Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1892-07-20
SIMPLICITY.

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the sea has long since engulfed. there
lived king and a queen who had one
son. The king was great king; his
drinking cup was the very largest in all
the realm; his sword the heaviest: he
fought and he drank royalty.
The queen was beautiful queen;
she had so many wonderful cosmetics,
hnd they wrought SO mysterious and
Wonderful charm that she looked not
b day older than forty.
The son was fool. IA fool of the
most pronounced type" said the bril-
liant lights of the kingdom. When he
had reached the age of sixteen the king,
his father, took him to the wars. These
wars were carried on in order to exter-
inmate a certain neighboring nation
that dared to possess too much territory.
Here it was that Simplicity showed
himself a Ounce. He saved twenty-four
women and thirty-six children from
slaughter, and every stroke Of the sword
which he was himself forced to give
caused him to weep bitterly, while the.
battlefield itself, running over with
blood and encumbered with the dead,
filled his heart with such deep pity that
for three days he could not cat
So you must see that he was Ounce,
my dear.
When he was seventeen he was obliged
to assist at IA great festival given by the
king to all the magnates of his kingdom.
Here again he committed many blum
ders. He contented himself easily; he
ate sparsely of the great banquet spread
before him, and he swore-not at all!
His glass would have remained always
full before him had not the king him
self, to save the dignity of the family,
emptied it slyly from time to time.
At eighteen, as he began to grow a
beard, he was noticed by one of the
queens court ladies.
Court ladies are dreadful creatures,
my dear.
This particular court lady wished for
nothing less than to be kissed by the
prince! The poor boy did not dream of
such thing; he trembled when she
spoke to him, and hid himself the mo-
ment he saw the edge of her skirts in the
gardens. The king, who was good
father, saw what was passing and
laughed in his sleeve. But as the lady
still pursued the prince, and the kiss was
still withheld, he blushed for such son
and himself gave the kiss asked for, al
ways, to be sure, for the dignity and
honor of his family and his race. "Oh,
the little fool!' said the king. who was
man of spirit!
1t was at the age of twenty that SIM
plicity became completely idiotic. He
met forest and fell in love! In those
olden times people did not try to beauti-
fy the trees by pruning and cruel Incl
sions. The branches grew as they listed;
God alone had them in charge, and
moderated the roots and managed the
saplings. Sinplicity's forest was an i'm
monse nest of verdure, interspersed here
and there by majestic avenues. The
moss, drunk with the dew, fourished
wantonly; the eglantines spread their
plant arms, sought each other and
played mad pranks around the mighty
trunks of the trees. The great trees
themselves, standing calm and serene,
twisted their roots in the shade and
mounted tulnnltuously upward to kiss
the rays of summer. The green grass
hourishcd, while in their hurry to bios
som the daisy and the scorpion grass,
growing confused at times, clung to-
gether on the broken trunks of fallen
trees. And all these branches, all these
grasses, all these flowers, sang; all min
gled and pressed closely together to
gossip more at ease, to whisper low to-
gether of the loves of the corolla. A
breath of life hoated low down in the
shadowed coppice, giving voice to each
prig of moss.
The forest held high carnival. The
ladybirds, the beetles. the dragonfies,
the butterhics-all the beautiful lovers
of the Towering hedges-had gathered
at the four quarters of the forest.
There they established their little re-
public; the footpaths were their guards
the streams, their streams; the forest,
their forest. They lived luxuriantly st
the foot of the trees, on low branches. in
.ae dried leaves; lived there as though
at home, quietly and by right of con-
quest. They had, like good citizens,
abandoned the higher branches to the
robins and the nightingales. The forest,
that had hitherto sung in all its branches,
in all its leaves and flowers, sang now
with the insects and with the birds.
In short time Simplicity became an
pld friend of the forest. They chatted
so happily together that it robbed him
Of the last vestige of sense. When he
left the forest to shut himself again
within four walls. whether seated at his
table or lying in his bed, he was always
dreaming.
At last, one beautiful morning, he
suddenly abandoned his apartments, and
went and installed himself under the
old foliage. There he chose for him
self an immense palace. His salon was
vast glade. Long dark green draperies
ornamented the periphery: 500 flexible