The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Tale of Lal, by Raymond Paton

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Title: The Tale of Lal
A Fantasy

Author: Raymond Paton

Release Date: October 10, 2008 [EBook #26869]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TALE OF LAL ***

Produced by Al Haines

THE TALE OF LAL

_A FANTASY_

BY

RAYMOND PATON

AUTHOR OF "THE DRUMMER OF THE DAWN"

BRENTANO'S CHAPMAN & HALL LTD.
NEW YORK LONDON

1914

AN EXPLANATION AND AN APOLOGY

Upon behalf of Ridgwell and Christine the author has been urged to
explain that three things--facts, common-sense, and probability--have
of necessity been throughout entirely omitted in relating this story.
The children, however, have comforted the author by declaring that
these particular things are not required at all in any book of the
present day, but are merely an old-fashioned survival of the past,
which is gradually dying out.

One of the sole remaining examples we possess of fact, common-sense,
and probability being the celebration of the 5th of November, which has
somehow become a day of national thanksgiving, and is without doubt one
of the most important dates in the calendar, and very dear to the
hearts of the English people.

A PREFACE

The aspect of Trafalgar Square, like everything else in the world,
depends largely upon how it is viewed, and through whose eyes it is
seen.

A Japanese artist, for instance, visiting London, immediately selected
Trafalgar Square seen by night-time as a subject for a picture. He
thoughtfully omitted any suggestion of either omnibuses, taxi-cabs, or
the populace.

He likewise decided that all the statues were most unpicturesque, and
the varied and flashing electric advertisements to be seen hung up on
high around the Square were not only hideous but impossible.

Consequently this imaginative being flung upon his canvas a mysterious
blue space, void of anything save the brilliantly coloured lanterns of
his own land, swung upon bamboo poles, trembling in the darkness at
picturesquely convenient distances. The effect was quite beautiful,
but of course it could not in