The fifth book, the “Arabian Nights,” is a mystery.  We do not know who composed the stories or who brought them together in one collection.  We cannot even tell where they came from.  The most we can say positively is that two hundred years ago a Frenchman traveling through the East came across them in some Arabian manuscripts and translated them into French.  Whether they came in the first place from Arabia or Persia or India, whether they were composed five or six hundred years ago or at least one thousand, no one can say.  Many learned scholars have tried in vain to answer these questions; but if we had to choose between having the stories and knowing who wrote them, I do not believe that any boy or girl who had read even one of them would find it difficult to make a choice.

The sixth book, “The Travels of Baron Munchausen,” is said to have been written by a German named Raspe; but it is just as well not to believe this statement too positively, for it is quite possible that Raspe had nothing to do with the book.  Learned scholars have held profound discussions on the source of the stories.  One in particular, that of the frozen tunes which began to play of themselves as soon as they thawed, has been found in some form in several countries.  The best match for the Baron’s version is the old tale of the merchants who set out one day to buy furs.  When they came to a river, they saw the fur dealers standing on the opposite shore.  The dealers held up their furs and seemed to be shouting their prices, but it was so cold that the words froze in the air.  Then the merchants went out on the ice and built a great fire.  It warmed the air overhead, and the words thawed and came down.  But long before this, the dealers had gone home.  The merchants thought the prices too high, so they, too, went home; and that was the end of the tale.  The “Travels” is full of stories as absurd as this, but told in such a way that while you are reading them, and sometimes for as much as five minutes afterwards, you feel as if they were really true.

The seventh and last of the books is the plays of Shakespeare.  A play always contains a story, and it is the stories of some of Shakespeare’s dramas that are given here.  In the real plays there is much more than stories, however, because Shakespeare was not only a story-teller but also a poet.  A poet must express what he sees and thinks in a way to give pleasure and he must see more than other people.  Now when Shakespeare puts a thought into words, we find that no one else has expressed it so well.  Moreover, he sees more clearly than any other writer how a person would feel and behave in various circumstances.  As we read the plays, we say to ourselves of one character after another, “That is just the way I should feel if I were that person.”  We think of them as real people.  We talk of what they would have done if circumstances had been different.  It is only a great genius who can make out of words characters that seem almost as real as the people around us, but this is what William Shakespeare has done.