretty nearly on a level with mine.  You seem to be a
+fellow of some strength.  What if you should take my burden on your
+shoulders, while I do your errand for you?"
+
+Hercules, as you must be careful to remember, was a remarkably strong
+man; and though it certainly requires a great deal of muscular power to
+uphold the sky, yet, if any mortal could be supposed capable of such an
+exploit, he was the one.  Nevertheless, it seemed so difficult an
+undertaking, that, for the first time in his life, he hesitated.
+
+"Is the sky very heavy?" he inquired.
+
+"Why, not particularly so, at first," answered the giant, shrugging his
+shoulders.  "But it gets to be a little burdensome, after a thousand
+years!"
+
+"And how long a time," asked the hero, "will it take you to get the
+golden apples?"
+
+"O, that will be done in a few moments," cried Atlas.  "I shall take ten
+or fifteen miles at a stride, and be at the garden and back again before
+your shoulders begin to ache."
+
+"Well, then," answered Hercules, "I will climb the mountain behind you
+there, and relieve you of your burden."
+
+The truth is, Hercules had a kind heart of his own, and considered that
+he should be doing the giant a favor, by allowing him this opportunity
+for a ramble.  And, besides, he thought that it would be still more for
+his own glory, if he could boast of upholding the sky, than merely to do
+so ordinary a thing as to conquer a dragon with a hundred heads.
+Accordingly, without more words, the sky was shifted from the shoulders
+of Atlas, and placed upon those of Hercules.
+
+When this was safely accomplished, the first thing that the giant did
+was to stretch himself; and you may imagine what a prodigious spectacle
+be was then.  Next, he slowly lifted one of his feet out of the forest
+that had grown up around it; then, the other.  Then, all at once, he
+began to caper, and leap, and dance, for joy at his freedom; flinging
+himself nobody knows how high into the air, and floundering down again
+with a shock that made the earth tremble.  Then he laughed--Ho! ho!
+ho!--with a thunderous roar that was echoed from the mountains, far and
+near, as if they and the giant had been so many rejoicing brothers.
+When his joy had a little subsided, he stepped into the sea; ten miles
+at the first stride, which brought him mid-leg deep; and ten miles at
+the second, when the water came just above his knees; and ten miles more
+at the third, by which he was immersed nearly to his waist.  This was
+the greatest depth of the sea.
+
+Hercules watched the giant, as he still went onward; for it was really a
+wonderful sight, this immense human form, more than thirty miles off,
+half hidden in the ocean, but with his upper half as tall, and misty,
+and blue, as a distant mountain.  At last the gigantic shape faded
+entirely out of view.  And now Hercules began to consider what he should
+do, in case Atlas should be drowned in the sea, or if he were to be
+stung to death by the dragon with the hundred beads, which guarded the
+golden apples of the Hesperides.  If any such misfortune were to happen,
+how could he ever get rid of the sky?  And, by the by, its weight began
+already to be a little irksome to his head and shoulders.
+
+"I really pity the poor giant," thought Hercules.  "If it wearies me so
+much in ten minutes, how must it have wearied him in a thousand years!"
+
+O my sweet little people, you have no idea what a weight there was in
+that same blue sky, which looks so soft and aerial above our heads!  And
+there, too, was the bluster of the wind, and the chill and watery
+clouds, and the blazing sun, all taking their turns to make Hercules
+uncomfortable!  He began to be afraid that the giant would never come
+back.  He gazed wistfully at the world beneath him, and acknowledged to
+himself that it was a far happier kind of life to be a shepherd at the
+foot of a mountain, than to stand on its dizzy summit, and bear up the
+firmament with his might and main.  For, of course, as you will easily
+understand, Hercules had an immense responsibility on his mind, as well
+as a weight on his head and shoulders.  Why, if he did not stand
+perfectly still, and keep the sky immovable, the sun would perhaps be
+put ajar!  Or, after nightfall, a great many of the stars might be
+loosened from their places, and shower down, like fiery rain, upon the
+people's heads!  And how ashamed would the hero be, if, owing to his
+unsteadiness beneath its weight, the sky should crack, and show a great
+fissure quite across it!
+
+I know not how long it was before, to his unspeakable joy, he beheld the
+huge shape of the giant, like a cloud, on the far-off edge of the sea.
+At his nearer approach, Atlas held up his hand, in which Hercules could
+perceive three magnificent golden apples, as big as pumpkins, all
+banging from one branch.
+
+"I am glad to see you again," shouted Hercules, when the giant was
+within hearing.  "So you have got the golden apples?"
+
+"Certainly, certainly," answered Atlas; "and very fair apples they are.
+I took the finest that grew on the tree, I assure you.  Ah! it is a
+beautiful spot, that garden of the Hesperides.  Yes; and the dragon with
+a hundred heads is a sight worth any man's seeing.  After all, you had
+better have gone for the apples yourself."
+
+"No matter," replied Hercules.  "You have had a pleasant ramble, and
+have done the business as well as I could.  I heartily thank you for
+your trouble.  And now, as I have a long way to go, and am rather in
+haste,--and as the king, my cousin, is anxious to receive the golden
+apples,--will you be kind enough to take the sky off my shoulders
+again?"
+
+"Why, as to that," said the giant, chucking the golden apples into the
+air, twenty miles high, or thereabouts, and catching them as they came
+down,--"as to that, my good friend, I consider you a little
+unreasonable.  Cannot I carry the golden apples to the king, your
+cousin, much quicker than you could?  As his majesty is in such a hurry
+to get them, I promise you to take my longest strides.  And, besides, I
+have no fancy for burdening myself with the sky, just now."
+
+Here Hercules grew impatient, and gave a great shrug of his shoulders.
+It being now twilight, you might have seen two or three stars tumble out
+of their places.  Everybody on earth looked upward in affright, thinking
+that the sky might be going to fall next.
+
+"O, that will never do!" cried Giant Atlas, with a great roar of
+laughter.  "I have not let fall so many stars within the last five
+centuries.  By the time you have stood there as long as I did, you will
+begin to learn patience!"
+
+"What!" shouted Hercules, very wrathfully, "do you intend to make me
+bear this burden forever?"
+
+"We will see about that, one of these days," answered the giant.  "At
+all events, you ought not to complain, if you have to bear it the next
+hundred years, or perhaps the next thousand.  I bore it a good while
+longer, in spite of the back-ache.  Well, then, after a thousand years,
+if I happen to feel in the mood, we may possibly shift about again.  You
+are certainly a very strong man, and can never have a better opportunity
+to prove it.  Posterity will talk of you, I warrant it!"
+
+"Pish! a fig for its talk!" cried Hercules, with another hitch of his
+shoulders.  "Just take the sky upon your head one instant, will you?  I
+want to make a cushion of my lion's skin, for the weight to rest upon.
+It really chafes me, and will cause unnecessary inconvenience in so many
+centuries as I am to stand here."
+
+"That's no more than fair, and I'll do it!" quoth the giant; for he had
+no unkind feeling towards Hercules, and was merely acting with a too
+selfish consideration of his own ease.  "For just five minutes, then,
+I'll take back the sky.  Only for five minutes, recollect!  I have no
+idea of spending another thousand years as I spent the last.  Variety is
+the spice of life, say I."
+
+Ah, the thick-witted old rogue of a giant!  He threw down the golden
+apples, and received back the sky, from the head and shoulders of
+Hercules, upon his own, where it rightly belonged.  And Hercules picked
+up the three golden apples, that were as big or bigger than pumpkins,
+and straightway set out on his journey homeward, without paying the
+slightest heed to the thundering tones of the giant, who bellowed after
+him to come back.  Another forest sprang up around his feet, and grew
+ancient there; and again might be seen oak-trees, of six or seven
+centuries old, that had waxed thus again betwixt his enormous toes.
+
+And there stands the giant, to this day; or, at any rate, there stands a
+mountain as tall as he, and which bears his name; and when the thunder
+rumples about its summit, we may imagine it to be the voice of Giant
+Atlas, bellowing after Hercules!
+
+
+
+TANGLEWOOD FIRESIDE.
+
+AFTER THE STORY.
+
+"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.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Three Golden Apples, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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+Project Gutenberg EBook, The Three Golden Apples, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
+From "A Wonder-Book For Girls and Boys"
+#84 in our series by Nathaniel Hawthorne
+
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+Title: The Three Golden Apples
+      (From: "A Wonder-Book For Girls and Boys")
+
+Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
+
+Release Date: Nov, 2005  [EBook #9257]
+[This file was first posted on September 25, 2003]
+[Last updated on February 6, 2007]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
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+
+
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THREE GOLDEN APPLES ***
+
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+                 A WONDER-BOOK FOR GIRLS AND BOYS
+
+                     By Nathaniel Hawthorne
+
+
+                     THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS:
+
+TANGLEWOOD FIRESIDE--Introductory to "The Three Golden Apples"
+THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES
+TANGLEWOOD FIRESIDE--After the Story
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY TO "THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES"
+
+The snow-storm lasted another day; but what became of it afterwards, I
+cannot possibly imagine.  At any rate, it entirely cleared away, during
+the night; and when the sun arose, the next morning, it shone brightly
+down on as bleak a tract of hill-country, here in Berkshire, as could be
+seen anywhere in the world.  The frost-work had so covered the
+windowpanes that it was hardly possible to get a glimpse at the scenery
+outside.  But, while waiting for breakfast, the small populace of
+Tanglewood had scratched peepholes with their finger-nails, and saw with
+vast delight that--unless it were one or two bare patches on a
+precipitous hillside, or the gray effect of the snow, intermingled with
+the black pine forest--all nature was as white as a sheet.  How
+exceedingly pleasant!  And, to make it all the better, it was cold
+enough to nip one's nose short off!  If people have but life enough in
+them to bear it, there is nothing that so raises the spirits, and makes
+the blood ripple and dance so nimbly, like a brook down the slope of a
+hill, as a bright, hard frost.
+
+No sooner was breakfast over, than the whole party, well muffled in furs
+and woollens, floundered forth into the midst of the snow.  Well, what a
+day of frosty sport was this!  They slid down hill into the valley, a
+hundred times, nobody knows how far; and, to make it all the merrier,
+upsetting their sledges, and tumbling head over heels, quite as often as
+they came safely to the bottom.  And, once, Eustace Bright took
+Periwinkle, Sweet Fern, and Squash-blossom, on the sledge with him, by
+way of insuring a safe passage; and down they went, full speed.  But,
+behold, half-way down, the sledge hit against a hidden stump, and flung
+all four of its passengers into a heap; and, on gathering themselves up,
+there was no little Squash-blossom to be found!  Why, what could have
+become of the child?  And while they were wondering and staring about,
+up started Squash-blossom out of a snow-bank, with the reddest face you
+ever saw, and looking as if a large scarlet flower had suddenly sprouted
+up in midwinter.  Then there was a great laugh.
+
+When they had grown tired of sliding down hill, Eustace set the children
+to digging a cave in the biggest snow-drift that they could find.
+Unluckily, just as it was completed, and the party had squeezed
+themselves into the hollow, down came the roof upon their heads, and
+buried every soul of them alive!  The next moment, up popped all their
+little heads out of the ruins, and the tall student's head in the midst
+of them, looking hoary and venerable with the snow-dust that had got
+amongst his brown curls.  And then, to punish Cousin Eustace for
+advising them to dig such a tumble-down cavern, the children attacked
+him in a body, and so bepelted him with snowballs that he was fain to
+take to his heels.
+
+So he ran away, and went into the woods, and thence to the margin of
+Shadow Brook, where he could hear the streamlet grumbling along, under
+great overhanging banks of snow and ice, which would scarcely let it see
+the light of day.  There were adamantine icicles glittering around all
+its little cascades.  Thence be strolled to the shore of the lake, and
+beheld a white, untrodden plain before him, stretching from his own feet
+to the foot of Monument Mountain.  And, it being now almost sunset,
+Eustace thought that he had never beheld anything so fresh and beautiful
+as the scene.  He was glad that the children were not with him; for
+their lively spirits and tumble-about activity would quite have chased
+away his higher and graver mood, so that he would merely have been merry
+(as he had already been, the whole day long), and would not have known
+the loveliness of the winter sunset among the hills.
+
+When the sun was fairly down, our friend Eustace went home to eat his
+supper.  After the meal was over, he betook himself to the study, with a
+purpose, I rather imagine, to write an ode, or two or three sonnets, or
+verses of some kind or other, in praise of the purple and golden clouds
+which he had seen around the setting sun.  But, before he had hammered
+out the very first rhyme, the door opened, and Primrose and Periwinkle
+made their appearance.
+
+"Go away, children!  I can't be troubled with you now!" cried the
+student, looking over his shoulder, with the pen between his fingers.
+"What in the world do you want here?  I thought you were all in bed!"
+
+"Hear him, Periwinkle, trying to talk like a grown man!" said Primrose.
+"And he seems to forget that I am now thirteen years old, and may sit up
+almost as late as I please.  But, Cousin Eustace, you must put off your
+airs, and come with us to the drawing-room.  The children have talked so
+much about your stories, that my father wishes to hear one of them, in
+order to judge whether they are likely to do any mischief."
+
+"Poh, poh, Primrose!" exclaimed the student, rather vexed.  "I don't
+believe I can tell one of my stories in the presence of grown people.
+Besides, your father is a classical scholar; not that I am much afraid
+of his scholarship, neither, for I doubt not it is as rusty as an old
+case-knife, by this time.  But then he will be sure to quarrel with the
+admirable nonsense that I put into these stories, out of my own head,
+and which makes the great charm of the matter for children, like
+yourself.  No man of fifty, who has read the classical myths in his
+youth, can possibly understand my merit as a re-inventor and improver
+of them."
+
+"All this may be very true," said Primrose, "but come you must!  My
+father will not open his book, nor will mamma open the piano, till you
+have given us some of your nonsense, as you very correctly call it.
+So be a good boy, and come along."
+
+Whatever he might pretend, the student was rather glad than otherwise,
+on second thoughts, to catch at the opportunity of proving to Mr.
+Pringle what an excellent faculty he had in modernizing the myths of
+ancient times.  Until twenty years of age, a young man may, indeed, be
+rather bashful about showing his poetry and his prose; but, for all
+that, he is pretty apt to think that these very productions would
+place him at the tip-top of literature, if once they could be known.
+Accordingly, without much more resistance, Eustace suffered Primrose
+and Periwinkle to drag him into the drawing-room.
+
+It was a large handsome apartment, with a semicircular window at one
+end, in the recess of which stood a marble copy of Greenough's Angel and
+Child.  On one side of the fireplace there were many shelves of books,
+gravely but richly bound.  The white light of the astrallamp, and the
+red glow of the bright coal-fire, made the room brilliant and cheerful;
+and before the fire, in a deep arm-chair, sat Mr. Pringle, looking just
+fit to be seated in such a chair, and in such a room.  He was a tall and
+quite a handsome gentleman, with a bald brow; and was always so nicely
+dressed, that even Eustace Bright never liked to enter his presence,
+without at least pausing at the threshold to settle his shirt-collar.
+But now, as Primrose had hold of one of his hands, and Periwinkle of the
+other, he was forced to make his appearance with a rough-and-tumble sort
+of look, as if he had been rolling all day in a snow-bank.  And so he
+had.
+
+Mr. Pringle turned towards the student, benignly enough, but in a way
+that made him feel how uncombed and unbrushed he was, and how uncombed
+and unbrushed, likewise, were his mind and thoughts.
+
+"Eustace," said Mr. Pringle, with a smile, "I find that you are
+producing a great sensation among the little public of Tanglewood, by
+the exercise of your gifts of narrative.  Primrose here, as the little
+folks choose to call her, and the rest of the children, have been so
+loud in praise of your stories, that Mrs. Pringle and myself are really
+curious to hear a specimen.  It would be so much the more gratifying to
+myself, as the stories appear to be an attempt to render the fables of
+classical antiquity into the idiom of modern fancy and feeling.  At
+least, so I judge from a few of the incidents, which have come to me
+at second hand."
+
+"You are not exactly the auditor that I should have chosen, sir,"
+observed the student, "for fantasies of this nature."
+
+"Possibly not," replied Mr. Pringle.  "I suspect, however, that a young
+author's most useful critic is precisely the one whom he would be least
+apt to choose.  Pray oblige me, therefore."
+
+"Sympathy, methinks, should have some little share in the critic's
+qualifications," murmured Eustace Bright.  "However, sir, if you will
+find patience, I will find stories.  But be kind enough to remember that
+I am addressing myself to the imagination and sympathies of the
+children, not to your own."
+
+Accordingly, the student snatched hold of the first theme which
+presented itself.  It was suggested by a plate of apples that he
+happened to spy on the mantel-piece.
+
+
+
+THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES.
+
+Did you ever hear of the golden apples, that grew in the garden of the
+Hesperides?  Ah, those were such apples as would bring a great price,
+by the bushel, if any of them could be found growing in the orchards of
+nowadays!  But there is not, I suppose, a graft of that wonderful fruit
+on a single tree in the wide world.  Not so much as a seed of those
+apples exists any longer.
+
+And, even in the old, old, half-forgotten times, before the garden of
+the Hesperides was overrun with weeds, a great many people doubted
+whether there could be real trees that bore apples of solid gold upon
+their branches.  All had heard of them, but nobody remembered to have
+seen any.  Children, nevertheless, used to listen, open-mouthed, to
+stories of the golden apple-tree, and resolved to discover it, when they
+should be big enough.  Adventurous young men, who desired to do a braver
+thing than any of their fellows, set out in quest of this fruit.  Many
+of them returned no more; none of them brought back the apples.  No
+wonder that they found it impossible to gather them!  It is said that
+there was a dragon beneath the tree, with a hundred terrible heads,
+fifty of which were always on the watch, while the other fifty slept.
+
+In my opinion it was hardly worth running so much risk for the sake of
+a solid golden apple.  Had the apples been sweet, mellow, and juicy,
+indeed that would be another matter.  There might then have been some
+sense in trying to get at them, in spite of the hundred-headed dragon.
+
+But, as I have already told you, it was quite a common thing with young
+persons, when tired of too much peace and rest, to go in search of the
+garden of the Hesperides.  And once the adventure was undertaken by a
+hero who had enjoyed very little peace or rest since he came into the
+world.  At the time of which I am going to speak, he was wandering
+through the pleasant land of Italy, with a mighty club in his hand, and
+a bow and quiver slung across his shoulders.  He was wrapt in the skin
+of the biggest and fiercest lion that ever had been seen, and which he
+himself had killed; and though, on the whole, he was kind, and generous,
+and noble, there was a good deal of the lion's fierceness in his heart.
+As he went on his way, he continually inquired whether that were the
+right road to the famous garden.  But none of the country people knew
+anything about the matter, and many looked as if they would have
+laughed at the question, if the stranger had not carried so very big a
+club.
+
+So he journeyed on and on, still making the same inquiry, until, at
+last, he came to the brink of a river where some beautiful young women
+sat twining wreaths of flowers.
+
+"Can you tell me, pretty maidens," asked the stranger, "whether this is
+the right way to the garden of the Hesperides?"
+
+The young women had been having a fine time together, weaving the
+flowers into wreaths, and crowning one another's heads.  And there
+seemed to be a kind of magic in the touch of their fingers, that made
+the flowers more fresh and dewy, and of brighter lines, and sweeter
+fragrance, while they played with them, than even when they had been
+growing on their native stems.  But, on hearing the stranger's question,
+they dropped all their flowers on the grass, and gazed at him with
+astonishment.
+
+"The garden of the Hesperides!" cried one.  "We thought mortals had been
+weary of seeking it, after so many disappointments.  And pray,
+adventurous traveller, what do you want there?"
+
+"A certain king, who is my cousin," replied he, "has ordered me to get
+him three of the golden apples."
+
+"Most of the young men who go in quest of these apples," observed
+another of the damsels, "desire to obtain them for themselves, or to
+present them to some fair maiden whom they love.  Do you, then, love
+this king, your cousin, so very much?"
+
+"Perhaps not," replied the stranger, sighing.  "He has often been severe
+and cruel to me.  But it is my destiny to obey him."
+
+"And do you know," asked the damsel who had first spoken, "that a
+terrible dragon, with a hundred heads, keeps watch under the golden
+apple-tree?"
+
+"I know it well," answered the stranger, calmly.  "But, from my cradle
+upwards, it has been my business, and almost my pastime, to deal with
+serpents and dragons."
+
+The young women looked at his massive club, and at the shaggy lion's
+skin which he wore, and likewise at his heroic limbs and figure; and
+they whispered to each other that the stranger appeared to be one who
+might reasonably expect to perform deeds far beyond the might of other
+men.  But, then, the dragon with a hundred heads!  What mortal, even if
+he possessed a hundred lives, could hope to escape the fangs of such a
+monster?  So kind-hearted were the maidens, that they could not bear to
+see this brave and, handsome traveller attempt what was so very
+dangerous, and devote himself, most probably, to become a meal for
+the dragon's hundred ravenous mouths.
+
+"Go back," cried they all,--"go back to your own home!  Your mother,
+beholding you safe and sound, will shed tears of joy; and what can she
+do more, should you win ever so great a victory?  No matter for the
+golden apples!  No matter for the king, your cruel cousin!  We do not
+wish the dragon with the hundred heads to eat you up!"
+
+The stranger seemed to grow impatient at these remonstrances.  He
+carelessly lifted his mighty club, and let it fall upon a rock that lay
+half buried in the earth, near by.  With the force of that idle blow,
+the great rock was shattered all to pieces.  It cost the stranger no
+more effort to achieve this feat of a giant's strength than for one of
+the young maidens to touch her sister's rosy cheek with a flower.
+
+"Do you not believe," said he, looking at the damsels with a smile,
+"that such a blow would have crushed one of the dragon's hundred heads?"
+
+Then he sat down on the grass, and told them the story of his life, or
+as much of it as he could remember, from the day when he was first
+cradled in a warrior's brazen shield.  While he lay there, two immense
+serpents came gliding over the floor, and opened their hideous jaws to
+devour him; and he, a baby of a few months old, had griped one of the
+fierce snakes in each of his little fists, and strangled them to death.
+When he was but a stripling, he had killed a huge lion, almost as big as
+the one whose vast and shaggy hide he now wore upon his shoulders.  The
+next thing that he had done was to fight a battle with an ugly sort of
+monster, called a hydra, which had no less than nine heads, and
+exceedingly sharp teeth in every one of them.
+
+"But the dragon of the Hesperides, you know," observed one of the
+damsels, "has a hundred heads!"
+
+"Nevertheless," replied the stranger, "I would rather fight two such
+dragons than a single hydra.  For, as fast as I cut off a head, two
+others grew in its place; and, besides, there was one of the heads that
+could not possibly be killed, but kept biting as fiercely as ever, long
+after it was cut off.  So I was forced to bury it under a stone, where
+it is doubtless alive, to this vary day.  But the hydra's body, and its
+eight other heads, will never do any further mischief."
+
+The damsels, judging that the story was likely to last a good while, had
+been preparing a repast of bread and grapes, that the stranger might
+refresh himself in the intervals of his talk.  They took pleasure in
+helping him to this simple food; and, now and then, one of them would
+put a sweet grape between her rosy lips, lest it should make him bashful
+to eat alone.
+
+The traveller proceeded to tell how he had chased a very swift stag, for
+a twelve-month together, without ever stopping to take breath, and had
+at last caught it by the antlers, and carried it home alive.  And he had
+fought with a very odd race of people, half horses and half men, and had
+put them all to death, from a sense of duty, in order that their ugly
+figures might never be seen any more.  Besides all this, he took to
+himself great credit for having cleaned out a stable.
+
+"Do you call that a wonderful exploit?" asked one of the young maidens,
+with a smile.  "Any clown in the country has done as much!"
+
+"Had it been an ordinary stable," replied the stranger, "I should not
+have mentioned it.  But this was so gigantic a task that it would have
+taken me all my life to perform it, if I had not luckily thought of
+turning the channel of a river through the stable-door.  That did the
+business in a very short time!"
+
+Seeing how earnestly his fair auditors listened, he next told them how
+he had shot some monstrous birds, and had caught a wild bull alive, and
+let him go again, and had tamed a number of very wild horses, and had
+conquered Hippolyta, the warlike queen of the Amazons.  He mentioned,
+likewise, that he had taken off Hippolyta's enchanted girdle, and had
+given it to the daughter of his cousin, the king.
+
+"Was it the girdle of Venus," inquired the prettiest of the damsels,
+"which makes women beautiful?"
+
+"No," answered the stranger.  "It had formerly been the sword-belt of
+Mars; and it can only make the wearer valiant and courageous."
+
+"An old sword-belt!" cried the damsel, tossing her head.  "Then I should
+not care about having it!"
+
+"You are right," said the stranger.
+
+Going on with his wonderful narrative, he informed the maidens that as
+strange an adventure as ever happened was when he fought with Geryon,
+the six-legged man.  This was a very odd and frightful sort of figure,
+as you may well believe.  Any person, looking at his tracks in the sand
+or snow, would suppose that three sociable companions had been walking
+along together.  On hearing his footsteps at, a little distance, it was
+no more than reasonable to judge that several people must be coming.
+But it was only the strange man Geryon clattering onward, with his six
+legs!
+
+Six legs, and one gigantic body!  Certainly, he must have been a very
+queer monster to look at; and, my stars, what a waste of shoe-leather!
+
+When the stranger had finished the story of his adventures, he looked
+around at the attentive faces of the maidens.
+
+"Perhaps you may have heard of me before," said he, modestly.  "My name
+is Hercules!"
+
+"We had already guessed it," replied the maidens; "for your wonderful
+deeds are known all over the world.  We do not think it strange, any
+longer, that you should set out in quest of the golden apples of the
+Hesperides.  Come, sisters, let us crown the hero with flowers!"
+
+Then they flung beautiful wreaths over his stately head and mighty
+shoulders, so that the lion's skin was almost entirely covered with
+roses.  They took possession of his ponderous club, and so entwined it
+about with the brightest, softest, and most fragrant blossoms, that not
+a finger's breadth of its oaken substance could be seen.  It looked all
+like a huge bunch of flowers.  Lastly, they joined hands, and danced
+around him, chanting words which became poetry of their own accord, and
+grew into a choral song, in honor of the illustrious Hercules.
+
+And Hercules was rejoiced, as any other hero would have been, to know
+that these fair young girls had heard of the valiant deeds which it had
+cost him so much toil and danger to achieve.  But, still, he was not
+satisfied.  He could not think that what he had already done was worthy
+of so much honor, while there remained any bold or difficult adventure
+to be undertaken.
+
+"Dear maidens," said he, when they paused to take breath, "now that you
+know my name, will you not tell me how I am to reach the garden of the
+Hesperides?"
+
+"Ah! must you go so soon?" they exclaimed.  "You--that have performed so
+many wonders, and spent such a toilsome life--cannot you content
+yourself to repose a little while on the margin of this peaceful river?"
+
+Hercules shook his head.
+
+"I must depart now," said he.
+
+"We will then give you the best directions we can," replied the damsels.
+"You must go to the sea-shore, and find out the Old One, and compel him
+to inform you where the golden apples are to be found."
+
+"The Old One!" repeated Hercules, laughing at this odd name.  "And,
+pray, who may the Old One be?"
+
+"Why, the Old Man of the Sea, to be sure!" answered one of the damsels.
+"He has fifty daughters, whom some people call very beautiful; but we do
+not think it proper to be acquainted with them, because they have sea-
+green hair, and taper away like fishes.  You must talk with this Old Man
+of the Sea.  He is a sea-faring person, and knows all about the garden
+of the Hesperides; for it is situated in an island which he is often in
+the habit of visiting."
+
+Hercules then asked whereabouts the Old One was most likely to be met
+with.  When the damsels had informed him, he thanked them for all their
+kindness,--for the bread and grapes with which they had fed him, the
+lovely flowers with which they had crowned him, and the songs and dances
+wherewith they had done him honor,--and he thanked them, most of all,
+for telling him the right way,--and immediately set forth upon his
+Journey.
+
+But, before he was out of hearing, one of the maidens called after him.
+
+"Keep fast hold of the Old-One, when you catch him!" cried she, smiling,
+and lifting her finger to make the caution more impressive.  "Do not be
+astonished at anything that may happen.  Only hold him fast, and he will
+tell you what you wish to know."
+
+Hercules again thanked her, and pursued his way, while the maidens
+resumed their pleasant labor of making flower-wreaths.  They talked
+about the hero, long after he was gone.
+
+"We will crown him with the loveliest of our garlands," said they, "when
+he returns hither with the three golden apples, after slaying the dragon
+with a hundred heads."
+
+Meanwhile, Hercules travelled constantly onward, over hill and dale, and
+through the solitary woods.  Sometimes he swung his club aloft, and
+splintered a mighty oak with a downright blow.  His mind was so full of
+the giants and monsters with whom it was the business of his life to
+fight, that perhaps he mistook the great tree for a giant or a monster.
+And so eager was Hercules to achieve what he had undertaken, that he
+almost regretted to have spent so much time with the damsels, wasting
+idle breath upon the story of his adventures.  But thus it always is
+with persons who are destined to perform great things.  What they have
+already done seems less than nothing.  What they have taken in hand to
+do seems worth toil, danger, and life itself.
+
+Persons who happened to be passing through the forest must have been
+affrighted to see him smite the trees with his great club.  With but a
+single blow, the trunk was riven as by the stroke of lightning, and the
+broad boughs came rustling and crashing down.
+
+Hastening forward, without ever pausing or looking behind, he by and by
+heard the sea roaring at a distance.  At this sound, he increased his
+speed, and soon came to a beach, where the great surf-waves tumbled
+themselves upon the hard sand, in a long line of snowy foam.  At one end
+of the beach, however, there was a pleasant spot, where some green
+shrubbery clambered up a cliff, making its rocky face look soft and
+beautiful.  A carpet of verdant grass, largely intermixed with sweet-
+smelling clover, covered the narrow space between the bottom of the
+cliff and the sea.  And what should Hercules espy there, but an old man,
+fast asleep!
+
+But was it really and truly an old man?  Certainly, at first sight, it
+looked very like one; but, on closer inspection, it rather seemed to be
+some kind of a creature that lived in the sea.  For, on his legs and
+arms there were scales, such as fishes have; he was web-footed and web-
+fingered, after the fashion of a duck; and his long beard, being of a
+greenish tinge, had more the appearance of a tuft of sea-weed than of an
+ordinary beard.  Have you never seen a stick of timber, that has been
+long tossed about by the waves, and has got all overgrown with
+barnacles, and, at last drifting ashore, seems to have been thrown up
+from the very deepest bottom of the sea?  Well, the old man would have
+put you in mind of just such a wave-tost spar!  But Hercules, the
+instant he set eyes on this strange figure, was convinced that it could
+be no other than the Old One, who was to direct him on his way.
+
+Yes; it was the selfsame Old Man of the Sea, whom the hospitable maidens
+had talked to him about.  Thanking his stars for the lucky accident of
+finding the old fellow asleep, Hercules stole on tiptoe towards him, and
+caught him by the arm and leg.
+
+"Tell me," cried he, before the Old One was well awake, "which is the
+way to the garden of the Hesperides?"
+
+As you may easily imagine, the Old Man of the Sea awoke in a fright.
+But his astonishment could hardly have been greater than was that of
+Hercules, the next moment.  For, all of a sudden, the Old One seemed to
+disappear out of his grasp, and he found himself holding a stag by the
+fore and hind leg!  But still he kept fast hold.  Then the stag
+disappeared, and in its stead there was a sea-bird, fluttering and
+screaming, while Hercules clutched it by the wing and claw!  But the
+bird could not get away.  Immediately afterwards, there was an ugly
+three-headed dog, which growled and barked at Hercules, and snapped
+fiercely at the hands by which he held him!  But Hercules would not let
+him go.  In another minute, instead of the three-headed dog, what should
+appear but Geryon, the six-legged man-monster, kicking at Hercules with
+five of his legs, in order to get the remaining one at liberty!  But
+Hercules held on.  By and by, no Geryou was there, but a huge snake,
+like one of those which Hercules had strangled in his babyhood, only a
+hundred times as big, and it twisted and twined about the hero's neck
+and body, and threw its tail high into the air, and opened its deadly
+jaws as if to devour him outright; so that it was really a very terrible
+spectacle!  But Hercules was no whit disheartened, and squeezed the
+great snake so tightly that he soon began to hiss with pain.
+
+You must understand that the Old Man of the Sea, though he generally
+looked so much like the wave-beaten figure-head of a vessel, had the
+power of assuming any shape he pleased.  When he found himself so
+roughly seized by Hercules, he had been in hopes of putting him into
+such surprise and terror, by these magical transformations, that the
+hero would be glad to let him go.  If Hercules had relaxed his grasp,
+the Old One would certainly have plunged down to the very bottom of the
+sea, whence he would not soon have given himself the trouble of coming
+up, in order to answer any impertinent questions.  Ninety-nine people
+out of a hundred, I suppose, would have been frightened out of their
+wits by the very first of his ugly shapes, and would have taken to their
+heels at once.  For, one of the hardest things in this world is, to see
+the difference between real dangers and imaginary ones.
+
+But, as Hercules held on so stubbornly, and only squeezed the Old One so
+much the tighter at every change of shape, and really put him to no
+small torture, he finally thought it best to reappear in his own figure.
+So there he was again, a fishy, scaly, webfooted sort of personage, with
+something like a tuft of sea-weed at his chin.
+
+"Pray, what do you want with me?" cried the Old One, as soon as he could
+take breath; for it is quite a tiresome affair to go through so many
+false shapes.  "Why do you squeeze me so hard?  Let me go, this moment,
+or I shall begin to consider you an extremely uncivil person!"
+
+"My name is Hercules!" roared the mighty stranger.  "And you will never
+get out of my clutch, until you tell me the nearest way to the garden of
+the Hesperides!"
+
+When the old fellow heard who it was that had caught him, he saw, with
+half an eye, that it would be necessary to tell him everything that he
+wanted to know.  The Old One was an inhabitant of the sea, you must
+recollect, and roamed about everywhere, like other sea-faring people.
+Of course, he had often heard of the fame of Hercules, and of the
+wonderful things that he was constantly performing, in various parts of
+the earth, and how determined he always was to accomplish whatever he
+undertook.  He therefore made no more attempts to escape, but told the
+hero how to find the garden of the Hesperides, and likewise warned him
+of many difficulties which must be overcome, before he could arrive
+thither.
+
+"You must go on, thus and thus," said the Old Man of the Sea, after
+taking the points of the compass, "till you come in sight of a very tall
+giant, who holds the sky on his shoulders.  And the giant, if he happens
+to be in the humor, will tell you exactly where the garden of the
+Hesperides lies."
+
+"And if the giant happens not to be in the humor," remarked Hercules,
+balancing his club on the tip of his finger, "perhaps I shall find means
+to persuade him!"
+
+Thanking the Old Man of the Sea, and begging his pardon for having
+squeezed him so roughly, the hero resumed his journey.  He met with a
+great many strange adventures, which would be well worth your hearing,
+if I had leisure to narrate them as minutely as they deserve.
+
+It was in this journey, if I mistake not, that he encountered a
+prodigious giant, who was so wonderfully contrived by nature, that,
+every time he touched the earth, he became ten times as strong as ever
+he had been before.  His name was Antreus.  You may see, plainly enough,
+that it was a very difficult business to fight with such a fellow; for,
+as often as he got a knock-down blow, up he started again, stronger,
+fiercer, and abler to use his weapons, than if his enemy had let him
+alone, Thus, the harder Hercules pounded the giant with his club, the
+further be seemed from winning the victory.  I have sometimes argued
+with such people, but never fought with one.  The only way in which
+Hercules found it possible to finish the battle, was by lifting Antaeus
+off his feet into the air, and squeezing, and squeezing, and squeezing
+him, until, finally, the strength was quite squeezed out of his enormous
+body.
+
+When this affair was finished, Hercules continued his travels, and went
+to the land of Egypt, where he was taken prisoner, and would have been
+put to death, if he had not slain the king of the country, and made his
+escape.  Passing through the deserts of Africa, and going as fast as he
+could, he arrived at last on the shore of the great ocean.  And here,
+unless he could walk on the crests of the billows, it seemed as if his
+journey must needs be at an end.
+
+Nothing was before him, save the foaming, dashing, measureless ocean.
+But, suddenly, as he looked towards the horizon, he saw something, a
+great way off, which he had not seen the moment before.  It gleamed very
+brightly, almost as you may have beheld the round, golden disk of the
+sun, when it rises or sets over the edge of the world.  It evidently
+drew nearer; for, at every instant, this wonderful object became larger
+and more lustrous.  At length, it had come so nigh that Hercules
+discovered it to be an immense cup or bowl, made either of gold or
+burnished brass.  How it had got afloat upon the sea, is more than I can
+tell you.  There it was, at all events, rolling on the tumultuous
+billows, which tossed it up and down, and heaved their foamy tops
+against its sides, but without ever throwing their spray over the brim.
+
+"I have seen many giants, in my time," thought Hercules, "but never one
+that would need to drink his wine out of a cup like this!"
+
+And, true enough, what a cup it must have been!  It was as large--as
+large--but, in short, I am afraid to say how immeasurably large it was.
+To speak within bounds, it was ten times larger than a great mill-wheel;
+and, all of metal as it was, it floated over the heaving surges more
+lightly than an acorn-cup adown the brook.  The waves tumbled it onward,
+until it grazed against the shore, within a short distance of the spot
+where Hercules was standing.
+
+As soon as this happened, he knew what was to be done; for he had not
+gone through so many remarkable adventures without learning pretty well
+how to conduct himself, whenever anything came to pass a little out of
+the common rule.  It was just as clear as daylight that this marvellous
+cup had been set adrift by some unseen power, and guided hitherward, in
+order to carry Hercules across the sea, on his way to the garden of the
+Hesperides.  Accordingly, without a moment's delay, he clambered over
+the brim, and slid down on the inside, where, spreading out his lion's
+skin, he proceeded to take a little repose.  He had scarcely rested,
+until now, since he bade farewell to the damsels on the margin of the
+river.  The waves dashed, with a pleasant and ringing sound, against the
+circumference of the hollow cup; it rocked lightly to and fro, and the
+motion was so soothing that, it speedily rocked Hercules into an
+agreeable slumber.
+
+His nap had probably lasted a good while, when the cup chanced to graze
+against a rock, and, in consequence, immediately resounded and
+reverberated through its golden or brazen substance, a hundred times as
+loudly as ever you heard a church-bell.  The noise awoke Hercules, who
+instantly started up and gazed around him, wondering whereabouts he was.
+He was not long in discovering that the cup had floated across a great
+part of the sea, and was approaching the shore of what seemed to be an
+island.  And, on that island, what do you think he saw?
+
+No; you will never guess it, not if you were to try fifty thousand
+times!  It positively appears to me that this was the most marvellous
+spectacle that had ever been seen by Hercules, in the whole course of
+his wonderful travels and adventures.  It was a greater marvel than the
+hydra with nine heads, which kept growing twice as fast as they were cut
+off; greater than the six-legged man-monster; greater than Antreus;
+greater than anything that was ever beheld by anybody, before or since
+the days of Hercules, or than anything that remains to be beheld, by
+travellers in all time to come.  It was a giant!
+
+But such an intolerably big giant!  A giant as tall as a mountain; so
+vast a giant, that the clouds rested about his midst, like a girdle,
+and hung like a hoary beard from his chin, and flitted before his huge
+eyes, so that he could neither see Hercules nor the golden cup in which
+he was voyaging.  And, most wonderful of all, the giant held up his
+great hands and appeared to support the sky, which, so far as Hercules
+could discern through the clouds, was resting upon his head!  This does
+really seem almost too much to believe.
+
+Meanwhile, the bright cup continued to float onward, and finally touched
+the strand.  Just then a breeze wafted away the clouds from before the
+giant's visage, and Hercules beheld it, with all its enormous features;
+eyes each of them as big as yonder lake, a nose a mile Long, and a mouth
+of the same width.  It was a countenance terrible from its enormity of
+size, but disconsolate and weary, even as you may see the faces of many
+people, nowadays, who are compelled to sustain burdens above their
+strength.  What the sky was to the giant, such are the cares of earth to
+those who let themselves be weighed down by them.  And whenever men
+undertake what is beyond the just measure of their abilities, they
+encounter precisely such a doom as had befallen this poor giant.
+
+Poor fellow!  He had evidently stood there a long while.  An ancient
+forest had been growing and decaying around his feet; and oak-trees, of
+six or seven centuries old, had sprung from the acorn, and forced
+themselves between his toes.
+
+The giant now looked down from the far height of his great eyes, and,
+perceiving Hercules, roared out, in a voice that resembled thunder,
+proceeding out of the cloud that had just flitted away from his face.
+
+"Who are you, down at my feet there?  And whence do you come, in that
+little cup?"
+
+"I am Hercules!"  thundered back the hero, in a voice pretty nearly or
+quite as loud as the giant's own.  "And I am seeking for the garden of
+the Hesperides!"
+
+"Ho! ho! ho!" roared the giant, in a fit of immense laughter.  "That is
+a wise adventure, truly!"
+
+"And why not?"  cried Hercules, getting a little angry at the giant's
+mirth.  "Do you think I am afraid of the dragon with a hundred heads!"
+
+Just at this time, while they were talking together, some black clouds
+gathered about the giant's middle, and burst into a tremendous storm of
+thunder and lightning, causing such a pother that Hercules found it
+impossible to distinguish a word.  Only the giant's immeasurable legs
+were to be seen, standing up into the obscurity of the tempest; and, now
+and then, a momentary glimpse of his whole figure, mantled in a volume
+of mist.  He seemed to be speaking, most of the time; but his big, deep,
+rough voice chimed in with the reverberations of the thunder-claps, and
+rolled away over the hills, like them.  Thus, by talking out of season,
+the foolish giant expended an incalculable quantity of breath, to no
+purpose; for the thunder spoke quite as intelligibly as he.
+
+At last, the storm swept over, as suddenly as it had come.  And there
+again was the clear sky, and the weary giant holding it up, and the
+pleasant sunshine beaming over his vast height, and illuminating it
+against the background of the sullen thunder-clouds.  So far above the
+shower had been his head, that not a hair of it was moistened by the
+rain-drops!
+
+When the giant could see Hercules still standing on the sea-shore, he
+roared out to him anew.
+
+"I am Atlas, the mightiest giant in the world!  And I hold the sky upon
+my head!"
+
+"So I see," answered Hercules.  "But, can you show me the way to the
+garden of the Hesperides?"
+
+"What do you want there?"  asked the giant.
+
+"I want three of the golden apples," shouted Hercules, "for my cousin,
+the king."
+
+"There is nobody but myself," quoth the giant, "that can go to the
+garden of the Hesperides, and gather the golden apples.  If it were not
+for this little business of holding up the sky, I would make half a
+dozen steps across the sea, and get them for you."
+
+"You are very kind," replied Hercules.  "And cannot you rest the sky
+upon a mountain?"
+
+"None of them are quite high enough," said Atlas, shaking his head.
+"But, if you were to take your stand on the summit of that nearest one,
+your head would be pretty nearly on a level with mine.  You seem to be a
+fellow of some strength.  What if you should take my burden on your
+shoulders, while I do your errand for you?"
+
+Hercules, as you must be careful to remember, was a remarkably strong
+man; and though it certainly requires a great deal of muscular power to
+uphold the sky, yet, if any mortal could be supposed capable of such an
+exploit, he was the one.  Nevertheless, it seemed so difficult an
+undertaking, that, for the first time in his life, he hesitated.
+
+"Is the sky very heavy?" he inquired.
+
+"Why, not particularly so, at first," answered the giant, shrugging his
+shoulders.  "But it gets to be a little burdensome, after a thousand
+years!"
+
+"And how long a time," asked the hero, "will it take you to get the
+golden apples?"
+
+"O, that will be done in a few moments," cried Atlas.  "I shall take ten
+or fifteen miles at a stride, and be at the garden and back again before
+your shoulders begin to ache."
+
+"Well, then," answered Hercules, "I will climb the mountain behind you
+there, and relieve you of your burden."
+
+The truth is, Hercules had a kind heart of his own, and considered that
+he should be doing the giant a favor, by allowing him this opportunity
+for a ramble.  And, besides, he thought that it would be still more for
+his own glory, if he could boast of upholding the sky, than merely to do
+so ordinary a thing as to conquer a dragon with a hundred heads.
+Accordingly, without more words, the sky was shifted from the shoulders
+of Atlas, and placed upon those of Hercules.
+
+When this was safely accomplished, the first thing that the giant did
+was to stretch himself; and you may imagine what a prodigious spectacle
+be was then.  Next, he slowly lifted one of his feet out of the forest
+that had grown up around it; then, the other.  Then, all at once, he
+began to caper, and leap, and dance, for joy at his freedom; flinging
+himself nobody knows how high into the air, and floundering down again
+with a shock that made the earth tremble.  Then he laughed--Ho! ho! ho!
+--with a thunderous roar that was echoed from the mountains, far and
+near, as if they and the giant had been so many rejoicing brothers.
+When his joy had a little subsided, he stepped into the sea; ten miles
+at the first stride, which brought him mid-leg deep; and ten miles at
+the second, when the water came just above his knees; and ten miles more
+at the third, by which he was immersed nearly to his waist.  This was
+the greatest depth of the sea.
+
+Hercules watched the giant, as he still went onward; for it was really a
+wonderful sight, this immense human form, more than thirty miles off,
+half hidden in the ocean, but with his upper half as tall, and misty,
+and blue, as a distant mountain.  At last the gigantic shape faded
+entirely out of view.  And now Hercules began to consider what he should
+do, in case Atlas should be drowned in the sea, or if he were to be
+stung to death by the dragon with the hundred beads, which guarded the
+golden apples of the Hesperides.  If any such misfortune were to happen,
+how could he ever get rid of the sky?  And, by the by, its weight began
+already to be a little irksome to his head and shoulders.
+
+"I really pity the poor giant," thought Hercules.  "If it wearies me so
+much in ten minutes, how must it have wearied him in a thousand years!"
+
+O my sweet little people, you have no idea what a weight there was in
+that same blue sky, which looks so soft and aerial above our heads!  And
+there, too, was the bluster of the wind, and the chill and watery
+clouds, and the blazing sun, all taking their turns to make Hercules
+uncomfortable!  He began to be afraid that the giant would never come
+back.  He gazed wistfully at the world beneath him, and acknowledged to
+himself that it was a far happier kind of life to be a shepherd at the
+foot of a mountain, than to stand on its dizzy summit, and bear up the
+firmament with his might and main.  For, of course, as you will easily
+understand, Hercules had an immense responsibility on his mind, as well
+as a weight on his head and shoulders.  Why, if he did not stand
+perfectly still, and keep the sky immovable, the sun would perhaps be
+put ajar!  Or, after nightfall, a great many of the stars might be
+loosened from their places, and shower down, like fiery rain, upon the
+people's heads!  And how ashamed would the hero be, if, owing to his
+unsteadiness beneath its weight, the sky should crack, and show a great
+fissure quite across it!
+
+I know not how long it was before, to his unspeakable joy, he beheld the
+huge shape of the giant, like a cloud, on the far-off edge of the sea.
+At his nearer approach, Atlas held up his hand, in which Hercules could
+perceive three magnificent golden apples, as big as pumpkins, all
+banging from one branch.
+
+"I am glad to see you again," shouted Hercules, when the giant was
+within hearing.  "So you have got the golden apples?"
+
+"Certainly, certainly," answered Atlas; "and very fair apples they are.
+I took the finest that grew on the tree, I assure you.  Ah! it is a
+beautiful spot, that garden of the Hesperides.  Yes; and the dragon with
+a hundred heads is a sight worth any man's seeing.  After all, you had
+better have gone for the apples yourself."
+
+"No matter," replied Hercules.  "You have had a pleasant ramble, and
+have done the business as well as I could.  I heartily thank you for
+your trouble.  And now, as I have a long way to go, and am rather in
+haste,--and as the king, my cousin, is anxious to receive the golden
+apples,--will you be kind enough to take the sky off my shoulders
+again?"
+
+"Why, as to that," said the giant, chucking the golden apples into the
+air, twenty miles high, or thereabouts, and catching them as they came
+down,--"as to that, my good friend, I consider you a little
+unreasonable.  Cannot I carry the golden apples to the king, your
+cousin, much quicker than you could?  As his majesty is in such a hurry
+to get them, I promise you to take my longest strides.  And, besides, I
+have no fancy for burdening myself with the sky, just now."
+
+Here Hercules grew impatient, and gave a great shrug of his shoulders.
+It being now twilight, you might have seen two or three stars tumble out
+of their places.  Everybody on earth looked upward in affright, thinking
+that the sky might be going to fall next.
+
+"O, that will never do!" cried Giant Atlas, with a great roar of
+laughter.  "I have not let fall so many stars within the last five
+centuries.  By the time you have stood there as long as I did, you will
+begin to learn patience!"
+
+"What!" shouted Hercules, very wrathfully, "do you intend to make me
+bear this burden forever?"
+
+"We will see about that, one of these days," answered the giant.  "At
+all events, you ought not to complain, if you have to bear it the next
+hundred years, or perhaps the next thousand.  I bore it a good while
+longer, in spite of the back-ache.  Well, then, after a thousand years,
+if I happen to feel in the mood, we may possibly shift about again.  You
+are certainly a very strong man, and can never have a better opportunity
+to prove it.  Posterity will talk of you, I warrant it!"
+
+"Pish! a fig for its talk!" cried Hercules, with another hitch of his
+shoulders.  "Just take the sky upon your head one instant, will you?  I
+want to make a cushion of my lion's skin, for the weight to rest upon.
+It really chafes me, and will cause unnecessary inconvenience in so many
+centuries as I am to stand here."
+
+"That's no more than fair, and I'll do it!" quoth the giant; for he had
+no unkind feeling towards Hercules, and was merely acting with a too
+selfish consideration of his own ease.  "For just five minutes, then,
+I'll take back the sky.  Only for five minutes, recollect!  I have no
+idea of spending another thousand years as I spent the last.  Variety is
+the spice of life, say I."
+
+Ah, the thick-witted old rogue of a giant!  He threw down the golden
+apples, and received back the sky, from the head and shoulders of
+Hercules, upon his own, where it rightly belonged.  And Hercules picked
+up the three golden apples, that were as big or bigger than pumpkins,
+and straightway set out on his journey homeward, without paying the
+slightest heed to the thundering tones of the giant, who bellowed after
+him to come back.  Another forest sprang up around his feet, and grew
+ancient there; and again might be seen oak-trees, of six or seven
+centuries old, that had waxed thus again betwixt his enormous toes.
+
+And there stands the giant, to this day; or, at any rate, there stands a
+mountain as tall as he, and which bears his name; and when the thunder
+rumples about its summit, we may imagine it to be the voice of Giant
+Atlas, bellowing after Hercules!
+
+
+
+TANGLEWOOD FIRESIDE.
+
+AFTER THE STORY.
+
+"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.
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THREE GOLDEN APPLES ***
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