Page:The Dial (Volume 68).djvu/313

A CERTAIN king once gave to three of his courtiers, in order to determine their wisdom, three hollow crystal globes which were filled with a golden wine and sealed so that none of the fluid might escape thérefrom.

Said the first courtier to himself:

"Wine is to be drunk. I will break the glass and taste stuff, for I am sure it will prove very excellent on the tongue."

So he broke his crystal globe, and before he could catch any of the wine it was spilled upon the ground.

Said the second courtier to himself:

"This crystal of mine is beautiful to the eye, but it is stained inside with a yellow liquid. If I remove the liquid my crystal globe will then be transparent and exquisite."

And, boring a small hole in the side of it, he broke his globe into a thousand fragments.

Said the third courtier to himself:

"This crystal which the king has given me is round like the dome of the sky. Moreover, it is filled with a golden wine which, if drunk, would doubtless make me happy for an hour but which may not be removed, I fear, without breaking the glass and spilling the wine upon the ground. Therefore I will only hang my globe in my window that, seeing it each morning, I may contemplate infinity and be drunk in my imagination on the wine which is within."

And he hung the king's gift in his window.

And when the king saw what the courtier had done he was pleased. And he said to the courtier:

"For your wisdom and understandmg you shall be rewarded. I hereby make you the First Critic of the Land."

"Criticism is the last of all literary forms; it will perhaps end by absorbing them all. It is admirably adapted to a very civilized society whose memories are rich and whose traditions are already age-