shoulders, begin to stride along the boughs in a perfect throng,
dragging knights and ladies home for dinner by the hair of their
heads. And Jack--how noble, with his sword of sharpness, and his
shoes of swiftness! Again those old meditations come upon me as I
gaze up at him; and I debate within myself whether there was more
than one Jack (which I am loth to believe possible), or only one
genuine original admirable Jack, who achieved all the recorded
exploits.

Good for Christmas-time is the ruddy colour of the cloak, in which--
the tree making a forest of itself for her to trip through, with her
basket--Little Red Riding-Hood comes to me one Christmas Eve to give
me information of the cruelty and treachery of that dissembling Wolf
who ate her grandmother, without making any impression on his
appetite, and then ate her, after making that ferocious joke about
his teeth. She was my first love. I felt that if I could have
married Little Red Riding-Hood, I should have known perfect bliss.
But, it was not to be; and there was nothing for it but to look out
the Wolf in the Noah's Ark there, and put him late in the procession
on the table, as a monster who was to be degraded. O the wonderful
Noah's Ark! It was not found seaworthy when put in a washing-tub,
and the animals were crammed in at the roof, and needed to have
their legs well shaken down before they could be got in, even there--
and then, ten to one but they began to tumble out at the door,
which was but imperfectly fastened with a wire latch--but what was
THAT against it! Consider the noble fly, a size or two smaller than
the elephant: the lady-bird, the butterfly--all triumphs of art!
Consider the goose, whose feet were so small, and whose balance was
so indifferent, that he usually tumbled forward, and knocked down
all the animal creation. Consider Noah and his family, like idiotic