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THE STORY OF ALEXANDER TOLD BY ROBERT STEELE & DRAWN BY FRED MASON
M. M. S. A TOKEN OF FRIENDSHIP AND ADMIRATION
_When I promised some months ago to tell you a fairy story, I did not remember that most of them have been so well told by my friend Mr. Jacobs, and others, that it would be difficult to find any fresh ones worth telling you._
_Then I remembered that there was a time, hundreds of years ago, when folk here in England were fond of hearing and telling stories, and when, in the long winter evenings, people gathered round the castle-fire in the great hall, lord and lady, squires and dames, pages, varlets, children, even the dogs, all of them listening to the old chaplain who read them a never-ending tale of a brave knight and a wicked enchanter; or, better still, to a travelling tale-teller who brought the last story from France and Italy. “Now,” thought I, “the tales that pleased these folk so well would perhaps suit young people of to-day.” For the men who lived then were large hearted and simple souled, and if it is true, as our great English poet said, “Men are but children of a larger growth”--and it was true of that time--perhaps the stories of the men of those days would still have the power to please the children of ours._
_Well, I began to turn over some of those big books you have seen in my room, and to read their stories again to choose one for you, and the first story I read was the History of Alexander the Great. You must not be frightened about the tale, however; there are no dates and summaries at the ends of the chapters to learn, and, though I believe every word of it myself, I am afraid that if you were to put some of it in your examination paper on Greek History, the mistress who marked it would be annoyed, and I am certain that you will not find the pictures like those of the Greeks in your other books. This is only a tale, and the Alexander and Darius, the Greeks and the Jews, it tells about, are not the ones you have read of, but different people with the same names._