TOLD BY JEANNETTE MARKS WELLESLEY M.A. LECTURER AT MT. HOLYOKE COLLEGE ILLUSTRATED HARPER & BROTHERS NEW YORK & LONDON COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY HARPER & BROTHERS PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PUBLISHED APRIL, 1915 TO H. M. C....

Supposing you were asked to enter a Great Palace? And within that palace, you were told, were more than a thousand golden doors? And those doors opened into rooms and upon gardens and balconies, all of which were the most beautiful of palace rooms and gardens? And some were more beautiful than anything the world had ever known before? Do you think you would go through the gate to that palace? And if you were told that in the palace were lamps so bright that they lighted not only the palace, but

The first golden door we open in the Great Palace shows us a hero, and that is as it should be, for the English have always been brave. Yet probably the poem about this first English hero is not the first poem. The first is a poem by the name of the "Far Traveller." "Many men and rulers have I known," says this traveler; "through many strange lands I have fared throughout the spacious earth." This poem may not be of great value, but it is a wonderful experience to open this door and see back, ba

On the other side of most of the golden doors through which we shall pass, our own tongue, English, is spoken. Yet in this wonderful palace, full of beautiful thoughts and beautiful expression, there are two doors which when thrown open we may enter, but where our English would not be understood. They both admit us to the poems and prose of families of the same race—a race called Celtic. Over one door of this family, however, is written Cymric , and all that is Cymric is written and spoken in We

It is interesting to think, is it not, that if it had not been for those two little Celtic doors of gold over one of which was written Cymric , or Welsh , and over the other, Gaelic , or Irish , our Great Palace of English Literature could not have been the same palace, nor half so beautiful. It is not only that there would not have been so many wonderful golden doors leading into story-land, but the stories themselves would not have been told in the same way. The Scotch, too, who belong to the

A very great modern poet, Coleridge, who wrote "The Ancient Mariner," said that prose was words in their best order, but that poetry was the best words in their best order . This is a simple and good definition of poetry. Yet there is even more than best words in their best order in the room beyond the door over which is written Poetry . Perhaps, however, beautiful words in their best order would always teach us to find what is beautiful and to love the good. I do not know. Do you? Cædmon's poem

After Cædmon's day there were more and more religious poets. Very often the men who wrote the poetry and prose during the time of Cædmon and of Cuthbert lived in monasteries, where the life was a religious life. In the Great Palace of English Literature there is a pretty story told about Ealdhelm, who was a young man when Cædmon died. This young man later became the Abbot of Malmesbury. He was not only a religious poet, but he also made songs and could sing them to music. He traveled from town t

You know what sort of stories Bede was fond of telling—of course in Latin. If you should be asked with whom English prose began, I think it would be safe to say, "With Bede, who wrote the life of St. Cuthbert and the Ecclesiastical History." But that is not why you should say that Bede began English prose, but because at his death he was busy finishing a book written in English and called Translation of the Gospel of St. John . When his last day came the good old man called all his scholars abou

When we say that we are English-speaking, it seems as if it were not necessary to say more than that. But the more we wander about in the Great Palace of English Literature opening golden doors, the more do we realize that we cannot say that this palace was built by English hands alone. No, the men who built it were not only English, they were, as you know already, Welsh, Irish, Scotch. Indeed, the very word "English" was brought to England by an invader, just as the word "America" was brought t

In the Great Palace of English Literature over one of the golden doors hangs a horn of ivory, and a sword of which the name is Durendal. Above that door is written Chanson de Roland , which means the Song of Roland. Often in the stillness of the early morning or at dusk the Great Palace rings faintly with the music from that ivory horn which belonged to Roland, and which he sounded for the last time in the Pass of Roncevaux. Or there is heard the clinking of Durendal against the stone of the pal

Among all the golden doors in the Great Palace of English Literature about which we are coming to know something, and through some of which we have already passed, there was one golden window on the stairway of the palace. This window on the stairway of the palace looked out upon a busy town and down upon the windings of the river Wye, and off upon hills and upon the ruins of a wonderful old abbey called Tintern Abbey, about which, some six hundred years later, an English poet called William Wor

Geoffrey's window is a very fascinating place to be—possibly the most interesting window the world has ever seen. It is not just one lifetime which has found that window interesting, but more lifetimes than we can count comfortably. Sir Thomas Malory, who wrote his Morte d'Arthur in 1469, fairly lived in that window; so did Shakespeare when he wrote "King Lear" in 1605, and even the modern poet, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who wrote "The Charge of the Light Brigade," composed a series of poems called

200-600 Romans leave Britain, 409-420. Coming of Angles and Saxons, 449. King Arthur, d. 520. St. Augustine, 354-430. Earliest Gaelic lays, 200-300. St. Patrick, d. 465. Merlin, 475-575. Taliesin, 500-560. "Traveller's Song," Widsith. Galen, the great doctor, d. 200. Baths of Caracalla, 215. Great Roman Roads. Underground churches for Christians, 250-260. Glass used in cathedral windows, 300. First bells in Europe. The first clock, a water-clock, 5th century. 600-1066 Charlemagne, 742-814. First