102 THE KING'S MIRROR 



heard the book read, that such wonders are impossible, 

 and that what is told in the book is mere falsehood. But 

 if our own country were carefully searched, there would 

 be found no fewer things here than are numbered in 

 that book which would seem as wonderful, or even more 

 so, to men of other lands who have not seen or heard 

 anything like them. Now we call those things fiction 

 because we had not seen them here or heard of them 

 before the coming of that book which I have just men- 

 tioned. That little book has, however, been widely circu- 

 lated, though it has always been questioned and charged 

 with falsehood; and it seems to me that no one has de- 

 rived honor from it, neither those who have doubted it 

 nor the one who wrote it, even though his work has been 

 widely distributed and has served to amuse and tickle 

 the ear, seeing that what is written in it has always been 

 called fiction. 



IX 



POPULAR DOUBT AS TO THE GENUINENESS OF MARVELS 



Son. Of course I cannot know how widely our talks 

 will travel either in our days or later; and yet, with your 

 permission, I will again ask the pleasure of hearing fur- 

 ther speech concerning those matters that we might 

 think strange in other lands, but which we know are 

 surely genuine. And we need not be so very skeptical 

 of this book which is said to have been written in India, 

 though many marvels are told in it; for there are many 

 things in our own country, which, though not strange to 

 us, would seem wonderful to other people, if our words 

 should fly so far as to come thither where such things 



