And in this case they were painting the picture of their hated
enemy and no doubt were not sparing in the use of the black pigment.
To know all is to forgive all, is a good saying, and enables us to see
why even the worst among us can always find it possible to forgive
himself.
II
AN OLD THORN
I was pleased at this opportunity of rescuing this story from a far-back
number of the _English Review_, in which it first appeared, and putting
it in a book. It may be a shock to the reader to be brought down from a
story of a great king and queen of England in the tenth century to the
obscure annals of a yokel and his wife who lived in a Wiltshire village
only a century ago; or even less, since my poor yokel was hanged for
sheep-stealing in 1821. But it is, I think, worth preserving, since it
is the only narrative I know of dealing with that rare and curious
subject, the survival of tree-worship in our own country. That, however,
was not the reason of my being pleased.
It was just when I had finished writing the story of Elfrida that I
happened to see in my morning paper a highly eulogistical paragraph
about one of our long-dead and, I imagine, forgotten worthies.
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