I can remember reading "The Arabian Nights" when I was six years old,
in dirty yellow old volumes of small type with no pictures, and I hope
children who read them with Mr. Ford's pictures will be as happy as I
was then in the company of Aladdin and Sindbad the Sailor.
The Arabian Nights
In the chronicles of the ancient dynasty of the Sassanidae, who reigned
for about four hundred years, from Persia to the borders of China,
beyond the great river Ganges itself, we read the praises of one of the
kings of this race, who was said to be the best monarch of his time.
His subjects loved him, and his neighbors feared him, and when he died
he left his kingdom in a more prosperous and powerful condition than
any king had done before him.
The two sons who survived him loved each other tenderly, and it was a
real grief to the elder, Schahriar, that the laws of the empire forbade
him to share his dominions with his brother Schahzeman. Indeed, after
ten years, during which this state of things had not ceased to trouble
him, Schahriar cut off the country of Great Tartary from the Persian
Empire and made his brother king.