There were two rugs in the library, and for some time we used to dispute the vexed question of their relative merits.  ?sthetically, there was something to be said for both of them.  The rug that stood by the writing-desk from which father wrote to the newspapers was soft and furry; indeed, it was almost as pleasant a couch as the sofa with the soft cushions in the drawing-room, which was taboo.  Moreover, it lent itself very readily to such fashionable winter sport as bear-hunting, providing as it did a trackless prairie, a dangerous marsh, or the quarry itself as the adventure required.  The joys of the other rug were of a calmer kind, and were, perhaps, chiefly due to its advantageous position before the fire.  It was pleasant to toast oneself on a winter evening and trace with idle fingers p. 78the agreeable deviations of its pattern.  Sometimes it might be the ground plan of a make-up city, with forts and sweet-shops and palaces for our friends; sometimes it would be a maze, and we would pursue, with bated breath, the vaulted passages that led to the dread lair of the Minotaur.  But such plots as these were of passive, rather than active, interest.  Reviewing the argument dispassionately, Fenimore Cooper may have had a slight advantage over Nathaniel Hawthorne; bear-hunting may have been a little more popular than the dim excitements of Greek myth.

But while the discussion was at its height, there dawned in the East the sun that was to prove fatal to Perseus and the Deerslayer alike.  I do not know from which of our uncles “The Arabian Nights” first came to an enraptured audience; but I am sure that an uncle must have been responsible for its coming, for as a gift it was avuncular in its splendour.  We quickly realised that the world had changed, and took the necessary steps to welcome our new guest.  The old lamp in the hall that had graced the illicit p. 79doings of pirates and smugglers in the past was thenceforward the property of Aladdin; a strange bottle that had been Crusoe’s served to confine the unfortunate genie; and with quickening pulses we discovered that in the fireside rug we possessed no less a treasure than the original magic carpet.

I must explain that we were not like those fortunate children of whom Miss Nesbit writes with such humorous charm.  To us there fell no tremendous adventures; we might polish Aladdin’s lamp till it shone like the moon without gaining a single concrete acid-drop for our pains.  But the “Arabian Nights” gave us all that we ever thought of seeking either in books or toys in those uncritical days—a starting-point for our dreams.  And this, I take it, is the best thing that a writer can give a child, and it was for lack of this that we considered the works of Lewis Carroll silly, while finding one of the books of Miss Molesworth—I wish I could recall its name—a masterpiece of fancy and erudition.

So when the din of the schoolroom did not suit my mood, or the authorities were p. 80unduly didactic, I would slip away to the twilit library and guide the magic carpet through the delicate meadows of my dreams.  The fire would blaze and crackle in the grate and fill my eyes with tears, so that it was easy to fancy myself in a sparkling world of sunshine.  ............