unsupervised-language-detection 0.0.1

data/datasets/gutenberg-test-en.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,1130 @@
+One fine summer day, a month after these her first adventures, during
+which time she had been very carefully watched, the princess was lying
+on the bed in the queen's own chamber, fast asleep. One of the windows
+was open, for it was noon, and the day was so sultry that the little
+girl was wrapped in nothing less ethereal than slumber itself. The queen
+came into the room, and not observing that the baby was on the bed,
+opened another window. A frolicsome fairy wind, which had been watching
+for a chance of mischief, rushed in at the one window, and taking its
+way over the bed where the child was lying, caught her up, and rolling
+and floating her along like a piece of flue, or a dandelion seed,
+carried her with it through the opposite window, and away. The queen
+went down-stairs, quite ignorant of the loss she had herself occasioned.
+
+
+
+
+When the nurse returned, she supposed that her Majesty had carried her
+off, and, dreading a scolding, delayed making inquiry about her. But
+hearing nothing, she grew uneasy, and went at length to the queen's
+boudoir, where she found her Majesty.
+
+"Please, your Majesty, shall I take the baby?" said she.
+
+"Where is she?" asked the queen.
+
+"Please forgive me. I know it was wrong."
+
+"What do you mean?" said the queen, looking grave.
+
+"Oh! don't frighten me, your Majesty!" exclaimed the nurse, clasping her
+hands.
+
+The queen saw that something was amiss, and fell down in a faint. The
+nurse rushed about the palace, screaming, "My baby! my baby!"
+
+Every one ran to the queen's room. But the queen could give no orders.
+They soon found out, however, that the princess was missing, and in a
+moment the palace was like a beehive in a garden; and in one minute more
+the queen was brought to herself by a great shout and a clapping of
+hands. They had found the princess fast asleep under a rose-bush, to
+which the elfish little wind-puff had carried her, finishing its
+mischief by shaking a shower of red rose-leaves all over the little
+white sleeper. Startled by the noise the servants made, she woke, and,
+furious with glee, scattered the rose-leaves in all directions, like a
+shower of spray in the sunset.
+
+She was watched more carefully after this, no doubt; yet it would be
+endless to relate all the odd incidents resulting from this peculiarity
+of the young princess. But there never was a baby in a house, not to say
+a palace, that kept the household in such constant good humour, at least
+below-stairs. If it was not easy for her nurses to hold her, at least
+she made neither their arms nor their hearts ache. And she was so nice
+to play at ball with! There was positively no danger of letting her
+fall. They might throw her down, or knock her down, or push her down,
+but they couldn't _let_ her down. It is true, they might let her fly
+into the fire or the coal-hole, or through the window; but none of these
+accidents had happened as yet. If you heard peals of laughter resounding
+from some unknown region, you might be sure enough of the cause. Going
+down into the kitchen, or _the room_, you would find Jane and Thomas,
+and Robert and Susan, all and sum, playing at ball with the little
+princess. She was the ball herself, and did not enjoy it the less for
+that. Away she went, flying from one to another, screeching with
+laughter. And the servants loved the ball itself better even than the
+game. But they had to take some care how they threw her, for if she
+received an upward direction, she would never come down again without
+being fetched.
+
+
+V
+
+_What Is to Be Done?_
+
+But above-stairs it was different. One day, for instance, after
+breakfast, the king went into his counting-house, and counted out his
+money.
+
+The operation gave him no pleasure.
+
+"To think," said he to himself, "that every one of these gold sovereigns
+weighs a quarter of an ounce, and my real, live, flesh-and-blood
+princess weighs nothing at all!"
+
+And he hated his gold sovereigns, as they lay with a broad smile of
+self-satisfaction all over their yellow faces.
+
+The queen was in the parlour, eating bread and honey. But at the second
+mouthful she burst out crying, and could not swallow it. The king heard
+her sobbing. Glad of anybody, but especially of his queen, to quarrel
+with, he clashed his gold sovereigns into his money-box, clapped his
+crown on his head, and rushed into the parlour.
+
+"What is all this about?" exclaimed he. "What are you crying for,
+queen?"
+
+"I can't eat it," said the queen, looking ruefully at the honey-pot.
+
+"No wonder!" retorted the king. "You've just eaten your breakfast--two
+turkey eggs, and three anchovies."
+
+"Oh, that's not it!" sobbed her Majesty. "It's my child, my child!"
+
+"Well, what's the matter with your child? She's neither up the chimney
+nor down the draw-well. Just hear her laughing."
+
+Yet the king could not help a sigh, which he tried to turn into a cough,
+saying:
+
+"It is a good thing to be light-hearted, I am sure, whether she be ours
+or not."
+
+"It is a bad thing to be light-headed," answered the queen, looking with
+prophetic soul far into the future.
+
+"'T is a good thing to be light-handed," said the king.
+
+"'T is a bad thing to be light-fingered," answered the queen.
+
+"'T is a good thing to be light-footed," said the king.
+
+"'T is a bad thing--" began the queen; but the king interrupted her.
+
+"In fact," said he, with the tone of one who concludes an argument in
+which he has had only imaginary opponents, and in which, therefore, he
+has come off triumphant--"in fact, it is a good thing altogether to be
+light-bodied."
+
+"But it is a bad thing altogether to be light-minded," retorted the
+queen, who was beginning to lose her temper.
+
+This last answer quite discomfited his Majesty, who turned on his heel,
+and betook himself to his counting-house again. But he was not half-way
+towards it, when the voice of his queen overtook him.
+
+"And it's a bad thing to be light-haired," screamed she, determined to
+have more last words, now that her spirit was roused.
+
+The queen's hair was black as night; and the king's had been, and his
+daughter's was, golden as morning. But it was not this reflection on his
+hair that arrested him; it was the double use of the word _light_. For
+the king hated all witticisms, and punning especially. And besides, he
+could not tell whether the queen meant light-_haired_ or light-_heired_;
+for why might she not aspirate her vowels when she was exasperated
+herself?
+
+He turned upon his other heel, and rejoined her. She looked angry still,
+because she knew that she was guilty, or, what was much the same, knew
+that he thought so.
+
+"My dear queen," said he, "duplicity of any sort is exceedingly
+objectionable between married people of any rank, not to say kings and
+queens; and the most objectionable form duplicity can assume is that of
+punning."
+
+"There!" said the queen, "I never made a jest, but I broke it in the
+making. I am the most unfortunate woman in the world!"
+
+She looked so rueful that the king took her in his arms; and they sat
+down to consult.
+
+"Can you bear this?" said the king.
+
+"No, I can't," said the queen.
+
+"Well, what's to be done?" said the king.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know," said the queen. "But might you not try an
+apology?"
+
+"To my old sister, I suppose you mean?" said the king.
+
+"Yes," said the queen.
+
+"Well, I don't mind," said the king.
+
+So he went the next morning to the house of the princess, and, making a
+very humble apology, begged her to undo the spell. But the princess
+declared, with a grave face, that she knew nothing at all about it. Her
+eyes, however, shone pink, which was a sign that she was happy. She
+advised the king and queen to have patience, and to mend their ways. The
+king returned disconsolate. The queen tried to comfort him.
+
+"We will wait till she is older. She may then be able to suggest
+something herself. She will know at least how she feels, and explain
+things to us."
+
+"But what if she should marry?" exclaimed the king, in sudden
+consternation at the idea.
+
+"Well, what of that?" rejoined the queen.
+
+"Just think! If she were to have children! In the course of a hundred
+years the air might be as full of floating children as of gossamers in
+autumn."
+
+"That is no business of ours," replied the queen. "Besides, by that time
+they will have learned to take care of themselves."
+
+A sigh was the king's only answer.
+
+He would have consulted the court physicians; but he was afraid they
+would try experiments upon her.
+
+
+VI
+
+_She Laughs Too Much_
+
+Meantime, notwithstanding awkward occurrences, and griefs that she
+brought upon her parents, the little princess laughed and grew--not fat,
+but plump and tall. She reached the age of seventeen, without having
+fallen into any worse scrape than a chimney; by rescuing her from which,
+a little bird-nesting urchin got fame and a black face. Nor, thoughtless
+as she was, had she committed anything worse than laughter at everybody
+and everything that came in her way. When she was told, for the sake of
+experiment, that General Clanrunfort was cut to pieces with all his
+troops, she laughed; when she heard that the enemy was on his way to
+besiege her father's capital, she laughed hugely; but when she was told
+that the city would certainly be abandoned to the mercy of the enemy's
+soldiery--why, then she laughed immoderately. She never could be brought
+to see the serious side of anything. When her mother cried, she said:
+
+"What queer faces mamma makes! And she squeezes water out of her cheeks!
+Funny mamma!"
+
+And when her papa stormed at her, she laughed, and danced round and
+round him, clapping her hands, and crying:
+
+"Do it again, papa. Do it again! It's such fun! Dear, funny papa!"
+
+And if he tried to catch her, she glided from him in an instant, not in
+the least afraid of him, but thinking it part of the game not to be
+caught. With one push of her foot, she would be floating in the air
+above his head; or she would go dancing backwards and forwards and
+sideways, like a great butterfly. It happened several times, when her
+father and mother were holding a consultation about her in private, that
+they were interrupted by vainly repressed outbursts of laughter over
+their heads; and looking up with indignation, saw her floating at full
+length in the air above them, whence she regarded them with the most
+comical appreciation of the position.
+
+One day an awkward accident happened. The princess had come out upon the
+lawn with one of her attendants, who held her by the hand. Spying her
+father at the other side of the lawn, she snatched her hand from the
+maid's, and sped across to him. Now when she wanted to run alone, her
+custom was to catch up a stone in each hand, so that she might come down
+again after a bound. Whatever she wore as part of her attire had no
+effect in this way. Even gold, when it thus became as it were a part of
+herself, lost all its weight for the time. But whatever she only held in
+her hands retained its downward tendency. On this occasion she could see
+nothing to catch up but a huge toad, that was walking across the lawn as
+if he had a hundred years to do it in. Not knowing what disgust meant,
+for this was one of her peculiarities, she snatched up the toad and
+bounded away. She had almost reached her father, and he was holding out
+his arms to receive her, and take from her lips the kiss which hovered
+on them like a butterfly on a rosebud, when a puff of wind blew her
+aside into the arms of a young page, who had just been receiving a
+message from his Majesty. Now it was no great peculiarity in the
+princess that, once she was set agoing, it always cost her time and
+trouble to check herself. On this occasion there was no time. She _must_
+kiss--and she kissed the page. She did not mind it much; for she had no
+shyness in her composition; and she knew, besides, that she could not
+help it. So she only laughed, like a musical box. The poor page fared
+the worst. For the princess, trying to correct the unfortunate tendency
+of the kiss, put out her hands to keep off the page; so that, along with
+the kiss, he received, on the other cheek, a slap with the huge black
+toad, which she poked right into his eye. He tried to laugh, too, but
+the attempt resulted in such an odd contortion of countenance, as showed
+that there was no danger of his pluming himself on the kiss. As for the
+king, his dignity was greatly hurt, and he did not speak to the page for
+a whole month.
+
+I may here remark that it was very amusing to see her run, if her mode
+of progression could properly be called running. For first she would
+make a bound; then, having alighted, she would run a few steps, and make
+another bound. Sometimes she would fancy she had reached the ground
+before she actually had, and her feet would go backwards and forwards,
+running upon nothing at all, like those of a chicken on its back. Then
+she would laugh like the very spirit of fun; only in her laugh there was
+something missing. What it was, I find myself unable to describe. I
+think it was a certain tone, depending upon the possibility of
+sorrow--_morbidezza_, perhaps. She never smiled.
+
+
+VII
+
+_Try Metaphysics_
+
+After a long avoidance of the painful subject, the king and queen
+resolved to hold a council of three upon it; and so they sent for the
+princess. In she came, sliding and flitting and gliding from one piece
+of furniture to another, and put herself at last in an arm-chair, in a
+sitting posture. Whether she could be said _to sit_, seeing she received
+no support from the seat of the chair, I do not pretend to determine.
+
+"My dear child," said the king, "you must be aware by this time that you
+are not exactly like other people."
+
+"Oh, you dear funny papa! I have got a nose, and two eyes, and all the
+rest. So have you. So has mamma."
+
+"Now be serious, my dear, for once," said the queen.
+
+"No, thank you, mamma; I had rather not."
+
+"Would you not like to be able to walk like other people?" said the
+king.
+
+"No indeed, I should think not. You only crawl. You are such slow
+coaches!"
+
+"How do you feel, my child?" he resumed, after a pause of discomfiture.
+
+"Quite well, thank you."
+
+"I mean, what do you feel like?"
+
+"Like nothing at all, that I know of."
+
+"You must feel like something."
+
+"I feel like a princess with such a funny papa, and such a dear pet of a
+queen-mamma!"
+
+"Now really!" began the queen; but the princess interrupted her.
+
+"Oh, yes," she added, "I remember. I have a curious feeling sometimes,
+as if I were the only person that had any sense in the whole world."
+
+She had been trying to behave herself with dignity; but now she burst
+into a violent fit of laughter, threw herself backwards over the chair,
+and went rolling about the floor in an ecstasy of enjoyment. The king
+picked her up easier than one does a down quilt, and replaced her in her
+former relation to the chair. The exact preposition expressing this
+relation I do not happen to know.
+
+"Is there nothing you wish for?" resumed the king, who had learned by
+this time that it was useless to be angry with her.
+
+"Oh, you dear papa!--yes," answered she.
+
+"What is it, my darling?"
+
+"I have been longing for it--oh, such a time!--ever since last night."
+
+"Tell me what it is."
+
+"Will you promise to let me have it?"
+
+The king was on the point of saying yes, but the wiser queen checked him
+with a single motion of her head.
+
+"Tell me what it is first," said he.
+
+"No, no. Promise first."
+
+"I dare not. What is it?"
+
+"Mind, I hold you to your promise. It is--to be tied to the end of a
+string--a very long string indeed, and be flown like a kite. Oh, such
+fun! I would rain rose-water, and hail sugar-plums, and snow
+whipped-cream, and--and--and--"
+
+A fit of laughing checked her; and she would have been off again over
+the floor, had not the king started up and caught her just in time.
+Seeing that nothing but talk could be got out of her, he rang the bell,
+and sent her away with two of her ladies-in-waiting.
+
+"Now, queen," he said, turning to her Majesty, "what _is_ to be done?"
+
+"There is but one thing left," answered she. "Let us consult the college
+of Metaphysicians."
+
+"Bravo!" cried the king; "we will."
+
+Now at the head of this college were two very wise Chinese
+philosophers--by name Hum-Drum, and Kopy-Keck. For them the king sent;
+and straightway they came. In a long speech he communicated to them what
+they knew very well already--as who did not?--namely, the peculiar
+condition of his daughter in relation to the globe on which she dwelt;
+and requested them to consult together as to what might be the cause and
+probable cure of her _infirmity_. The king laid stress upon the word,
+but failed to discover his own pun. The queen laughed; but Hum-Drum and
+Kopy-Keck heard with humility and retired in silence.
+
+Their consultation consisted chiefly in propounding and supporting, for
+the thousandth time, each his favourite theories. For the condition of
+the princess afforded delightful scope for the discussion of every
+question arising from the division of thought--in fact, of all the
+Metaphysics of the Chinese Empire. But it is only justice to say that
+they did not altogether neglect the discussion of the practical
+question, _what was to be done_.
+
+Hum-Drum was a Materialist, and Kopy-Keck was a Spiritualist. The former
+was slow and sententious; the latter was quick and flighty; the latter
+had generally the first word; the former the last.
+
+"I reassert my former assertion," began Kopy-Keck, with a plunge. "There
+is not a fault in the princess, body or soul; only they are wrong put
+together. Listen to me now, Hum-Drum, and I will tell you in brief what
+I think. Don't speak. Don't answer me. I _won't_ hear you till I have
+done. At that decisive moment, when souls seek their appointed
+habitations, two eager souls met, struck, rebounded, lost their way, and
+arrived each at the wrong place. The soul of the princess was one of
+those, and she went far astray. She does not belong by rights to this
+world at all, but to some other planet, probably Mercury. Her proclivity
+to her true sphere destroys all the natural influence which this orb
+would otherwise possess over her corporeal frame. She cares for nothing
+here. There is no relation between her and this world.
+
+"She must therefore be taught, by the sternest compulsion, to take an
+interest in the earth as the earth. She must study every department of
+its history--its animal history, its vegetable history, its mineral
+history, its social history, its moral history, its political history,
+its scientific history, its literary history, its musical history, its
+artistical history, above all, its metaphysical history. She must begin
+with the Chinese dynasty and end with Japan. But first of all she must
+study geology, and especially the history of the extinct races of
+animals--their natures, their habits, their loves, their hates, their
+revenges. She must--"
+
+"Hold, h-o-o-old!" roared Hum-Drum. "It is certainly my turn now. My
+rooted and insubvertible conviction is, that the causes of the anomalies
+evident in the princess's condition are strictly and solely physical.
+But that is only tantamount to acknowledging that they exist. Hear my
+opinion. From some cause or other, of no importance to our inquiry, the
+motion of her heart has been reversed. That remarkable combination of
+the suction and the force-pump works the wrong way--I mean in the case
+of the unfortunate princess, it draws in where it should force out, and
+forces out where it should draw in. The offices of the auricles and the
+ventricles are subverted. The blood is sent forth by the veins, and
+returns by the arteries. Consequently it is running the wrong way
+through all her corporeal organism--lungs and all. Is it then at all
+mysterious, seeing that such is the case, that on the other particular
+of gravitation as well, she should differ from normal humanity? My
+proposal for the cure is this:
+
+"Phlebotomise until she is reduced to the last point of safety. Let it
+be effected, if necessary, in a warm bath. When she is reduced to a
+state of perfect asphyxy, apply a ligature to the left ankle, drawing it
+as tight as the bone will bear. Apply, at the same moment, another of
+equal tension around the right wrist. By means of plates constructed for
+the purpose, place the other foot and hand under the receivers of two
+air-pumps. Exhaust the receivers. Exhibit a pint of French brandy, and
+await the result."
+
+"Which would presently arrive in the form of grim Death," said
+Kopy-Keck.
+
+"If it should, she would yet die in doing our duty," retorted Hum-Drum.
+
+But their Majesties had too much tenderness for their volatile offspring
+to subject her to either of the schemes of the equally unscrupulous
+philosophers. Indeed, the most complete knowledge of the laws of nature
+would have been unserviceable in her case; for it was impossible to
+classify her. She was a fifth imponderable body, sharing all the other
+properties of the ponderable.
+
+
+VIII
+
+_Try a Drop of Water_
+
+Perhaps the best thing for the princess would have been to fall in love.
+But how a princess who had no gravity could fall into anything is a
+difficulty--perhaps _the_ difficulty. As for her own feelings on the
+subject, she did not even know that there was such a beehive of honey
+and stings to be fallen into. But now I come to mention another curious
+fact about her.
+
+The palace was built on the shores of the loveliest lake in the world;
+and the princess loved this lake more than father or mother. The root of
+this preference no doubt, although the princess did not recognise it as
+such, was, that the moment she got into it, she recovered the natural
+right of which she had been so wickedly deprived--namely, gravity.
+Whether this was owing to the fact that water had been employed as the
+means of conveying the injury, I do not know. But it is certain that she
+could swim and dive like the duck that her old nurse said she was. The
+manner in which this alleviation of her misfortune was discovered was as
+follows:
+
+One summer evening, during the carnival of the country, she had been
+taken upon the lake by the king and queen, in the royal barge. They were
+accompanied by many of the courtiers in a fleet of little boats. In the
+middle of the lake she wanted to get into the lord chancellor's barge,
+for his daughter, who was a great favourite with her, was in it with her
+father. Now though the old king rarely condescended to make light of his
+misfortune, yet, happening on this occasion to be in a particularly good
+humour, as the barges approached each other, he caught up the princess
+to throw her into the chancellor's barge. He lost his balance, however,
+and, dropping into the bottom of the barge, lost his hold of his
+daughter; not, however, before imparting to her the downward tendency of
+his own person, though in a somewhat different direction, for, as the
+king fell into the boat, she fell into the water. With a burst of
+delighted laughter she disappeared into the lake. A cry of horror
+ascended from the boats. They had never seen the princess go down
+before. Half the men were under water in a moment; but they had all, one
+after another, come up to the surface again for breath, when--tinkle,
+tinkle, babble, and gush! came the princess's laugh over the water from
+far away. There she was, swimming like a swan. Nor would she come out
+for king or queen, chancellor or daughter. She was perfectly obstinate.
+
+
+
+
+But at the same time she seemed more sedate than usual. Perhaps that was
+because a great pleasure spoils laughing. At all events, after this, the
+passion of her life was to get into the water, and she was always the
+better behaved and the more beautiful the more she had of it. Summer and
+winter it was quite the same; only she could not stay so long in the
+water when they had to break the ice to let her in. Any day, from
+morning to evening in summer, she might be descried--a streak of white
+in the blue water--lying as still as the shadow of a cloud, or shooting
+along like a dolphin; disappearing, and coming up again far off, just
+where one did not expect her. She would have been in the lake of a night
+too, if she could have had her way; for the balcony of her window
+overhung a deep pool in it; and through a shallow reedy passage she
+could have swum out into the wide wet water, and no one would have been
+any the wiser. Indeed, when she happened to wake in the moonlight she
+could hardly resist the temptation. But there was the sad difficulty of
+getting into it. She had as great a dread of the air as some children
+have of the water. For the slightest gust of wind would blow her away;
+and a gust might arise in the stillest moment. And if she gave herself a
+push towards the water and just failed of reaching it, her situation
+would be dreadfully awkward, irrespective of the wind; for at best there
+she would have to remain, suspended in her night-gown, till she was seen
+and angled for by somebody from the window.
+
+"Oh! if I had my gravity," thought she, contemplating the water, "I
+would flash off this balcony like a long white sea-bird, headlong into
+the darling wetness. Heigh-ho!"
+
+This was the only consideration that made her wish to be like other
+people.
+
+Another reason for her being fond of the water was that in it alone she
+enjoyed any freedom. For she could not walk without a _cortège_,
+consisting in part of a troop of light-horse, for fear of the liberties
+which the wind might take with her. And the king grew more apprehensive
+with increasing years, till at last he would not allow her to walk
+abroad at all without some twenty silken cords fastened to as many parts
+of her dress, and held by twenty noblemen. Of course horseback was out
+of the question. But she bade good-bye to all this ceremony when she got
+into the water.
+
+And so remarkable were its effects upon her, especially in restoring her
+for the time to the ordinary human gravity, that Hum-Drum and Kopy-Keck
+agreed in recommending the king to bury her alive for three years; in
+the hope that, as the water did her so much good, the earth would do her
+yet more. But the king had some vulgar prejudices against the
+experiment, and would not give his consent. Foiled in this, they yet
+agreed in another recommendation; which, seeing that one imported his
+opinions from China and the other from Thibet, was very remarkable
+indeed. They argued that, if water of external origin and application
+could be so efficacious, water from a deeper source might work a perfect
+cure; in short, that if the poor afflicted princess could by any means
+be made to cry, she might recover her lost gravity.
+
+But how was this to be brought about? Therein lay all the difficulty--to
+meet which the philosophers were not wise enough. To make the princess
+cry was as impossible as to make her weigh. They sent for a professional
+beggar, commanded him to prepare his most touching oracle of woe, helped
+him out of the court charade box to whatever he wanted for dressing up,
+and promised great rewards in the event of his success. But it was all
+in vain. She listened to the mendicant artist's story, and gazed at his
+marvellous make up, till she could contain herself no longer, and went
+into the most undignified contortions for relief, shrieking, positively
+screeching with laughter.
+
+When she had a little recovered herself, she ordered her attendants to
+drive him away, and not give him a single copper; whereupon his look of
+mortified discomfiture wrought her punishment and his revenge, for it
+sent her into violent hysterics, from which she was with difficulty
+recovered.
+
+But so anxious was the king that the suggestion should have a fair
+trial, that he put himself in a rage one day, and, rushing up to her
+room, gave her an awful whipping. Yet not a tear would flow. She looked
+grave, and her laughing sounded uncommonly like screaming--that was all.
+The good old tyrant, though he put on his best gold spectacles to look,
+could not discover the smallest cloud in the serene blue of her eyes.
+
+
+IX
+
+_Put Me in Again!_
+
+It must have been about this time that the son of a king, who lived a
+thousand miles from Lagobel, set out to look for the daughter of a
+queen. He travelled far and wide, but as sure as he found a princess, he
+found some fault with her. Of course he could not marry a mere woman,
+however beautiful; and there was no princess to be found worthy of him.
+Whether the prince was so near perfection that he had a right to demand
+perfection itself, I cannot pretend to say. All I know is, that he was a
+fine, handsome, brave, generous, well-bred, and well-behaved youth, as
+all princes are.
+
+In his wanderings he had come across some reports about our princess;
+but as everybody said she was bewitched, he never dreamed that she could
+bewitch him. For what indeed could a prince do with a princess that had
+lost her gravity? Who could tell what she might not lose next? She might
+lose her visibility, or her tangibility; or, in short, the power of
+making impressions upon the radical sensorium; so that he should never
+be able to tell whether she was dead or alive. Of course he made no
+further inquiries about her.
+
+One day he lost sight of his retinue in a great forest. These forests
+are very useful in delivering princes from their courtiers, like a sieve
+that keeps back the bran. Then the princes get away to follow their
+fortunes. In this way they have the advantage of the princesses, who are
+forced to marry before they have had a bit of fun. I wish our princesses
+got lost in a forest sometimes.
+
+One lovely evening, after wandering about for many days, he found that
+he was approaching the outskirts of this forest; for the trees had got
+so thin that he could see the sunset through them; and he soon came upon
+a kind of heath. Next he came upon signs of human neighbourhood; but by
+this time it was getting late, and there was nobody in the fields to
+direct him.
+
+After travelling for another hour, his horse, quite worn out with long
+labour and lack of food, fell, and was unable to rise again. So he
+continued his journey on foot. A length he entered another wood--not a
+wild forest, but a civilised wood, through which a footpath led him to
+the side of a lake. Along this path the prince pursued his way through
+the gathering darkness. Suddenly he paused, and listened. Strange sounds
+came across the water. It was, in fact, the princess laughing. Now there
+was something odd in her laugh, as I have already hinted; for the
+hatching of a real hearty laugh requires the incubation of gravity; and
+perhaps this was how the prince mistook the laughter for screaming.
+Looking over the lake, he saw something white in the water; and, in an
+instant, he had torn off his tunic, kicked off his sandals, and plunged
+in. He soon reached the white object, and found that it was a woman.
+There was not light enough to show that she was a princess, but quite
+enough to show that she was a lady, for it does not want much light to
+see that.
+
+Now I cannot tell how it came about--whether she pretended to be
+drowning, or whether he frightened her, or caught her so as to embarrass
+her--but certainly he brought her to shore in a fashion ignominious to a
+swimmer, and more nearly drowned than she had ever expected to be; for
+the water had got into her throat as often as she had tried to speak.
+
+At the place to which he bore her, the bank was only a foot or two above
+the water; so he gave her a strong lift out of the water, to lay her on
+the bank. But, her gravitation ceasing the moment she left the water,
+away she went up into the air, scolding and screaming.
+
+"You naughty, _naughty_, Naughty, NAUGHTY man!" she cried.
+
+No one had ever succeeded in putting her into a passion before. When the
+prince saw her ascend, he thought he must have been bewitched, and have
+mistaken a great swan for a lady. But the princess caught hold of the
+topmost cone upon a lofty fir. This came off; but she caught at another;
+and, in fact, stopped herself by gathering cones, dropping them as the
+stalks gave way. The prince, meantime, stood in the water, staring, and
+forgetting to get out. But the princess disappearing, he scrambled on
+shore, and went in the direction of the tree. There he found her
+climbing down one of the branches towards the stem. But in the darkness
+of the wood, the prince continued in some bewilderment as to what the
+phenomenon could be; until, reaching the ground, and seeing him standing
+there, she caught hold of him, and said:
+
+"I'll tell papa,"
+
+"Oh no, you won't!" returned the prince.
+
+"Yes, I will," she persisted. "What business had you to pull me down out
+of the water, and throw me to the bottom of the air? I never did you any
+harm."
+
+"Pardon me. I did not mean to hurt you."
+
+"I don't believe you have any brains; and that is a worse loss than your
+wretched gravity. I pity you."
+
+The prince now saw that he had come upon the bewitched princess, and had
+already offended her. But before he could think what to say next, she
+burst out angrily, giving a stamp with her foot that would have sent her
+aloft again but for the hold she had of his arm:
+
+"Put me up directly."
+
+"Put you up where, you beauty?" asked the prince.
+
+He had fallen in love with her almost, already; for her anger made her
+more charming than any one else had ever beheld her; and, as far as he
+could see, which certainly was not far, she had not a single fault about
+her, except, of course, that she had not any gravity. No prince,
+however, would judge of a princess by weight. The loveliness of her foot
+he would hardly estimate by the depth of the impression it could make in
+mud.
+
+"Put you up where, you beauty?" asked the prince.
+
+"In the water, you stupid!" answered the princess.
+
+"Come, then," said the prince.
+
+The condition of her dress, increasing her usual difficulty in walking,
+compelled her to cling to him; and he could hardly persuade himself that
+he was not in a delightful dream, notwithstanding the torrent of musical
+abuse with which she overwhelmed him. The prince being therefore in no
+hurry, they came upon the lake at quite another part, where the bank was
+twenty-five feet high at least; and when they had reached the edge, he
+turned towards the princess, and said:
+
+"How am I to put you in?"
+
+"That is your business," she answered, quite snappishly. "You took me
+out--put me in again."
+
+"Very well," said the prince; and, catching her up in his arms, he
+sprang with her from the rock. The princess had just time to give one
+delighted shriek of laughter before the water closed over them. When
+they came to the surface, she found that, for a moment or two, she could
+not even laugh, for she had gone down with such a rush, that it was with
+difficulty she recovered her breath. The instant they reached the
+surface--
+
+"How do you like falling in?" said the prince.
+
+After some effort the princess panted out:
+
+"Is that what you call _falling in_?"
+
+"Yes," answered the prince, "I should think it a very tolerable
+specimen."
+
+"It seemed to me like going up," rejoined she.
+
+"My feeling was certainly one of elevation too," the prince conceded.
+
+The princess did not appear to understand him, for she retorted his
+question:
+
+"How do _you_ like falling in?" said the princess.
+
+"Beyond everything," answered he; "for I have fallen in with the only
+perfect creature I ever saw."
+
+"No more of that. I am tired of it," said the princess.
+
+Perhaps she shared her father's aversion to punning.
+
+"Don't you like falling in, then?" said the prince.
+
+"It is the most delightful fun I ever had in my life," answered she. "I
+never fell before. I wish I could learn. To think I am the only person
+in my father's kingdom that can't fall!"
+
+Here the poor princess looked almost sad.
+
+"I shall be most happy to fall in with you any time you like," said the
+prince, devotedly.
+
+"Thank you. I don't know. Perhaps it would not be proper. But I don't
+care. At all events, as we have fallen in, let us have a swim together."
+
+"With all my heart," responded the prince.
+
+And away they went, swimming, and diving, and floating, until at last
+they heard cries along the shore, and saw lights glancing in all
+directions. It was now quite late, and there was no moon.
+
+"I must go home," said the princess. "I am very sorry, for this is
+delightful."
+
+"So am I," returned the prince. "But I am glad I haven't a home to go
+to--at least, I don't exactly know where it is."
+
+"I wish I hadn't one either," rejoined the princess; "it is so stupid! I
+have a great mind," she continued, "to play them all a trick. Why
+couldn't they leave me alone? They won't trust me in the lake for a
+single night! You see where that green light is burning? That is the
+window of my room. Now if you would just swim there with me very
+quietly, and when we are all but under the balcony, give me such a
+push--_up_ you call it--as you did a little while ago, I should be able
+to catch hold of the balcony, and get in at the window; and then they
+may look for me till to-morrow morning!"
+
+"With more obedience than pleasure," said the prince, gallantly; and
+away they swam, very gently.
+
+"Will you be in the lake to-morrow night?" the prince ventured to ask.
+
+"To be sure I will. I don't think so. Perhaps," was the princess's
+somewhat strange answer.
+
+But the prince was intelligent enough not to press her further; and
+merely whispered, as he gave her the parting lift, "Don't tell." The
+only answer the princess returned was a roguish look. She was already a
+yard above his head. The look seemed to say, "Never fear. It is too good
+fun to spoil that way."
+
+So perfectly like other people had she been in the water, that even yet
+the prince could scarcely believe his eyes when he saw her ascend
+slowly, grasp the balcony, and disappear through the window. He turned,
+almost expecting to see her still by his side. But he was alone in the
+water. So he swam away quietly, and watched the lights roving about the
+shore for hours after the princess was safe in her chamber. As soon as
+they disappeared, he landed in search of his tunic and sword, and, after
+some trouble, found them again. Then he made the best of his way round
+the lake to the other side. There the wood was wilder, and the shore
+steeper--rising more immediately towards the mountains which surrounded
+the lake on all sides, and kept sending it messages of silvery streams
+from morning to night, and all night long. He soon found a spot where he
+could see the green light in the princess's room, and where, even in the
+broad daylight, he would be in no danger of being discovered from the
+opposite shore. It was a sort of cave in the rock, where he provided
+himself a bed of withered leaves, and lay down too tired for hunger to
+keep him awake. All night long he dreamed that he was swimming with the
+princess.
+
+
+X
+
+_Look at the Moon_
+
+Early the next morning the prince set out to look for something to eat,
+which he soon found at a forester's hut, where for many following days
+he was supplied with all that a brave prince could consider necessary.
+And having plenty to keep him alive for the present, he would not think
+of wants not yet in existence. Whenever Care intruded, this prince
+always bowed him out in the most princely manner.
+
+When he returned from his breakfast to his watch-cave, he saw the
+princess already floating about in the lake, attended by the king and
+queen--whom he knew by their crowns--and a great company in lovely
+little boats, with canopies of all the colours of the rainbow, and flags
+and streamers of a great many more. It was a very bright day, and the
+prince, burned up with the heat, began to long for the cold water and
+the cool princess. But he had to endure till twilight; for the boats had
+provisions on board, and it was not till the sun went down that the gay
+party began to vanish. Boat after boat drew away to the shore, following
+that of the king and queen, till only one, apparently the princess's own
+boat, remained. But she did not want to go home even yet, and the prince
+thought he saw her order the boat to the shore without her. At all
+events it rowed away; and now, of all the radiant company, only one
+white speck remained. Then the prince began to sing.
+
+And this is what he sung:
+
+  "Lady fair,
+   Swan-white,
+   Lift thine eyes,
+   Banish night
+   By the might
+   Of thine eyes.
+
+  "Snowy arms,
+   Oars of snow,
+   Oar her hither,
+   Plashing low.
+   Soft and slow,
+   Oar her hither.
+
+  "Stream behind her
+   O'er the lake,
+   Radiant whiteness!
+   In her wake
+   Following, following, for her sake,
+   Radiant whiteness!
+
+  "Cling about her,
+   Waters blue;
+   Part not from her,
+   But renew
+   Cold and true
+   Kisses round her.
+
+  "Lap me round,
+   Waters sad
+   That have left her
+   Make me glad,
+   For ye had
+   Kissed her ere ye left her."
+
+Before he had finished his song, the princess was just under the place
+where he sat, and looking up to find him. Her ears had led her truly.
+
+"Would you like a fall, princess?" said the prince, looking down.
+
+"Ah! there you are! Yes, if you please, prince," said the princess,
+looking up.
+
+"How do you know I am a prince, princess?" said the prince.
+
+"Because you are a very nice young man, prince," said the princess.
+
+"Come up then, princess."
+
+"Fetch me, prince."
+
+The prince took off his scarf, then his swordbelt then his tunic, and
+tied them all together, and let them down. But the line was far too
+short. He unwound his turban, and added it to the rest, when it was all
+but long enough; and his purse completed it. The princess just managed
+to lay hold of the knot of money, and was beside him in a moment. This
+rock was much higher than the other, and the splash and the dive were
+tremendous. The princess was in ecstasies of delight, and their swim was
+delicious.
+
+Night after night they met, and swam about in the dark clear lake, where
+such was the prince's gladness, that (whether the princess's way of
+looking at things infected him, or he was actually getting light-headed)
+he often fancied that he was swimming in the sky instead of the lake.
+But when he talked about being in heaven, the princess laughed at him
+dreadfully.
+
+When the moon came, she brought them fresh pleasure. Everything looked
+strange and new in her light, with an old, withered, yet unfading
+newness. When the moon was nearly full, one of their great delights was
+to dive deep in the water, and then, turning round, look up through it
+at the great blot of light close above them, shimmering and trembling
+and wavering, spreading and contracting, seeming to melt away, and again
+grow solid. Then they would shoot up through the blot, and lo! there was
+the moon, far off, clear and steady and cold, and very lovely, at the
+bottom of a deeper and bluer lake than theirs, as the princess said.
+
+The prince soon found out that while in the water the princess was very
+like other people. And besides this, she was not so forward in her
+questions or pert in her replies at sea as on shore. Neither did she
+laugh so much; and when she did laugh, it was more gently. She seemed
+altogether more modest and maidenly in the water than out of it. But
+when the prince, who had really fallen in love when he fell in the lake,
+began to talk to her about love, she always turned her head towards him
+and laughed. After a while she began to look puzzled, as if she were
+trying to understand what he meant, but could not--revealing a notion
+that he meant something. But as soon as ever she left the lake, she was
+so altered, that the prince said to himself, "If I marry her, I see no
+help for it: we must turn merman and mermaid, and go out to sea at
+once,"
+
+
+XI
+
+_Hiss_!
+
+The princess's pleasure in the lake had grown to a passion, and she
+could scarcely bear to be out of it for an hour. Imagine then her
+consternation, when, diving with the prince one night, a sudden
+suspicion seized her that the lake was not so deep as it used to be. The
+prince could not imagine what had happened. She shot to the surface,
+and, without a word, swam at full speed towards the higher side of the
+lake. He followed, begging to know if she was ill, or what was the
+matter. She never turned her head, or took the smallest notice of his
+question. Arrived at the shore, she coasted the rocks with minute
+inspection. But she was not able to come to a conclusion, for the moon
+was very small, and so she could not see well. She turned therefore and
+swam home, without saying a word to explain her conduct to the prince,
+of whose presence she seemed no longer conscious. He withdrew to his
+cave, in great perplexity and distress.
+
+Next day she made many observations, which, alas! strengthened her
+fears. She saw that the banks were too dry; and that the grass on the
+shore, and the trailing plants on the rocks, were withering away. She
+caused marks to be made along the borders, and examined them, day after
+day, in all directions of the wind; till at last the horrible idea
+became a certain fact--that the surface of the lake was slowly sinking.
+
+The poor princess nearly went out of the little mind she had. It was
+awful to her to see the lake, which she loved more than any living
+thing, lie dying before her eyes. It sank away, slowly vanishing. The
+tops of rocks that had never been seen till now, began to appear far
+down in the clear water. Before long they were dry in the sun. It was
+fearful to think of the mud that would soon lie there baking and
+festering, full of lovely creatures dying, and ugly creatures coming to
+life, like the unmaking of a world. And how hot the sun would be without
+any lake! She could not bear to swim in it any more, and began to pine
+away. Her life seemed bound up with it; and ever as the lake sank, she
+pined. People said she would not live an hour after the lake was gone.
+
+But she never cried.
+
+Proclamation was made to all the kingdom, that whosoever should discover
+the cause of the lake's decrease, would be rewarded after a princely
+fashion. Hum-Drum and Kopy-Keck applied themselves to their physics and
+metaphysics; but in vain. Not even they could suggest a cause.
+
+Now the fact was that the old princess was at the root of the mischief.
+When she heard that her niece found more pleasure in the water than any
+one else had out of it, she went into a rage, and cursed herself for her
+want of foresight,
+
+"But," said she, "I will soon set all right. The king and the people
+shall die of thirst; their brains shall boil and frizzle in their skulls
+before I will lose my revenge."
+
+And she laughed a ferocious laugh, that made the hairs on the back of
+her black cat stand erect with terror.
+
+Then she went to an old chest in the room, and opening it, took out what
+looked like a piece of dried seaweed. This she threw into a tub of
+water. Then she threw some powder into the water, and stirred it with
+her bare arm, muttering over it words of hideous sound, and yet more
+hideous import. Then she set the tub aside, and took from the chest a
+huge bunch of a hundred rusty keys, that clattered in her shaking hands.
+Then she sat down and proceeded to oil them all. Before she had
+finished, out from the tub, the water of which had kept on a slow motion
+ever since she had ceased stirring it, came the head and half the body
+of a huge gray snake. But the witch did not look round. It grew out of
+the tub, waving itself backwards and forwards with a slow horizontal
+motion, till it reached the princess, when it laid its head upon her
+shoulder, and gave a low hiss in her ear. She started--but with joy; and
+seeing the head resting on her shoulder, drew it towards her and kissed
+it. Then she drew it all out of the tub, and wound it round her body. It
+was one of those dreadful creatures which few have ever beheld--the
+White Snakes of Darkness.
+
+Then she took the keys and went down to her cellar; and as she unlocked
+the door she said to herself:
+
+"This _is_ worth living for!"
+
+Locking the door behind her, she descended a few steps into the cellar,
+and crossing it, unlocked another door into a dark, narrow passage. She
+locked this also behind her, and descended a few more steps. If any one
+had followed the witch-princess, he would have heard her unlock exactly
+one hundred doors, and descend a few steps after unlocking each. When
+she had unlocked the last, she entered a vast cave, the roof of which
+was supported by huge natural pillars of rock. Now this roof was the
+under side of the bottom of the lake.
+
+She then untwined the snake from her body, and held it by the tail high
+above her. The hideous creature stretched up its head towards the roof
+of the cavern, which it was just able to reach. It then began to move
+its head backwards and forwards, with a slow oscillating motion, as if
+looking for something. At the same moment the witch began to walk round
+and round the cavern, coming nearer to the centre every circuit; while
+the head of the snake described the same path over the roof that she did
+over the floor, for she kept holding it up. And still it kept slowly
+osculating. Round and round the cavern they went, ever lessening the
+circuit, till at last the snake made a sudden dart, and clung to the
+roof with its mouth.
+
+"That's right, my beauty!" cried the princess; "drain it dry."
+
+She let it go, left it hanging, and sat down on a great stone, with her
+black cat, which had followed her all round the cave, by her side. Then
+she began to knit and mutter awful words. The snake hung like a huge
+leech, sucking at the stone; the cat stood with his back arched, and his
+tail like a piece of cable, looking up at the snake; and the old woman
+sat and knitted and muttered. Seven days and seven nights they remained
+thus; when suddenly the serpent dropped from the roof as if exhausted,
+and shrivelled up till it was again like a piece of dried seaweed. The
+witch started to her feet, picked it up, put it in her pocket, and
+looked up at the roof. One drop of water was trembling on the spot where
+the snake had been sucking. As soon as she saw that, she turned and
+fled, followed by her cat. Shutting the door in a terrible hurry, she
+locked it, and having muttered some frightful words, sped to the next,
+which also she locked and muttered over; and so with all the hundred
+doors, till she arrived in her own cellar. Then she sat down on the
+floor ready to faint, but listening with malicious delight to the
+rushing of the water, which she could hear distinctly through all the
+hundred doors.
+
+But this was not enough. Now that she had tasted revenge, she lost her
+patience. Without further measures, the lake would be too long in
+disappearing. So the next night, with the last shred of the dying old
+moon rising, she took some of the water in which she had revived the
+snake, put it in a bottle, and set out, accompanied by her cat. Before
+morning she had made the entire circuit of the lake, muttering fearful
+words as she crossed every stream, and casting into it some of the water
+out of her bottle. When she had finished the circuit she muttered yet
+again, and flung a handful of water towards the moon. Thereupon every
+spring in the country ceased to throb and bubble, dying away like the
+pulse of a dying man. The next day there was no sound of falling water
+to be heard along the borders of the lake. The very courses were dry;
+and the mountains showed no silvery streaks down their dark sides. And
+not alone had the fountains of mother Earth ceased to flow; for all the
+babies throughout the country were crying dreadfully--only without
+tears.
+
+
+XII
+
+_Where Is the Prince_?
+
+Never since the night when the princess left him so abruptly had the
+prince had a single interview with her. He had seen her once or twice in
+the lake; but as far as he could discover, she had not been in it any
+more at night. He had sat and sung, and looked in vain for his Nereid,
+while she, like a true Nereid, was wasting away with her lake, sinking
+as it sank, withering as it dried. When at length he discovered the
+change that was taking place in the level of the water, he was in great
+alarm and perplexity. He could not tell whether the lake was dying
+because the lady had forsaken it; or whether the lady would not come
+because the lake had begun to sink. But he resolved to know so much at
+least.
+
+He disguised himself, and, going to the palace, requested to see the
+lord chamberlain. His appearance at once gained his request; and the
+lord chamberlain, being a man of some insight, perceived that there was
+more in the prince's solicitation than met the ear. He felt likewise
+that no one could tell whence a solution of the present difficulties
+might arise. So he granted the prince's prayer to be made shoeblack to
+the princess. It was rather cunning in the prince to request such an
+easy post, for the princess could not possibly soil as many shoes as
+other princesses.
+
+He soon learned all that could be told about the princess. He went
+nearly distracted; but after roaming about the lake for days, and diving
+in every depth that remained, all that he could do was to put an extra
+polish on the dainty pair of boots that was never called for.
+
+For the princess kept her room, with the curtains drawn to shut out the
+dying lake, but could not shut it out of her mind for a moment. It
+haunted her imagination so that she felt as if the lake were her soul,
+drying up within her, first to mud, then to madness and death. She thus
+brooded over the change, with all its dreadful accompaniments, till she
+was nearly distracted. As for the prince, she had forgotten him. However
+much she had enjoyed his company in the water, she did not care for him
+without it. But she seemed to have forgotten her father and mother too.
+
+The lake went on sinking. Small slimy spots began to appear, which
+glittered steadily amidst the changeful shine of the water. These grew
+to broad patches of mud, which widened and spread, with rocks here and
+there, and floundering fishes and crawling eels swarming. The people
+went everywhere catching these, and looking for anything that might have
+dropped from the royal boats.
+
+At length the lake was all but gone, only a few of the deepest pools
+remaining unexhausted.
+
+It happened one day that a party of youngsters found themselves on the
+brink of one of these pools in the very centre of the lake. It was a
+rocky basin of considerable depth. Looking in, they saw at the bottom
+something that shone yellow in the sun. A little boy jumped in and dived
+for it. It was a plate of gold covered with writing. They carried it to
+the king.