This is a wonderful story for children. It deserves to be placed at the
head of all the others, for it inculcates the cardinal virtue of
childhood--obedience. It is also a typical story of the beginning, the
progress, and the culmination of temptation. Will you permit me to
relate the story as I should tell it to little children? I shall
endeavor to keep true to the outlines, and if I depart from the received
version in other respects, may I not plead that liberty of
interpretation to which I have referred above.
Once upon a time there were two children, Adam and Eve. Adam was a fine
and noble-looking lad. He was slender and well built, and fleet of foot
as a young deer. Eve was as beautiful as the dawn, with long golden
tresses, and blue eyes, and cheeks like the rose. They lived in the
loveliest garden that you have ever heard of. There were tall trees in
it, and open meadows where the grass was as smooth as on a lawn, and
clear, murmuring brooks ran through the woods. And there were dense
thickets filled with the perfume of flowers, and the flowers grew in
such profusion, and there were so many different kinds, each more
beautiful than the rest, that it was a perfect feast for the eyes to
look at them. It was so warm that the children never needed to go
in-doors, but at night they would just lie down at the foot of some
great tree and look at the stars twinkling through the branches until
they fell asleep. And when it rained they would find shelter in some
beautiful cavern, spreading leaves and moss upon the ground for a bed.
The garden where they lived was called Paradise. And there were ever so
many animals in it--all kinds of animals--elephants, and tigers, and
leopards, and giraffes, and camels, and sheep, and horses, and cows; but
even the wild animals did them no harm. But the children were not alone
in that garden: their Father lived with them. And every morning when
they woke up their first thought was to go to him and to look up into
his mild, kind face for a loving glance, and every evening before they
went to sleep he would bend over them. And once, as they lay under the
great tree, looking at a star shining through the branches, Adam said to
Eve: "Our Father's eye shines just like that star."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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