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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 42

Go to the Devil

Go to the Devil.

In this other account, the Supreme Brahma made up his mind to make the world and a man and woman. He made the world, and He made the man and then the woman, and put them on the island of Ceylon. According to the account it was the most beautiful island of which man can conceive. Such birds, such songs, such flowers, and such verdure! And the branches of the trees were so arranged that when the wind swept through them every tree was a thousand Æolian harps.

Brahma, when he put them there, said, "Let them have a period of courtship, for it is my desire and will that true love should forever precede marriage." When £ read that, it was so much more beautiful and lofty than the other, that I said to myself, "If either one of these stories ever turns out to be true, I hope it will be this one."

Then they had their courtship, with the nightingale singing and the stars shining and the flowers blooming, and they fell in love. Imagine that courtship! No prospective fathers or mothers-in-law; no prying and gossiping neighbours; nobody to say "Young man, how do you expect to support her? Nothing of that kind—nothing but the nightingale singing