this
curious boy.

But all children have a vivid imagination, and the chief problem of
modern education is how to conserve and direct it. As yet no scheme or
plan or method has been devised that shows results, and the men of
imagination seem to be those who have succeeded in spite of school. In
Gustave Dore we have the curious spectacle of Nature keeping bright and
fresh in the man all those strange conceptions of the child, and
multiplying them by a man's strength.

The wild imaginings of Gustave only served his father and mother with
food for laughter; and his erratic absurdities in making pictures
supplied the neighbors' fun.

But actions that are funny in a child become disturbing in a man; he's
cute when little, but "sassy" when older.

Gustave, however, did not put away childish things. When he had reached
the age of indiscretion--was fourteen, and had a frog in his throat, and
was conscious of being barefoot--he still imagined things and made
pictures of them. His father was distressed, and sought by bribes to get
him to quit scrawling with pencil and turn his attention to logarithms
and other useful things; but with only partial success.

When fifteen he accompanied his father and older brother to Paris, where
the older boy was to be installed in the Ecole Polytechnique. It was the
hope of the father that, once in Paris, Gustave would consent to remain
with his brother, and thus, by a change of base, a reform in his tastes
would come about and he would leave the Rhine with its foolish old-woman
tales and cease the detestable habit of picturing them.

It was the first time Gustave had ever been to Paris--the first time he
had ever visited a large city. He was fascinated, captivated, enthralled.
Paris was fairyland and paradise. He announced to his father and brother
that he would not return to Alsace, neither would he go to the
Polytechnique. They told him he must do either one or the other; and as
the father was going back home in two days, Gustave could have just
forty-eight hours in which to decide his destiny.

Passing by the office of the "Journal pour Rire," the father and son
gaping in all the windows like true rustics, they saw announced an
illustrated edition of "The Labors of Hercules." Some of the
illustrations were shown in the window with the hope of tempting possible
buyers. Gustave looked upon these illustrations with critical eye, and
his face flushed scarlet--but he said nothing.

He kn