 | Mosses from an old manse |  |
THE HALL OF FANTASY.
It has happened to me, on various occasions, to find myself in a
certain edifice, which would appear to have some of the characteristics
of a public Exchange. Its interior is a spacious hall,
with a pavement of white marble. Overhead is a lofty dome,
supported by long rows of pillars, of fantastic architecture, the
idea of which was probably taken from the Moorish ruins of the
Alhambra, or perhaps from some enchanted edifice in the Arabian
Tales. The windows of this hall have a breadth and grandeur of
design, and an elaborateness of workmanship, that have nowhere
been equalled, except in the Gothic cathedrals of the old world.
Like their prototypes, too, they admit the light of heaven only
through stained and pictured glass, thus filling the hall with
many-colored radiance, and painting its marble floor with beautiful
or grotesque designs; so that its inmates breathe, as it were,
a visionary atmosphere, and tread upon the fantasies of poetic
minds. These peculiarities, combining a wilder mixture of styles
than even an American architect usually recognizes as allowable
—Grecian, Gothic, Oriental, and nondescript—cause the whole
edifice to give the impression of a dream, which might be dissipated
and shattered to fragments, by merely stamping the foot
upon the pavement. Yet, with such modifications and repairs as
successive ages demand, the Hall of Fantasy is likely to endure
longer than the most substantial structure that ever cumbered the
earth.
It is not at all times that one can gain admittance into this
their lives—if not in their waking moments, then by the universal
passport of a dream. At my last visit, I wandered thither unawares,
while my mind was busy with an idle tale, and was
startled by the throng of people who seemed suddenly to rise up
around me.
“Bless me! Where am I?” cried I, with but a dim recognition
of the place.
“You are in a spot,” said a friend, who chanced to be near at
hand, “which occupies, in the world of fancy, the same position
which the Bourse, the Rialto, and the Exchange, do in the commercial
world. All who have affairs in that mystic region, which
lies above, below, or beyond the Actual, may here meet, and talk
over the business of their dreams.”
“It is a noble hall,” observed I.
“Yes,” he replied. “Yet we see but a small portion of the
edifice. In its upper stories are said to be apartments, where the
inhabitants of earth may hold converse with those of the moon.
And beneath our feet are gloomy cells, which communicate with
the infernal regions, and where monsters and chimeras are kept
in confinement, and fed with all unwholesomeness.”
In niches and on pedestals, around about the hall, stood the
statues or busts of men, who, in every age, have been rulers and
demi-gods in the realms of imagination, and its kindred regions.
The grand old countenance of Homer; the shrunken and decrepit
form, but vivid face of Æsop; the dark presence of Dante; the
wild Ariosto; Rabelais's smile of deep-wrought mirth; the profound,
pathetic humor of Cervantes; the all-glorious Shakspeare;
Spenser, meet guest for an allegoric structure; the severe divinity
of Milton; and Bunyan, moulded of homeliest clay, but instinct
with celestial fire—were those that chiefly attracted my eye.
Fielding, Richardson, and Scott, occupied conspicuous pedestals.
countryman, the author of Arthur Mervyn.
“Besides these indestructible memorials of real genius,” remarked
my companion, “each century has erected statues of its
own ephemeral favorites, in wood.”
“I observe a few crumbling relics of such,” said I. “But
ever and anon, I suppose, Oblivion comes with her huge broom,
and sweeps them all from the marble floor. But such will never
be the fate of this fine statue of Goethe.”
“Nor of that next to it—Emanuel Swedenborg,” said he.
“Were ever two men of transcendent imagination more unlike?”
In the centre of the hall springs an ornamental fountain, the
water of which continually throws itself into new shapes, and
snatches the most diversified hues from the stained atmosphere
around. It is impossible to conceive what a strange vivacity is
imparted to the scene by the magic dance of this fountain, with
its endless transformations, in which the imaginative beholder
may discern what form he will. The water is supposed by some
to flow from the same source as the Castalian spring, and is extolled
by others as uniting the virtues of the Fountain of Youth
with those of many other enchanted wells, long celebrated in tale
and song. Having never tasted it, I can bear no testimony to its
quality.
“Did you ever drink this water?” I inquired of my friend.
“A few sips, now and then,” answered he. “But there are
men here who make it their constant beverage—or, at least, have
the credit of doing so. In some instances, it is known to have
intoxicating qualities.”
“Pray let us look at these water-drinkers,” said I.
So we passed among the fantastic pillars, till we came to a spot
where a number of persons were clustered together, in the light
of one of the great stained windows, which seemed to glorify the
whole group, as well as the marble that they trod on. Most of
thoughtful, inward eyes; yet it required but a trifle to summon
up mirth, peeping out from the very midst of grave and lofty
musings. Some strode about, or leaned against the pillars of the
hall, alone and in silence; their faces wore a rapt expression, as
if sweet music were in the air around them, or as if their inmost
souls were about to float away in song. One or two, perhaps,
stole a glance at the bystanders, to watch if their poetic absorption
were observed. Others stood talking in groups, with a liveliness
of expression, a ready smile, and a light, intellectual
laughter, which showed how rapidly the shafts of wit were glancing
to-and-fro among them.
A few held higher converse, which caused their calm and melancholy
souls to beam moonlight from their eyes. As I lingered
near them—for I felt an inward attraction towards these men, as
if the sympathy of feeling, if not of genius, had united me to
their order—my friend mentioned several of their names. The
world has likewise heard those names; with some it has been
familiar for years; and others are daily making their way deeper
into the universal heart.
“Thank heaven,” observed I to my companion, as we passed
to another part of the hall, “we have done with this tetchy, wayward,
shy, proud, unreasonable set of laurel-gatherers. I love
them in their works, but have little desire to meet them elsewhere.”
“You have adopted an old prejudice, I see,” replied my friend,
who was familiar with most of these worthies, being himself a
student of poetry, and not without the poetic flame. “But so far
as my experience goes, men of genius are fairly gifted with the
social qualities; and in this age, there appears to be a fellow-feeling
among them, which had not heretofore been developed.
As men, they ask nothing better than to be on equal terms with
proverbial jealousy, and acknowledge a generous brotherhood.”
“The world does not think so,” answered I. “An author is
received in general society pretty much as we honest citizens are
in the Hall of Fantasy. We gaze at him as if he had no business
among us, and question whether he is fit for any of our
pursuits.”
“Then it is a very foolish question,” said he. “Now, here
are a class of men, whom we may daily meet on 'Change. Yet
what poet in the hall is more a fool of fancy than the sagest of
them?”
He pointed to a number of persons, who, manifest as the fact
was, would have deemed it an insult to be told that they stood in
the Hall of Fantasy. Their visages were traced into wrinkles
and furrows, each of which seemed the record of some actual experience
in life. Their eyes had the shrewd, calculating glance,
which detects so quickly and so surely all that it concerns a man
of business to know, about the characters and purposes of his
fellow-men. Judging them as they stood, they might be honored
and trusted members of the Chamber of Commerce, who had
found the genuine secret of wealth, and whose sagacity gave them
the command of fortune. There was a character of detail and
matter-of-fact in their talk, which concealed the extravagance of
its purport, insomuch that the wildest schemes had the aspect of
every-day realities. Thus the listener was not startled at the
idea of cities to be built, as if by magic, in the heart of pathless
forests; and of streets to be laid out, where now the sea was tossing;
and of mighty rivers to be stayed in their courses, in order to
turn the machinery of a cotton-mill. It was only by an effort—
and scarcely then—that the mind convinced itself that such speculations
were as much matter of fantasy as the old dream of Eldorado,
or as Mammon's Cave, or any other vision of gold, ever
“Upon my word,” said I, “it is dangerous to listen to such
dreamers as these! Their madness is contagious.”
“Yes,” said my friend, “because they mistake the Hall of
Fantasy for actual brick and mortar, and its purple atmosphere
for unsophisticated sunshine. But the poet knows his whereabout,
and therefore is less likely to make a fool of himself in
real life.”
“Here again,” observed I, as we advanced a little further,
“we see another order of dreamers—peculiarly characteristic,
too, of the genius of our country.”
These were the inventors of fantastic machines. Models of
their contrivances were placed against some of the pillars of the
hall, and afforded good emblems of the result generally to be anticipated
from an attempt to reduce day-dreams to practice. The
analogy may hold in morals, as well as physics. For instance,
here was the model of a railroad through the air, and a tunnel
under the sea. Here was a machine—stolen, I believe—for the
distillation of heat from moonshine; and another for the condensation
of morning-mist into square blocks of granite, wherewith it
was proposed to rebuild the entire Hall of Fantasy. One man
exhibited a sort of lens, whereby he had succeeded in making
sunshine out of a lady's smile; and it was his purpose wholly to
irradiate the earth by means of this wonderful invention.
“It is nothing new,” said I, “for most of our sunshine comes
from woman's smile already.”
“True,” answered the inventor; “but my machine will secure
a constant supply for domestic use—whereas, hitherto, it has been
very precarious.”
Another person had a scheme for fixing the reflections of objects
in a pool of water, and thus taking the most life-like portraits
imaginable; and the same gentleman demonstrated the practicability
clouds of sunset. There were at least fifty kinds of perpetual
motion, one of which was applicable to the wits of newspaper
editors and writers of every description. Professor Espy was
here, with a tremendous storm in a gum-elastic bag. I could
enumerate many more of these Utopian inventions; but, after all,
a more imaginative collection is to be found in the Patent Office
at Washington.
Turning from the inventors, we took a more general survey
of the inmates of the hall. Many persons were present, whose
right of entrance appeared to consist in some crotchet of the brain,
which, so long as it might operate, produced a change in their
relation to the actual world. It is singular how very few there
are, who do not occasionally gain admittance on such a score,
either in abstracted musings, or momentary thoughts, or bright
anticipations, or vivid remembrances; for even the actual becomes
ideal, whether in hope or memory, and beguiles the dreamer into
the Hall of Fantasy. Some unfortunates make their whole abode
and business here, and contract habits which unfit them for all
the real employments of life. Others—but these are few—possess
the faculty, in their occasional visits, of discovering a purer
truth than the world can impart, among the lights and shadows
of these pictured windows.
And with all its dangerous influences, we have reason to thank
God, that there is such a place of refuge from the gloom and
chillness of actual life. Hither may come the prisoner, escaping
from his dark and narrow cell, and cankerous chain, to breathe
free air in this enchanted atmosphere. The sick man leaves his
weary pillow, and finds strength to wander hither, though his
wasted limbs might not support him even to the threshold of his
chamber. The exile passes through the Hall of Fantasy, to revisit
his native soil. The burthen of years rolls down from the
old man's shoulders, the moment that the door uncloses. Mourners
lost ones, whose faces would else be seen no more, until thought
shall have become the only fact. It may be said, in truth, that
there is but half a life—the meaner and earthlier half—for those
who never find their way into the hall. Nor must I fail to mention,
that, in the observatory of the edifice, is kept that wonderful
perspective glass, through which the shepherds of the Delectable
Mountains showed Christian the far-off gleam of the Celestial
City. The eye of Faith still loves to gaze through it.
“I observe some men here,” said I to my friend, “who might
set up a strong claim to be reckoned among the most real personages
of the day.”
“Certainly,” he replied. “If a man be in advance of his age,
he must be content to make his abode in this hall, until the lingering
generations of his fellow-men come up with him. He can
find no other shelter in the universe. But the fantasies of one
day are the deepest realities of a future one.”
“It is difficult to distinguish them apart, amid the gorgeous
and bewildering light of this hall,” rejoined I. “The white sunshine
of actual life is necessary in order to test them. I am
rather apt to doubt both men and their reasonings, till I meet them
in that truthful medium.”
“Perhaps your faith in the ideal is deeper than you are aware,”
said my friend. “You are at least a Democrat; and methinks
no scanty share of such faith is essential to the adoption of that
creed.”
Among the characters who had elicited these remarks, were
most of the noted reformers of the day, whether in physics, politics,
morals, or religion. There is no surer method of arriving
at the Hall of Fantasy, than to throw oneself into the current of a
theory; for, whatever landmarks of fact may be set up along the
stream, there is a law of nature that impels it thither. And let
it be so; for here the wise head and capacious heart may do their
into fact, while error melts away and vanishes among the shadows
of the hall. Therefore may none, who believe and rejoice in the
progress of mankind, be angry with me because I recognized
their apostles and leaders, amid the fantastic radiance of those
pictured windows. I love and honor such men, as well as they.
It would be endless to describe the herd of real or self-styled
reformers, that peopled this place of refuge. They were the
representatives of an unquiet period, when mankind is seeking to
cast off the whole tissue of ancient custom, like a tattered garment.
Many of them had got possession of some crystal fragment of
truth, the brightness of which so dazzled them, that they could
see nothing else in the wide universe. Here were men, whose
faith had embodied itself in the form of a potatoe; and others
whose long beards had a deep spiritual significance. Here was
the abolitionist, brandishing his one idea like an iron flail. In a
word, there were a thousand shapes of good and evil, faith and
infidelity, wisdom and nonsense,—a most incongruous throng.
Yet, withal, the heart of the stanchest conservative, unless he
abjured his fellowship with man, could hardly have helped throbbing
in sympathy with the spirit that pervaded these innumerable
theorists. It was good for the man of unquickened heart to listen
even to their folly. Far down, beyond the fathom of the intellect,
the soul acknowledged that all these varying and conflicting developments
of humanity were united in one sentiment. Be the
individual theory as wild as fancy could make it, still the wiser
spirit would recognize the struggle of the race after a better and
purer life than had yet been realized on earth. My faith revived,
even while I rejected all their schemes. It could not be that the
world should continue for ever what it has been; a soil where
Happiness is so rare a flower, and Virtue so often a blighted fruit;
a battle-field where the good principle, with its shield flung above
its head, can hardly save itself amid the rush of adverse influences.
pictured windows; and, behold! the whole external world was
tinged with the dimly glorious aspect that is peculiar to the Hall
of Fantasy; insomuch that it seemed practicable, at that very
instant, to realize some plan for the perfection of mankind. But,
alas! if reformers would understand the sphere in which their
lot is cast, they must cease to look through pictured windows.
Yet they not only use this medium, but mistake it for the whitest
sunshine.
“Come,” said I to my friend, starting from a deep reverie,—
“let us hasten hence, or I shall be tempted to make a theory—
after which, there is little hope of any man.”
“Come hither, then,” answered he. “Here is one theory, that
swallows up and annihilates all others.”
He led me to a distant part of the hall, where a crowd of deeply
attentive auditors were assembled round an elderly man, of plain,
honest, trustworthy aspect. With an earnestness that betokened
the sincerest faith in his own doctrine, he announced that the destruction
of the world was close at hand.
“It is Father Miller himself!” exclaimed I.
“No less a man,” said my friend: “and observe how picturesque
a contrast between his dogma, and those of the reformers
whom we have just glanced at. They look for the earthly perfection
of mankind, and are forming schemes which imply that
the immortal spirit will be connected with a physical nature, for
innumerable ages of futurity. On the other hand, here comes
good Father Miller, and, with one puff of his relentless theory,
scatters all their dreams like so many withered leaves upon the
blast.”
“It is, perhaps, the only method of getting mankind out of the
various perplexities into which they have fallen,” I replied. “Yet
I could wish that the world might be permitted to endure, until
some great moral shall have been evolved. A riddle is propounded.
until her riddle had been guessed. Will it not be so with
the world? Now, if it should be burnt to-morrow morning, I
am at a loss to know what purpose will have been accomplished,
or how the universe will be wiser or better for our existence and
destruction.”
“We cannot tell what mighty truths may have been embodied
in act, through the existence of the globe and its inhabitants,”
rejoined my companion. “Perhaps it may be revealed to us,
after the fall of the curtain over our catastrophe; or not impossibly,
the whole drama, in which we are involuntary actors, may
have been performed for the instruction of another set of spectators.
I cannot perceive that our own comprehension of it is at
all essential to the matter. At any rate, while our view is so
ridiculously narrow and superficial, it would be absurd to argue
the continuance of the world from the fact that it seems to have
existed hitherto in vain.”
“The poor old Earth,” murmured I. “She has faults enough,
in all conscience; but I cannot bear to have her perish.”
“It is no great matter,” said my friend. “The happiest of us
has been weary of her, many a time and oft.”
“I doubt it,” answered I, pertinaciously; “the root of human
nature strikes down deep into this earthly soil; and it is but reluctantly
that we submit to be transplanted, even for a higher
cultivation in Heaven. I query whether the destruction of the
earth would gratify any one individual; except, perhaps, some
embarrassed man of business, whose notes fall due a day after
the day of doom.”
Then, methought, I heard the expostulating cry of a multitude
against the consummation prophesied by Father Miller. The
lover wrestled with Providence for his foreshadowed bliss. Parents
entreated that the earth's span of endurance might be prolonged
by some seventy years, so that their new-born infant should
because there would be no posterity to recognize the inspiration
of his song. The reformers, one and all, demanded a few thousand
years, to test their theories, after which the universe might
go to wreck. A mechanician, who was busied with an improvement
of the steam-engine, asked merely time to perfect his model.
A miser insisted that the world's destruction would be a personal
wrong to himself, unless he should first be permitted to add a
specified sum to his enormous heap of gold. A little boy made
dolorous inquiry whether the last day would come before Christmas,
and thus deprive him of his anticipated dainties. In short,
nobody seemed satisfied that this mortal scene of things should
have its close just now. Yet, it must be confessed, the motives
of the crowd for desiring its continuance were mostly so absurd,
that, unless Infinite Wisdom had been aware of much better reasons,
the solid Earth must have melted away at once.
For my own part, not to speak of a few private and personal
ends, I really desired our old Mother's prolonged existence, for
her own dear sake.
“The poor old Earth!” I repeated. “What I should chiefly
regret in her destruction would be that very earthliness, which
no other sphere or state of existence can renew or compensate.
The fragrance of flowers, and of new-mown hay; the genial
warmth of sunshine, and the beauty of a sunset among clouds;
the comfort and cheerful glow of the fireside; the deliciousness
of fruits, and of all good cheer; the magnificence of mountains,
and seas, and cataracts, and the softer charm of rural scenery;
even the fast-falling snow, and the grey atmosphere through which
it descends—all these, and innumerable other enjoyable things of
earth, must perish with her. Then the country frolics; the
homely humor; the broad, open-mouthed roar of laughter, in
which body and soul conjoin so heartily! I fear that no other
world can show us anything just like this. As for purely moral
where the material and the moral exist together, what is to happen
then? And then our mute four-footed friends, and the winged
songsters of our woods! Might it not be lawful to regret them,
even in the hallowed groves of Paradise?”
“You speak like the very spirit of earth, imbued with a scent
of freshly-turned soil!” exclaimed my friend.
“It is not that I so much object to giving up these enjoyments,
on my own account,” continued I; “but I hate to think that they
will have been eternally annihilated from the list of joys.”
“Nor need they be,” he replied. “I see no real force in what
you say. Standing in this Hall of Fantasy, we perceive what
even the earth-clogged intellect of man can do, in creating circumstances
which, though we call them shadowy and visionary,
are scarcely more so than those that surround us in actual life.
Doubt not, then, that man's disembodied spirit may recreate Time
and the World for itself, with all their peculiar enjoyments, should
there still be human yearnings amid life eternal and infinite.
But I doubt whether we shall be inclined to play such a poor
scene over again.”
“Oh, you are ungrateful to our Mother Earth!” rejoined I.
“Come what may, I never will forget her! Neither will it satisfy
me to have her exist merely in idea. I want her great, round,
solid self to endure interminably, and still to be peopled with the
kindly race of man, whom I uphold to be much better than he
thinks himself. Nevertheless, I confide the whole matter to Providence,
and shall endeavor so to live, that the world may come
to an end at any moment, without leaving me at a loss to find
foothold somewhere else.”
“It is an excellent resolve,” said my companion, looking at his
watch. “But come: it is the dinner hour. Will you partake of
my vegetable diet?”
A thing so matter-of-fact as an invitation to dinner, even when
fruit, compelled us forthwith to remove from the Hall of
Fantasy. As we passed out of the portal, we met the spirits of
several persons, who had been sent thither in magnetic sleep.
I looked back among the sculptured pillars, and at the transformations
of the gleaming fountain, and almost desired that the
whole of life might be spent in that visionary scene, where the
actual world, with its hard angles, should never rub against me,
and only be viewed through the medium of pictured windows.
But, for those who waste all their days in the Hall of Fantasy,
good Father Miller's prophecy is already accomplished, and the
solid earth has come to an untimely end. Let us be content,
therefore, with merely an occasional visit, for the sake of spiritualizing
the grossness of this actual life, and prefiguring to ourselves
a state, in which the Idea shall be all in all.
| Mosses from an old manse | |