country, a powerful Prince whose name was BULL. He had gone
through a great deal of fighting, in his time, about all sorts of
things, including nothing; but, had gradually settled down to be a
steady, peaceable, good-natured, corpulent, rather sleepy Prince.
This Puissant Prince was married to a lovely Princess whose name
was Fair Freedom. She had brought him a large fortune, and had
borne him an immense number of children, and had set them to
spinning, and farming, and engineering, and soldiering, and
sailoring, and doctoring, and lawyering, and preaching, and all
kinds of trades. The coffers of Prince Bull were full of treasure,
his cellars were crammed with delicious wines from all parts of the
world, the richest gold and silver plate that ever was seen adorned
his sideboards, his sons were strong, his daughters were handsome,
and in short you might have supposed that if there ever lived upon
earth a fortunate and happy Prince, the name of that Prince, take
him for all in all, was assuredly Prince Bull.
But, appearances, as we all know, are not always to be trusted –
far from it; and if they had led you to this conclusion respecting
Prince Bull, they would have led you wrong as they often have led
me.
For, this good Prince had two sharp thorns in his pillow, two hard
knobs in his crown, two heavy loads on his mind, two unbridled
nightmares in his sleep, two rocks ahead in his course. He could
not by any means get servants to suit him, and he had a tyrannical
old godmother, whose name was Tape.
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She was a Fairy, this Tape, and was a bright red all over. She was
disgustingly prim and formal, and could never bend herself a hair’s
breadth this way or that way, out of her naturally crooked shape.
But, she was very potent in her wicked art. She could stop the
fastest thing in the world, change the strongest thing into the
weakest, and the most useful into the most useless. To do this she
had only to put her cold hand upon it, and repeat her own name,
Tape. Then it withered away.
At the Court of Prince Bull – at least I don’t mean literally at
his court, because he was a very genteel Prince, and readily
yielded to his godmother when she always reserved that for his
hereditary Lords and Ladies – in the dominions of Prince Bull,
among the great mass of the community who were called in the
language of that polite country the Mobs and the Snobs, were a
number of very ingenious men, who were always busy with some
invention or other, for promoting the prosperity of the Prince’s
subjects, and augmenting the Prince’s power. But, whenever they
submitted their models for the Prince’s approval, his godmother
stepped forward, laid her hand upon them, and said ‘Tape.’ Hence
it came to pass, that when any particularly good discovery was
made, the discoverer usually carried it off to some other Prince,
in foreign parts, who had no old godmother who said Tape. This was
not on the whole an advantageous state of things for Prince Bull,
to the best of my understanding.
The worst of it was, that Prince Bull had in course of years lapsed
into such a state of subjection to this unlucky godmother, that he
never made any serious effort to rid himself of her tyranny. I
have said this was the worst of it, but there I was wrong, because
there is a worse consequence still, behind. The Prince’s numerous
family became so downright sick and tired of Tape, that when they
should have helped the Prince out of the difficulties into which
that evil creature led him, they fell into a dangerous habit of
moodily keeping away from him in an impassive and indifferent
manner, as though they had quite forgotten that no harm could
happen to the Prince their father, without its inevitably affecting
themselves.
Such was the aspect of affairs at the court of Prince Bull, when
this great Prince found it necessary to go to war with Prince Bear.