A Double Story | Page 2

to cry. I told you it was a strange country.
As she grew up, everybody about her did his best to convince her that
she was Somebody; and the girl herself was so easily persuaded of it
that she quite forgot that anybody had ever told her so, and took it for a
fundamental, innate, primary, first-born, self- evident, necessary, and
incontrovertible idea and principle that SHE WAS SOMEBODY. And
far be it from me to deny it. I will even go so far as to assert that in this
odd country there was a huge number of Somebodies. Indeed, it was
one of its oddities that every boy and girl in it, was rather too ready to
think he or she was Somebody; and the worst of it was that the princess
never thought of there being more than one Somebody--and that was
herself.
Far away to the north in the same country, on the side of a bleak hill,
where a horse-chestnut or a sycamore was never seen, where were no
meadows rich with buttercups, only steep, rough, breezy slopes,
covered with dry prickly furze and its flowers of red gold, or moister,
softer broom with its flowers of yellow gold, and great sweeps of
purple heather, mixed with bilberries, and crowberries, and
cranberries--no, I am all wrong: there was nothing out yet but a few
furze-blossoms; the rest were all waiting behind their doors till they
were called; and no full, slow-gliding river with meadow-sweet along
its oozy banks, only a little brook here and there, that dashed past
without a moment to say, "How do you do?"--there (would you believe
it?) while the same cloud that was dropping down golden rain all about
the queen's new baby was dashing huge fierce handfuls of hail upon the
hills, with such force that they flew spinning off the rocks and stones,
went burrowing in the sheep's wool, stung the cheeks and chin of the
shepherd with their sharp spiteful little blows, and made his dog wink
and whine as they bounded off his hard wise head, and long sagacious
nose; only, when they dropped plump down the chimney, and fell
hissing in the little fire, they caught it then, for the clever little fire soon
sent them up the chimney again, a good deal swollen, and harmless
enough for a while, there (what do you think?) among the hailstones,
and the heather, and the cold mountain air, another little girl was born,
whom the shepherd her father, and the shepherdess her mother, and a

good many of her kindred too, thought Somebody. She had not an
uncle or an aunt that was less than a shepherd or dairymaid, not a
cousin, that was less than a farm-laborer, not a second-cousin that was
less than a grocer, and they did not count farther. And yet (would you
believe it?) she too cried the very first thing. It WAS an odd country!
And, what is still more surprising, the shepherd and shepherdess and
the dairymaids and the laborers were not a bit wiser than the king and
the queen and the dukes and the marquises and the earls; for they too,
one and all, so constantly taught the little woman that she was
Somebody, that she also forgot that there were a great many more
Somebodies besides herself in the world.
It was, indeed, a peculiar country, very different from ours--so different,
that my reader must not be too much surprised when I add the amazing
fact, that most of its inhabitants, instead of enjoying the things they had,
were always wanting the things they had not, often even the things it
was least likely they ever could have. The grown men and women
being like this, there is no reason to be further astonished that the
Princess Rosamond--the name her parents gave her because it means
Rose of the World--should grow up like them, wanting every thing she
could and every thing she couldn't have. The things she could have
were a great many too many, for her foolish parents always gave her
what they could; but still there remained a few things they couldn't give
her, for they were only a common king and queen. They could and did
give her a lighted candle when she cried for it, and managed by much
care that she should not burn her fingers or set her frock on fire; but
when she cried for the moon, that they could not give her. They did the
worst thing possible, instead, however; for they pretended to do what
they could not. They got her a thin disc of brilliantly polished silver, as
near the size of the moon as they could agree upon; and, for a time she
was delighted.
But, unfortunately, one