Bessie had been down into the kitchen, and she brought up with
her a tart on a certain brightly painted china plate, whose bird
of paradise, nestling in a wreath of convolvuli and rosebuds, had
been wont to stir in me a most enthusiastic sense of admiration;
and which plate I had often petitioned to be allowed to take in my
hand in order to examine it more closely, but had always hitherto
been deemed unworthy of such a privilege. This precious vessel
was now placed on my knee, and I was cordially invited to eat the
circlet of delicate pastry upon it. Vain favour! coming, like
most other favours long deferred and often wished for, too late!
I could not eat the tart; and the plumage of the bird, the tints
of the flowers, seemed strangely faded: I put both plate and tart
away. Bessie asked if I would have a book: the word BOOK acted as
a transient stimulus, and I begged her to fetch Gulliver's Travels
from the library. This book I had again and again perused with
delight. I considered it a narrative of facts, and discovered in
it a vein of interest deeper than what I found in fairy tales: for
as to the elves, having sought them in vain among foxglove leaves
and bells, under mushrooms and beneath the ground-ivy mantling old
wall-nooks, I had at length made up my mind to the sad truth, that
they were all gone out of England to some savage country where
the woods were wilder and thicker, and the population more scant;
whereas, Lilliput and Brobdignag being, in my creed, solid parts of
the earth's surface, I doubted not that I might one day, by taking
a long voyage, see with my own eyes the little fields, houses, and
trees, the diminutive people, the tiny cows, sheep, and birds of
the one realm; and the corn-fields forest-high, the mighty mastiffs,
the monster cats, the tower-like men and women, of the other.
Yet, when this cherished volume was now placed in my hand -- when