an important
one--the key to the situation. We believe readily when it is agreeable
to do so, and all pilgrims have ever sought to heighten the attractions
of the objects of their interest. It adds to their own enjoyment of
them, and, after all, is it not a reflex compliment to ourselves? If
"there is but _one_ such pig in the world," have not _I_ seen it?

[Illustration: "LURED MEN TO DESTRUCTION."]

Have you ever noticed the effect of the expression, "They say?" If we
say "Tom," or "Dick," or "Harry," says "so and so," "Tom" is no better
authority than "Dick," nor are both together much better than "Harry."
But if we say, indefinitely, "_They_ say" "so and so," there is a
mysterious potency in the unknown quantity which leads, if not to
universal belief, at least to universal transmission.

"Yes, it is an interesting spot. They say that a princess is buried here
who was laid under a potent spell by a mighty wizard, long, long ago,"
etc.; or "They tell of a beauteous maiden who sat on this rock, in the
far past, and sang, and thus lured men to destruction," etc.

[Illustration]

He or she is always swallowed up by the mists of obscurity--oh, ye mists
of obscurity, ye have much to answer for!

We do not care to dispute with "They" his superior information--even if
we could find him; for he seems to reside permanently in the aforesaid
mists himself; only issuing forth, like a valiant knight, to rescue the
fair maidens--Fact, or Fiction--from the jaws of the dragon Oblivion!
What he _is_, we leave to the learned, who could no doubt dispose of him
suitably in connection with the highly convenient solar myths, as a
Potent Rescuing Power! As for us, we meddle not with the mists: we
rather like the delicious glow of their luminous dimness, which
glorifies the past if it clouds it; and which softens off the hardness
of our prosaic modern life, as a summer haze our English landscape.

We are delighted to get hold of an ancient legend, whether of headless
horseman or housekeeper, pixie or wizard. Even in that "happy hunting
ground" of the Modern Spirit, the United States of America, the old
legends linger still, if but faintly. The soil of a new country does not
grow sentiment of this sort readily, but the plant is indigenous to the
human heart; and its fair flowers have been gathered and wreathed around
their pages by many an essayist and poet. We cannot do without the
element of mystery in our life, however we may repre