`` Possibly not , '' replied Mr. Pringle . `` I suspect , however , that a young author 's most useful critic is precisely the one whom he would be least apt to choose . Pray oblige me , therefore . '' `` Sympathy , methinks , should have some little share in the critic 's qualifications , '' murmured Eustace Bright . `` However , sir , if you will find patience , I will find stories . But be kind enough to remember that I am addressing myself to the imagination and sympathies of the children , not to your own . '' Accordingly , the student snatched hold of the first theme which presented itself . It was suggested by a plate of apples that he happened to spy on the mantel-piece . THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES . Did you ever hear of the golden apples , that grew in the garden of the Hesperides ? Ah , those were such apples as would bring a great price , by the bushel , if any of them could be found growing in the orchards of nowadays ! But there is not , I suppose , a graft of that wonderful fruit on a single tree in the wide world . Not so much as a seed of those apples exists any longer . And , even in the old , old , half-forgotten times , before the garden of the Hesperides was overrun with weeds , a great many people doubted whether there could be real trees that bore apples of solid gold upon their branches . All had heard of them , but nobody remembered to have seen any . Children , nevertheless , used to listen , open-mouthed , to stories of the golden apple-tree , and resolved to discover it , when they should be big enough . Adventurous young men , who desired to do a braver thing than any of their fellows , set out in quest of this fruit . Many of them returned no more ; none of them brought back the apples . No wonder that they found it impossible to gather them ! It is said that there was a dragon beneath the tree , with a hundred terrible heads , fifty of which were always on the watch , while the other fifty slept .
In my opinion it was hardly worth running so much risk for the sake XXXXX a solid golden apple .
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