This eBook was produced by David Widger                 A WONDERBOOK FOR GIRLS AND BOYS                     By Nathaniel Hawthorne                        THE GORGONS HEADCONTENTSTANGLEWOOD PORCHIntroductory to The Gorgons HeadTHE GORGONS HEADTANGLEWOOD PORCHAfter the StoryThe author has long been of opinion that many of the classical mythswere capable of being rendered into very capital reading for childrenIn the little volume here offered to the public he has worked up half adozen of them with this end in view  A great freedom of treatment wasnecessary to his plan but it will be observed by every one who attemptsto render these legends malleable in his intellectual furnace that theyare marvellously independent of all temporary modes and circumstancesThey remain essentially the same after changes that would affect theidentity of almost anything elseHe does not therefore plead guilty to a sacrilege in having sometimesshaped anew as his fancy dictated the forms that have been hallowed byan antiquity of two or three thousand years  No epoch of time can claima copyright in these immortal fables  They seem never to have beenmade and certainly so long as man exists they can never perish butby their indestructibility itself they are legitimate subjects forevery age to clothe with its own garniture of manners and sentiment andto imbue with its own morality  In the present version they may havelost much of their classical aspect or at all events the author hasnot been careful to preserve it and have perhaps assumed a Gothic orromantic guiseIn performing this pleasant taskfor it has been really a task fit forhot weather and one of the most agreeable of a literary kind which heever undertookthe author has not always thought it necessary to writedownward in order to meet the comprehension of children  He hasgenerally suffered the theme to soar whenever such was its tendencyand when he himself was buoyant enough to follow without an effortChildren possess an unestimated sensibility to whatever is deep or highin imagination or feeling so long as it is simple likewise  It isonly the artificial and the complex that bewilder themLenox July 15 1851THE GORGONS HEADTANGLEWOOD PORCHINTRODUCTORY TO THE GORGONS HEADBeneath the porch of the countryseat called Tanglewood one fineautumnal morning was assembled a merry party of little folks with atall youth in the midst of them  They had planned a nutting expeditionand were impatiently waiting for the mists to roll up the hillslopesand for the sun to pour the warmth of the Indian summer over the fieldsand pastures and into the nooks of the manycolored woods  There was aprospect of as fine a day as ever gladdened the aspect of this beautifuland comfortable world  As yet however the morning mist filled up thewhole length and breadth of the valley above which on a gently slopingeminence the mansion stoodThis body of white vapor extended to within less than a hundred yards ofthe house  It completely hid everything beyond that distance except afew ruddy or yellow treetops which here and there emerged and wereglorified by the early sunshine as was likewise the broad surface ofthe mist  Four or five miles off to the southward rose the summit ofMonument Mountain and seemed to be floating on a cloud  Some fifteenmiles farther away in the same direction appeared the loftier Dome ofTaconic looking blue and indistinct and hardly so substantial as thevapory sea that almost rolled over it  The nearer hills which borderedthe valley were half submerged and were specked with littlecloudwreaths all the way to their tops  On the whole there was so muchcloud and so little solid earth that it had the effect of a visionThe children abovementioned being as full of life as they could holdkept overflowing from the porch of Tanglewood and scampering along thegravelwalk or rushing across the dewy herbage of the lawn  I canhardly tell how many of these small people there were not less thannine or ten however nor more than a dozen of all sorts sizes andages whether girls or boys  They were brothers sisters and cousinstogether with a few of their young acquaintances who had been invitedby Mr and Mrs Pringle to spend some of this delightful weather withtheir own children at Tanglewood  I am afraid to tell you their namesor even to give them any names which other children have ever beencalled by because to my certain knowledge authors sometimes getthemselves into great trouble by accidentally giving the names of realpersons to the characters in their books  For this reason I mean tocall them Primrose Periwinkle Sweet Fern Dandelion Blue Eye CloverHuckleberry Cowslip Squashblossom Milkweed Plantain and Buttercupalthough to be sure such titles might better suit a group of fairiesthan a company of earthly childrenIt is not to be supposed that these little folks were to be permitted bytheir careful fathers and mothers uncles aunts or grandparents tostray abroad into the woods and fields without the guardianship of someparticularly grave and elderly person  O no indeed  In the firstsentence of my book you will recollect that I spoke of a tall youthstanding in the midst of the children  His nameand I shall let youknow his real name because he considers it a great honor to have toldthe stories that are here to be printedhis name was Eustace BrightHe was a student at Williams College and had reached I think at thisperiod the venerable age of eighteenyears so that he felt quite likea grandfather towards Periwinkle Dandelion Huckleberry Squashblossom Milkweed and the rest who were only half or a third asvenerable as he  A trouble in his eyesight such as many students thinkit necessary to have nowadays in order