As the scope of the first series of these Tales seems to have been
somewhat overlooked, a few words of introduction may not be out of place
before this second volume.

It seems that any simple form of fiction is supposed to be a "fairy
tale:" which implies that it has to do with an impossible world of
imaginary beings. Now the Egyptian Tales are exactly the opposite of
this, they relate the doings and the thoughts of men and women who are
human--sometimes "very human," as Mr. Balfour said. Whatever there is of
supernatural elements is a very part of the beliefs and motives of the
people whose lives are here pictured. But most of what is here might
happen in some corner of our own country to-day, where ancient beliefs
may have a home. So far, then, from being fairy tales there is not a
single being that could be termed a fairy in the whole of them.

Another notion that seems to be about is that the only possible object
of reading any form of fiction is for pure amusement, to fill an idle
hour and be forgotten and if these tales are not as amusing as some
jester of to-day, then the idler says, Away with them as a failure! For
such a person, who only looks to have the tedium of a vacuous mind
relieved, these tales are not in the least intended. But the real and
genuine charm of all fiction is that of enabling the reader to place
himself in the mental position of, another, to see with the eyes, to
feel with the thoughts, to reason with the mind, of a wholly different
being. All the greatest work has this charm. It may be to place the reader
in new mental positions, or in a different level of the society that he
already knows, either higher or lower; or it may be to make alive to him
a society of a different land or age. Whether he read "Treasure Island"
or "Plain Tales from the Hills," "The Scarlet Letter," "Old Mortality,"
or "Hypatia," it is the transplanting of the reader into a new life, the