The Glass

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Title:     The Glass
Author: Laura E. Richards [More Titles by Richards]

"This is extremely interesting!" said the man. "You say that I am not one being but many, and that your glass will show me my component parts as separate entities?"

"Precisely!" said the Wandering Magician.

The man looked in the glass.

"Here I see several beings!" he said. "Some of them are distinguished-looking, that one on horseback, for example, and the one with the lyre. But others have a frivolous air, and there is one with positively a low expression; and yet he is attractive too, when I look closer, and I seem to know him. What are these creatures?"

"These are your tastes!" said the Wandering Magician.

"Oh!" said the man. "Well, some of them are certainly elegant and refined. But whom have we here? what strange pigmies are these?"

"Your virtues!" said the Magician.

"Dear me!" said the man. "Yes, to be sure, I recognize them. But what makes them so small?"

"This is not a magnifying glass!" said the Magician.

"But they are pretty!" said the man. "Beautiful, I may say. That little fellow with the twinkle in his eye and his coat out at elbows; he is charming, if I do say it. But what is going on now? here comes a crowd of big, hulking, ruffianly fellows, jostling the little people and driving them to the wall. What a villainous-looking set! Their faces are wholly strange to me; what are they?"

"Your vices!" said the Wandering Magician.

But when the man would have fallen upon him, he was gone.

[The end]
Laura E. Richards's short story: Glass

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