ONCE UPON A TIME, not so long ago but that the dragons had already become legendary and the last unicorn had vanished into the forests, and one could no longer go into the world to seek one’s fortune with some likelihood of finding it, there was a king of a certain kingdom. Now this kingdom was neither north nor south, east nor west, but more or less in the middle of things. And this king was neither tall nor short, dark nor fair, thin nor stout, wise nor foolish, wicked nor good, but just about middling in all of these qualities. He had about the ordinary amount of courage, humor, agility, intelligence, greed, unselfishness, and anything else one might think of.

      Now this was a period in the childhood of the world when the time of fairy tales was drawing imperceptibly to a close. If we are living in a time of change we seldom know it – unless we are extraordinarily wise and gifted, as this king was not. It is only later, when the path already trod is all laid out behind us, that the historians look back and nod their heads sagely, and set names to this stretch or that. When this king lived, the kind of magic the fairy tales tell us of had all but faded away – no touch of a wand could transform a loathsome frog into a handsome prince, no secret chant open an unknown cave in a mountainside where treasure gleamed. What spells there were, were of a more subtle nature, and treasure could go unrecognized.