The conjure doctor was obdurate and at once placed
a spell upon her which is to remain until the lost voice is restored.
The case is still pending, I understand; I shall sometime take steps to
find out how it terminates.
How far a story like this is original, and how far a mere reflection of
familiar wonder stories, is purely a matter of speculation. When the old
mammies would tell the tales of Br'er Rabbit and Br'er Fox to the
master's children, these in turn would no doubt repeat the fairy tales
which they had read in books or heard from their parents' lips. The
magic mirror is as old as literature. The inability to restore the
stolen voice is foreshadowed in the _Arabian Nights_, when the "Open
Sesame" is forgotten. The act of catching the voice has a simplicity
which stamps it as original, the only analogy of which I can at present
think being the story of later date, of the words which were frozen
silent during the extreme cold of an Arctic winter, and became audible
again the following summer when they had thawed out.
_Modern Culture_, May 1901
CHARLES W.
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