There are numerous time-honored stories which have become so
incorporated into the literature and thought of our race that a
knowledge of them is an indispensable part of one's education. These
stories are of several different classes. To one class belong the
popular fairy tales which have delighted untold generations of
children, and will continue to delight them to the end of time. To
another class belong the limited number of fables that have come down
to us through many channels from hoar antiquity. To a third belong the
charming stories of olden times that are derived from the literatures
of ancient peoples, such as the Greeks and the Hebrews. A fourth class
includes the half-legendary tales of a distinctly later origin, which
have for their subjects certain romantic episodes in the lives of
well-known heroes and famous men, or in the history of a people.
It is to this last class that most of the fifty stories contained in
the present volume belong. As a matter of course, some of these
stories are better known, and therefore more _famous_, than others.
Some have a slight historical value; some are useful as giving point
to certain great moral truths; others are products solely of the
fancy, and are intended only to amuse.
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