The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1857-06-25
The Crystal Wall.
A STORY THE scHooLMAsrER TOLD TO HIS BOYS.

A STORY THE sCHooLMAsTER TOLD TO HIS BOYS.
There was once a prince who owned q very beauti.
full estate. A grand palace with columns and domes
of white marble stood in the center. Fine large trees
waved their happy boughs all about it. CHANGING
fountains sprung up In the gardens as if they loved
the sky. Smiling little streams wandered among rare
and fragrant flowers, and it was hard to tell which
sung the sweetest, they or the gay birds whose music
was not still all the day long. But the most beautl-
full thing of all was a wall of pure crystal, without a
flaw or a stain, that stood around the whole.
Just beyond these palace grounds were barren
mountains, and the prince could hear sometimes the
bowling of wild beasts among the rocks, which prowl-
ing at ~nightfall, would come and gnash and scratch
and beat against the crystal wall. But they never
could ONE near him, and the glimpses he caught Of
the unconth monsters through the transparent crystal
would have frightened him terribly, unless he had
known that his wall was so strong and firm that he
was safe.
And sometimes there were fearful tempests out side
the palace grounds, and thunder and lightnings, and
foul birds scared from their nests few through the
black air with strange streams, and the withered
boughs crashed in the deep wild woods. But storms
never came within the crystal wall. By day all was
peace, and the sun shone in splendor from his rising
till he went down behind the purple hills; and at
night the stars flashed like Jewels in the clear sky,
and peace and tender sleep came in at the palace
doors together.
But by and by the prince began to grow inquiet
and dull and lonesome. He used to walk along close
by the wall, and almost wish that he might 90 out to
seek adventures beyond, and grew almost weary of
the restraint. Yet he could not tell what there was
to desire that was not already his. Only his impa-
thence at always knowing that beyond his crystal
wall all was an unknown and forbidden land to him,
disturbed his happiness and gave him a great deal of
trouble.
One day as he was walking in a path far away
from the marble palace, and gazing through the
limpid wall, and wondering why he could not be at
liberty to go out and scale the high mountains and
see whaG lay beyond them, he saw q strange sight.
A little animal with a head something like a snakes
and a thin body something like a vessels, was dig
ging the earth close by the wall, but upon the outer
side, as if it tried to get into the garden. A t first the
prince was sadly alarmed, and ran away towards the
palace. But the next day and the next, for all that
week, he found himself still straying toward that part
of the inclOsure, and looking with more and more
interest at the toll of the creature, and wondering
much how he could ever have felt any alarm from
what he was coming to think a harmless and not q
very ugly little animal.
At length, one day when he had watched it for
some time, and seen how constantly it, labored, and
yet how it seemed to make no progress, almost with
out thinking, he picked up a stone to break away o
place in the wall. But he must have struck a harder
blow than he meant to, for a pretty large piece came
out, and through the hole the creature quickly ran
to hide itself behind a bunch of weeds which grew
near-for there were some weeds III the garden.
Then the prince knew how very, very wrong he
had done, and you may suppose he was a good deal
frightened. He sat down on the grass and cried for
some time, and then went to look for the animal to
drive it out again. But it had burrowed a hole in
III SOlIs dLu he hucW liz COulu y yet II WITHOUT
much trouble. And the more he waited and thought
about it, the more inclined he was to let it stay.
So, finally, he made up his mind to do so, but
thought he would stop up the breach in the crystal
wall. Then he took sods and stones, and thrust them
In, and learned a large stone against the place. The
next day he came to look at it, and found the sods
had all fallen out, and was shocked to see how the
wall had crumbled away and how much larger, also,
the hole was. Every day when he came to look at it,
it had become larger than it had been, still crumbling,
crumblng away, until he no longer felt any surprise
or alarm at it.
But one night as he lay on his bed the prince heard
a storm beating and driving against the crystal wall
as he had never heard before, and whenever the storm
was still, the fierce beasts howled and yelled in a
frightful manner. Then of a sudden, there came a
tremendous crash, and he knew the crystal wall had
fallen in.
Where the palace and the lovely garden were, there
is now a desert wilderness. Where the flowers and
the brooks and the fountains were, are now the lairs
of beasts of prey. And unclean birds croak in the
branches which once swung to the sweet music of
gentle s0ngsters.
To every one of us has been given such a wall of
clear crystal purity. Let us be content to dwell
within the crystal Transcript and
Eclectic.