f this book:

"How can you write about the Village? You don't live here. Live here a
few years and then perhaps you'll have something to say!"

It is by way of answer that the following little tale is quoted; it is
an old tale but, after a fashion, it seems to fit.

Once upon a time an explorer discovered a country and set about to
write a book concerning it. Then the people of the country became
somewhat indignant and asked:

"Why should a stranger, who has scarcely learned his way about in our
land, attempt to describe it? We, who have lived in it and know it,
will write its chronicles ourselves."

So the traveller sat down and shut the book in which he had begun to
write and said:

"Well and good. Do you write about your country, the land you have
lived in so long and know so well, and we will see what we shall see."

So the people of the country--or their scribes, a most gifted
company--began the task of describing that which they knew and loved,
and had lived in and with since birth. And after they were through
they took the fruits of their joint labours to an assemblage of kings
in a far-off place.

And the kings said, after they had read:

"This is beautiful literature, but what is the country like,--that of
which they write?"

So one of their chamberlains, who was a plain soul, said sensibly:

"Your Majesties, there is only one fault to find with the book written
by these people about their country, and that is that they know it too
well to describe it well."

Therefore one of the kings said, "How can that be truth? For what we
are close to we must see more clearly than others who view it from
afar."

So the sensible chamberlain took a certain little object and held it
close to the eyes of one of the kings, and cried, "What is this?"

And the king, blinking and scowling, said after a bit:

"It is a volcano!"

The chamberlain answered, "Wrong; it is an inkstand," and showing it
proved that he spoke truth.

Then he held another thing close before the eyes of another king and
cried again, "What is this?"

And this king, puzzled, said, "I think it is a little piece of cloth."

"Wrong," said the sensible chamberlain. "It is the statue of the
Winged Victory."

And this happened not once but many times until at length the kings
understood. And they made a law that no one should stand too close to
the thing he wished to see clearly. And they added their judgment that
only the visitors to a cou