The Flower Basket

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Unknown. The Flower Basket

PREFACE

THE FLOWER BASKET. A FAIRY TALE

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WHOEVER honours the following little Tale with a perusal, will probably anticipate in the Preface, the so-often-framed apology, that it was not written with an intention of being published. Yet stale as the assurance may be, it is in this instance strictly true.

It was composed solely at the request, and for the amusement of, the children of a friend; nor would it ever have entered my head to offer any thing in the shape of a Fairy Tale to this enlightened age, when such productions have long been banished from all juvenile libraries. Among the innumerable works which do so much credit to the talents and invention of the writers, that have been substituted for them, it may admit of a question, whether beings, not professedly ideal, are not sometimes pourtrayed nearly as imaginary as any that ever “wielded wand, or worked a spell.” I believe (for I have never happened to meet with the book, since it was first published) I have the sanction of one of the most celebrated female writers of the age, in her “Thoughts on the Education of a Young Princess,” for supposing that the mind of a child is less likely to be misled by what is avowedly fictitious, than by those high wrought characters of perfection, which they would have little better chance of meeting with in the world, than with the fantastic agents of Oberon.

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The party were generally employed in sauntering about the grounds together, wishing for their parents’ return, and forming different conjectures concerning the stranger, and the important intelligence that he was the bearer of.

A fortnight elapsed, and no tidings of the travellers arrived. Another week passed over, and nothing was heard of them; and the inhabitants of the castle began to grow uneasy, and feel some alarm for their safety. It was so unusual a circumstance for letters to be brought thither, that it occurred to Ursula that some might be lying at the post-office neglected to be forwarded. A messenger was therefore despatched to the post town to inquire for such, but none were there.

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