Preface 



intelligent reader, the book would sufficiently explain its 

 own plan, and indicate what was truth and how much fiction 

 by subtile lines of demarcation not intended to catch the 

 eye and arouse the suspicions of the careless and credulous. 



The result was, one more illustration of the danger of too 

 hasty and general classifications. The intelligent were not 

 vigilant enough, and the credulous not blind enough, for the 

 Author's purpose. The critic (whose course through the 

 wastes of light literature is often kangaroo-lilce) overlooked 

 and overleapt all the cunning countersigns intended to warn 

 him where a toil was spread for the unwary. When the 

 Author steps modestly forward, in a foot note, to disen- 

 tangle the meshes and beg pardon, it is too late. The critic 

 has taken offence, and refusing to be comforted, lays about 

 him, tearing the flimsy fabric in pieces, like the bee in this 

 fable by Loqman el hakim. 



THE SPIDER AND THE BEE. 



An ingenious little spider had spread her nets amid the 

 tall rank stalks of certain weeds that grew over the remnant 

 of a carcass. The lion had left it to the wolves, the wolves 

 to the vultures, and the vultures to the flies, which last 

 were still buzzing in countless swarms among the putrid 

 bones. Many were already caught in the toils, when a brisk 

 young bee came booming across the wilderness, who, when 

 he heard the collective buzzing, mistook it for the hum of 

 his own tribe. He at once plunged into the weed-clump to 

 look for flowers, and became entangled in the cobwebs. 

 These he was indignantly demolishing, when the spider thus 

 accosted him : — 



" Oh vagrant son of the hive — an evil hour hath borne 

 thee hither ! wherefore didst thou not stay to observe that 



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