Bushy: A Romance Founded on Fact is an 1896 children's book by Cynthia May Westover Alden, illustrated by J. A. Walker. It opens with a quoted exclamation and an epigraph from Byron, framing a tale that claims to be grounded in truth. It offers a glimpse of late nineteenth-century storytelling for young readers.
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Cover of the original edition (Project Gutenberg, public domain).
Text source: gutenberg.org · The work is in the public domain.
Opening of the book
Bushy: a Romance Founded on Fact “OH, LISTEN TO ME, JIP; YOU ARE SO IMPOLITE!” — Page 140.
BUSHY A ROMANCE FOUNDED ON FACT ВУ СУNTHIA M. WESTOVER ILLUSTRATED BY J. A. WALKER ”Tis strange-but true; For truth is always strange, Stranger than fiction. -BYRON, Don Juan | New York THE MORSE COMPANY 1896
COPYRIGHT, 1896 BY CYNTHIA M. WESTOVER Entered at Stationer’s Hall, London
INTRODUCTION
Bushy is real, but she is no longer a little girl. In her memory the scenes and incidents of that strange child-life in the Rockies mingle to form a single pleasant dream. Their hardness is all gone. They have become impersonal, so that it would often be difficult for Bushy herself to determine where the line runs that separates individual experience from environment. But no matter! The whole picture is a truthful one, as those who knew Bushy in the mines could testify.
The resolution of the equation of existence to its simplest form, amid the most rugged surroundings, makes a singular school for the development of womanhood. A child situated as Bushy was, finds little encouragement for that element of innate poetry which ranges from “Jack the Giant Killer” to “The Tempest,” and from “Grimm’s
Fairy Tales” to Tennyson’s “Round Table.” The habit of selfdependence, the perpetual exaltation of the practical, the continuous nearness to nature, bring their compensation, nevertheless, in the forced growth of character; character worth having and worth studying.
In the hope that the value of such character may be illustrated here, this story is dedicated to an indulgent public.
Readnara
