 | A DREAM OF THE EARTH. The book of my lady |  |
A DREAM OF THE EARTH.
“I had a dream, which was not all a dream.”
My mood is somewhat German—that is to say, it
inclines prodigiously to diablerie; and with a faculty,
which, if not dangerous, is at least troublesome, at
times, it conjures spirits from the vasty deeps of my
imagination, whenever I please to call them up. I can
have an assortment of them at, and for, my pleasure;
and though not over pleasant as companions, nor over
obedient as servants, I find them sufficiently docile for
all temporary purposes. I have my sprightly elves,
dancing for me of a summer night—my fairies of the
evening on the pleasant hill side, and sometimes when
the bell tolls at midnight, I turn suddenly in my elbow-chair
to behold a very pleasant looking sort of Mephistopheles,
peeping over my left shoulder. Of course, I
wish not to be understood to say that I behold these
images with a literal and bona-fide vision. God forbid.
I only mean to give an idea of those things that sometimes
come to the half-shut eye, at that peculiar moment,
which is sometimes permitted to most men, when,
without losing any of our individual and personal identity,
we have a sort of dim consciousness of another state of
existence, and of having other company than that to
which we are usually accustomed. This condition of
mental excitation, I am not unwilling to admit, may be
and the silence—the whispering silence—of the midnight
hour, in your old library in the northeast corner.
There is something delightful to me in a mood of
this description. I may safely say, that, bating some
solitary hours, my greatest pleasures have come to me
at such a period, and while under such an influence.
I know not how it is with other men. They answer
for themselves. I would not pretend for a moment that
my habits, frenzies, or whatsoever they merit to be
called, shall go for a moment in illustration of theirs.
But with me, what I say, I not only religiously and seriously
say, but I most seriously and religiously believe.
To me that state of dreamy existence, which is aptly
and beautifully designated by the poet, that of the
“half-shut eye,” is full of delights and delightful images.
I have often thought it the kind of mental intoxication
for which men frequently resort to opium, and the influence
of which may be best ascertained in the torpid
felicity which the Turks, as a nation, exhibit, and which
they have already frequently acknowledged. The Confessions
of an Opium Eater will better describe what I
mean and what I would say; and, as the book is not
only an instructive, but a truly pleasant one, I recommend
it to the reader to supply any deficiencies at this
stage of my narrative.
My arm-chair is, of itself, highly inspiriting. It, no
doubt, contributes wonderfully to that state of general
preparedness which adds to the force of any invocation.
It is of the true oriental make. The reader will not
suppose me luxurious when I describe it. It is of mahogany—of
a most solid structure. The legs are capacious,
of any burden. Falstaff would not have filled, though
he might have fitted it. A soft velvet flowered cushion
of purple, inclines greatly to the sense of repose, which
the whole fabric is calculated to instil into him who
makes use of it. The arms are rendered inviting by
the use of a like material, and the back receives any
impression. Five degrees of the circle thrown under
the feet, give, with the slightest effort, an undulatory
motion to the whole, which contributes, like an orthodox
sermon, or the opium already referred to, to a
slumberous quietude, that, of a long summer afternoon,
is wonderfully pleasant and becoming.
As evening wears, propped up in this “not at home,”
I laugh at the weather without, eschew visiters within,
place my feet on the fender, and survey the panorama
of creation through the crackling and half-burnt embers
of an excellent sea-coal fire. Numberless are the
images—various the pictures—wide the prospects—glorious
the views—and delightful the companions, that rise
to my view in that survey. I never use the poker;—it is
a horrible—an ungraceful engine—and destroys many a
pleasant illusion. Coal after coal sinks from sight—
others take their places, forming newer combinations;
and, as in a kaleidoscope, presenting infinite varieties
of well-adjointed and corresponding objects and associations.
If I behold in one huge mass of the black
pile just smitten by the flame, a gloomy and turreted
castle, manned with men in armour and ready for the
fight—in another I perceive beneath its walls a hostile
and invading arry getting ready for the onset. The
occasional hiss of the escaping air answers all the
flame and fall, I behold the overthrow of this or that
armament—the invading or invaded. This, every body
will admit, is a very pleasant mode of passing away
those hours, which, with most men go unemployed; but
this is not all. As I have already said, the world of
spirits contributes also to my accommodation; and at
such a period, fancy becomes a recruiting officer, and
my senses are all severally supplied with what they
respectively require. Images from the natural and
spiritual world alike await my bidding; and without
describing a circle, filling it with skulls and scorpions,
making a contract with my blood in a manner most
horribly German, and invoking his arch majesty, the
devil, I command the creatures of the four elements,
and they come when, and sometimes before, I call for
them. The subtle Zephyr, the gloomy Gnome, the
skipping Hamadryad, the old Cyclops, the dewy and
plaintive Naiad, all throng about me, and manifold are
the adventures which I glean from their several recitals.
They make me the depository of their secrets and
mysteries; but, as they have no doubt told the same
secrets to thousands besides, I shall perhaps do them
but little injury, and betray a confidence without value,
as it is so much divided, by occasionally whispering to
others what they sometimes whisper to me. As I have
made no contracts with the creatures, I am not much
concerned about offending them, and if they play me
no pranks in mid-summer, by moonlight, I shall not
fear other inconveniences at their hands.
I remember a conversation, which, while under a
mood and in a situation like that described, I once
Earth. “'Twas on a summer evening,” in my chair,
as aforesaid—dinner being over, and the bottle under,
that had once been on, the table—that I was favoured
with the presence of this terrestrial personage. Of
his make, person, feature, and so forth, I say nothing.
Let him speak for himself. So, taking a seat comfortably
in the corner opposite, with a grave countenance
and paternally solemn accent, in reply to some of my
obliquitous enquiries, he went on as follows. If the
reader thinks it likely he will find the old one as
tedious as I did, he will be wise and go no farther.
“You are right,” said he, “in coming to me for information
on the subject of my history. Nobody so
well as one's self can tell one's story; so that now,
having fairly entrusted yourself to me, you will be so
good as to forget every thing which you have previously
heard on this matter, and believe only that
which I shall tell you. I know you will think me
rather vain and self-complacent when I say this. I
know that among the miserable mass which make up
your species, it is quite a common belief that you are
au fait on all topics, and that it is quite common for
each of you to know more of his neighbour's business
than he can possibly know of it himself. Still, I look
upon you as grievously in the dark on all that concerns
me. Of me and mine you know nothing; it will depend
upon the patience and propriety which you may
now exhibit, whether I make you any wiser. The
good opinion which you generally entertain of your
own capacities has, in most cases, shot infinitely beyond
your compass; and you are neither able to teach
nevertheless, necessary you should be taught. All
your accounts, therefore—those in particular which
relate to me—are mere absurdities, wild and erroneous.
Disposed to speculate and analyse, from the
atom of the immortal principle within him, man is yet,
however, but too little regulated in his conclusions by
the foresight and knowledge which should belong to
and describe it, to benefit himself very greatly by its
possession. He ate too little of the apple to be wise,
too much of it to be happy: enough for presumption,
too little for that fine taste and perception which,
having brought wisdom, teaches humility.
“You will yourself have perceived, if I have not
greatly mistaken your character, that the process of
life in those portions of my body which have come
more immediately under your observation, is not dissimilar
to the same process, as it is carried on in your
own animal condition. We are not seriously unlike
in all vital matters, and though you may think it in no
wise complimentary on my part to say so, our wants
and necessities, our qualities and our feelings, do not
perceptibly differ. We depend for life, and health,
and vigour, upon the same influences. We need alike
the same generous sunshine, the same refreshing
showers, the same grateful dews, the same cold and
heat, and we alike live and laugh under a common
Providence. Our moral resemblances are also striking.
Have we not our revolutions, our ups and downs? and
have we not both of us permitted our several poles to
be flattened? There is, certainly, but little difference
between us; and whether we look at the one state or
of fortune and condition which make up our existence,
tend greatly to its comfort and the excellent working
of the contrivance. Nor is our healthful state the
only object in this variety. The sense of enjoyment,
nearly the same with both of us, where our ignorance
and discontent do not blind us wholly to its perception,
appears in this to have been most graciously
consulted. The two grand seasons of the year, from
which the lesser and more minute and uncertain divisions
arise, winter and summer, are made admirably
to relieve the duties and neutralise the influences of
one another. As the warmth of summer departs, the
cool, sharp, and bracing winds of October strengthen
and invigorate; and when winter, in turn, grows troublesome
and fretful, its snows are agreeably broken in
upon and dissipated by its noisy departure in March;
while April and May, genially, by the balmy blossoms
which they bring, and the fresh zephyrs and showers
which attend on them, atone, like the gentle children
of an ungentle sire, for the severities of their rugged
predecessor, and cheer the languid spirits of man and
of myself. Is there not, in this, strong sympathy
between us? Do we not even clothe ourselves, with
a reference to feelings shared in common, under the
prevailing influences of these changing seasons? Your
winter woollens are not more thick and warm than
the snows which in the same seasons I wrap about me;
and do I not, in the pleasant spring-time, dress myself
in the very same variety of leafy flowers, which garland
the beautiful girl whom I beheld you emb—”
Here I put my hand upon the old fellow's mouth.
about that, and I suffered him to proceed.
“Still further,” said he, “and the analogy here is
of the most striking description. The decay of the
plants, the flowers, leaves, and trees, stores my bosom
with a rich, renewed, and second principle of life; as
with you the death of the animal man gives freedom
and full exercise to the hitherto confined principle of
immortality, which makes all that is worthy or valuable
in his original formation.
“To say that I am supported in a pure and healthy
habit by the employment of the same or similar means
with yourself, would be, perhaps, only to remind you
of some among your early studies. Your researches,
allowing you to have been an industrious student, may
have taught you that, as in your own system, I must
become impure and diseased were there not a free and
general circulation of blood through my system. To
know that the blood lives, there is no necessity to
refer to Dr. Charles Bell, who has gone to considerable
pains to establish the fact; while Dr. John Bell, with
desperate silliness, labours to prove a doctrine directly
the reverse. These are discordant bells, and you will
give no heed to them. The blood has life, and having
it, I live. I have veins and arteries, the streams of
which intersect each other, and perpetually supply my
overgrown frame with the same animating principle,
and strengthen and invigorate me in much the same
manner as, in your smaller and microscopic formation
and structure, the attenuated ducts and channels provide
your life with the sustaining fluids. To your eye,
it is true, the material possesses not precisely the
indifferent note, when we know that the effect of both
is the same; that, deprived of the one, you perish;
and, like myself, bereft of the other, are resolved to
dust, and dispersed in the fine and subtile element.
This difference between your blood and mine is,
therefore, purely nominal, and beneath the consideration
of a sober intellect. That I am not similarly
constructed with yourself, mere bodily outline considered,
is perhaps true; though you, perhaps, are but
little calculated, from your native capacities, to determine
on this particular. It is not pretended that we
resemble each other in shape, nor would it have been
a wise arrangement to have had us do so. How should
I have been enabled to carry my huge body with your
legs? I might, it is true, have had a much better
standing; but, like most people cursed with being
lifted out of their proper element, I certainly should
have lost more in ease and repose than I had acquired
in pride of place and elevated station. As it is, my
structure is by no means deficient in grace and symmetrical
arrangement. Beneath your eyes I am but a
heavy and elaborate mass—a great beast—without any
of those nicer adaptation of parts to that fineness of
proportion, which are your modelling standards, and
to which you are in the habit of cutting, carving, and
squaring every thing—virtue, truth, religion, faith,
and probity, being all regulated, as I am informed, by
a pert, froward, selfish, calculating, conceited, and
most wofully ignorant and ill-advised creature, called
Fashion. If I have a protuberance or depression, you
term it mountain or valley, with a sang froid, not less
that you speak of a living, moving, and feeling
creation. Should I not have life, who bring it forth?
Is not the hidden spring of all vitality in me? Do
not my waters (to employ your own phraseology, that
I may be the better understood) leap within me; my
hills tremble; my flowers and plants and trees bud,
blossom, bear, and prove their claim to every peculiarity
in your life, by perishing at last? Do they
spring at your command, and do I not bring them
forth? In what, then, so far as vitality is concerned,
will we be found to differ? In our shape, you will
say; but are you able to determine upon the proportions
of that which you cannot see?
“Could you, in a glance, and but for a moment, survey
my gigantic frame to its utmost extremities—
could I be extended before your vision as a perfect
whole, laid out by an omniscient and particular eye—
could you behold and determine upon my vast and
various undulations—my hills swelling into grace—
my vales, the delicate retreatings of a frame, each part
accommodated to its fellow, and chiselled into gentle
featurings—all parts beneath your glance, and the
symmetry of the whole beheld as you need never expect
to behold it—then would you at once discover
and readily admit, that mere bulk is not alone the
characteristic of my person, and that I am in no wise
deficient in those features of evenness and grace, and
that delicacy of proportion, which your miserable
vanity will seldom permit you to recognise in the
make of any but your own species. I have my deformities,
it is true, for which I shall account hereafter;
removed your own `warts and tumours,' to trouble
yourself about mine.
“Of my birth, like all other children, I know little
or nothing. I believe—further to establish and confirm
the analogy between us—that, before reaching
my present elaborated, though even now incomplete
and still increasing bulk, I passed through several
stages of being and condition. There was an ordeal
term of infancy and imbecility—of childhood, youth,
age, with all their faculties of wind and vapour, as
known to yourself, through which I had to pass—pain,
and labour, and sweat, not forgotten—before reaching
my present advanced, though still immature condition.
I believe, like yourself, I was called up in distinct
atoms from the boundlessness of space, the darkness
and the confusion of chaos—that I gathered, and continue
to gather newer additions from the same source,
momentarily—not as your philosophy presumes to
suppose, from the natural determination to the centre,
but from the operation and influence of the mighty
will—the destiny—the great spirit which had gone
forth, the propelling energies of whose cloudy wings
drove them onwards to the vast work of my creation.
Created thus, I swung blackly and heavily in the eternal
sphere—blind, confused, wandering and imbecile;
until that period of time, when, all things having been
prepared, the immortal Spirit covered me with his
wings, and life, animation, feeling, was the consequence;
and I leaped, with a blind and impulsive
determination, into the place which I now occupy.
Still all was darkness, and vacancy, and solitude, about
desire to know and feel yet more; and I writhed in
ungovernable anguish for that light which I knew not
as yet how to have or comprehend. Like angels and
men, I too struggled against the mandate that made
and fixed me in the sphere I occupied. I, too, rebelled
with a stiff-necked determination, arising from
my ignorance of the power I dared to defy. I leaped,
and struggled, and strove, but was bound down at last
to my office.
“I was not, however, long condemned to remain
rolling in my huge sphere without companionship.
The heavy and solid darkness that weighed upon and
pressed me down with a presence, felt but unseen,
gradually began to dissipate. Sounds came swelling
mysteriously and faintly in the distance. Music, the
most ravishing and exquisite, came breathing and
wrapping itself about me. I became fixed—chained
into stillness: a spell was upon me—a languid delight
—every tumult was hushed—every rebellious discontent
quieted, and every thing forgotten in that first
song of the spheres, as they hailed and ushered in the
new-born light. How can you hope to understand,
or I detail, the character, or give you any idea of that
choice harmony which mingled with and made up the
sublime mysteries attending upon the creation of the
dependent elements, now first starting into life and
sound? How gradually and sweetly arose that melody
—swelling on its nearer approach into a mighty and
ear-piercing burst—a diapason of heavenly and myriad
voices; then, falling into a fine depression of faint
murmurings, giving forth sounds, such as might be
the throne of the Eternal over the golden floors of
heaven. In a moment every thing was hushed into a
deep silence—the very breathings of the infant Time
were unheard. But other sounds—other melodies
succeeded—musical and melodious, and yet not music.
You have heard such strains—fine, spiritual, and commanding—in
the winds by night—on the wild waters
—in the forests. The tempest and the calm—day
and night—even I, with my plants, and flowers, and
streams—have all conveyed them to your several
senses. It was the Spirit—itself a voice and a music
—that bespoke the presence of the awful I am—and
we trembled and shrunk into nothing and quietude
before it. It had—not to compare it with any thing
of or in human life—just such an effect upon me, as a
deep-toned bell would have upon you in the stillness
and solitude of the desert. It was thunder, and majesty,
and power—but how sweet, how finely attenuated.
A pause, and then arose once again the delicious
melodies which had preceded it; and, in obedience to
the spell, the arches of heaven were unfolded, and
huge volumes of light, that mysterious agent of the
Deity, poured forth upon and around me. I grew dim
and blinded with excessive bright—I luxuriated—I
leaped, and was maddened. Light was born, and for
the first time I beheld myself—I beheld the world of
which I was a portion. Vacancy was no longer the
occasion of my dread and doubt. I could now look
up, no longer crowded in upon and by the darkness,
and survey the unveiled heavens—the mysterious sanctuary,
glorious yet awful, thrown open, while the pure
bodies upon each other. What a vision—it flew to
my embrace—I grasped, I hid it in all my recesses—
it was mine, all mine, and I leaped and bounded with
a delirious transport! How grateful was its presence!
I surveyed myself as in a mirror, and grew in love
with myself and with every thing around me. Then
could I see glorious and innumerable agencies directing
their flight upon their appointed offices—wheeling
away, within the vestments of a golden light, and a
plumage borrowed from the land of Paradise, far upon
the verge of my horizon—others in immediate attendance
upon the eternal throne—for
`They also serve, who only stand and wait'—
over and around me, cleaving, with uncumbered
ease, the successive floods of transparent light, which
still continued to pour forth from on high; while
trooping bands, as they whirled in groups through the
mid-air, kept up a choral song of rejoicing, of worship
and of praise, to that supreme majesty from whom
came all their greatness and winning glory.
“Voices were all about me—voices of power! Images
of beauty—figures of light and glory descended upon
me, while, insensible as regards my own capacity of
motion, they performed a multitude of offices which I
could not comprehend. But all things were commanded
by a voice whose authority I felt and beheld. It was
about, above, around, and within me, at the same moment,
and at each utterance I thrilled and trembled in
every portion of my huge frame. Then rose a song of
and praise; so rich, so mellow, that, bound down, as it
were, in a charm, I lay wrapt, unconscious of all things
beside, till the melody had passed again into the azure
gates, from which it seemed to descend. The excess
of light and splendour—the glory, late almost oppressive,
was now mellowed down into softer hues and
more delicate featurings. The skies, no longer flaming
with gorgeous radiance, now became tinged only here
and there with the richer gleams—through which the
sweet cerulean flashed gently at frequent intervals; and
though the appearance of the world about me became
at this period more truly beautiful, I perceived, with
deep anxiety and fear, that my enjoyment was unstable,
and the rich floods of living light were evidently, though
gradually, departing. Not so rapidly, indeed, as when
it had bounded forth and enveloped me, but in a procession
of slow and sweetly mournful bodies, seeming
to regret, as they re-entered their rich abodes, the fair
freedom to which they had lately fallen inheritors. I
struggled to grasp and to retain the still fleeting deceptions,
but in vain. Column after column gathered and
disappeared, till at length all had departed, leaving me
to the horrible vacancy of condition, almost enhanced
in misery by my knowledge of a sense of enjoyment,
rather productive of pain than pleasure, since it had
proved so fleeting and evanescent. I shuddered in terror,
when I recollected the chilling blackness which
had before enveloped me in its embrace. I grew convulsed—I
was maddened by my excessive emotion.
Coldness and vacancy came rapidly over me, and I
trembled at my own wide, extensive, and unprotected
coming time, the more terrible as they were unknown.
I dreaded the doubtful but fearful dangers, and shuddered
and shrunk and writhed in a thousand contortions.
Then, on a sudden, I heard a rushing and fearful
noise, as of two mighty hosts of wings and weapons
in battle. Roaring and foaming, it approached with
an increasing fury, to which I could liken nothing that
I had yet been conscious of. This confirmed my worst
apprehension—I knew not what to dread, and dreaded
every thing. Now bellowing, now clashing and fretting,
then moaning with a melancholy terror, as of evil
spirits in mortal agonies, I did not long remain in
doubt as to the character of my new danger. It was
not long before I felt my extremities covered completely
by an immense body of rushing waters—momentarily
mounting higher, and threatening, by increasing power
and violence, my very existence. I now, for the first
time, was taught to know my deadly enemy, the ocean.
In vain did I seek to rid myself of the assailant—vain
were all my struggles and contortions—vainly did I
shrink from the deluging power. I was covered and
pressed down by the pitiless masses, that all the while
kept up their infernal ravings and plungings above me,
yelling throughout their gambols, with a savage triumph,
and mocking the efforts which I made to escape them.
Finding all exertion fruitless, I gave up my short dream
of delightful enjoyment, with a sort of resignation to
that fate, which I apprehended to be close at hand. I
felt myself almost enveloped by the wild and interminable
waters; and though still a creature of perception,
I had now none of those hopes of a long and happy
existence. I now discovered that there was no eternity
in pleasure—no truth in hope; and that being, with
myself as well as man, was liable to fearful vicissitudes.
Yet why should I moralise? You are all sufficiently
ready in the inculcation of truth—it might be better for
you, were all as ready to receive it.
“Still, I survived—I did not then perish—my time
had not yet come. Many were the hours—how long
and weary did they seem to me—that I lay in this condition.
At length, however, I began to feel a larger
relaxation in the burden upon me. The weight appeared
to diminish—my joints were released, in great
part, from the power which had cramped and stiffened
them; and how inexpressible was my delight, when, by
these and other signs, I was assured that I was once
more about to regain my liberty. The departure of
my enemy was yet protracted. The waters rolled from
me gradually, and with little, if any, of that noise and
turbulence which had accompanied their first appearance.
Several hours had elapsed, ere they had left me
to the perception and enjoyment of the glorious day
that succeeded a night so sorrowful and dismal. But
they went at last, and again, to my remotest members,
I felt, as on the day before, the floods of refreshing light
and heat, rolling over me in their place. With a mellowed
influence at first they gathered around me, till,
entirely descended from the gates of heaven, they concentrated
themselves into a full orbed splendour, the
glow and glory of which I felt, but dared not looked
upon. What a life was that one day to me! My whole
frame was awakened—enkindled. I was all one perception—every
with enjoyment; and flowers, and fruits, and trees, and
shrubs, generated by that first embrace with the vital
principle, sprung forth from my bosom, shielding me
from the consuming heat which had called them into
existence. How richly beautiful—how winning was
then my appearance! With what a grace, admitted
into the dances of the spheres, did I ascend the whirling
axle, and become a member of that all-perfect system,
which, in its harmonious and unvarying revolutions,
at once indicates the nature, while it offers a true
homage to the handiworks, of God! All this day was
one of wonder and delirium. How did I spread myself
forth beneath the heavens, to catch every gracious
smile and odour and breeze, that came therefrom;
while the blaze, that, like living waters, gushed from its
bosom, filled and enwreathed me with the richest splendour!
With delight I could now behold myself in my
remotest regions. I could see and luxuriate in the fine
though gigantic symmetry of my proportions—the graceful
undulation of muscle and matter here—the fine and
speaking elevation of feature there. Nor did I confine,
with undue vanity, my attention solely to my own person.
I looked long and delightedly to the many choice
images of wonder—the unique creations floating gracefully
in gold and vermillion, and azure orbs, about,
around, and above me. Beautiful images descended
upon me; troops of spiritual forms leapt playfully into
the skies; pursuing each other with songs and sport,
and mingling together with a habit of joy, that savoured
of a frenzied and most unlimited delight. All things
were under a spell—a sun—a glory—a high life of
—But yet another change was at hand. The images
began to fade and depart. The forms of light and fairy
grew less frequent. The wings darted upward—the
glow and the glory became mellowed into hues and
beauties, not less brilliant and captivating, but less
warm and bright—and, as at length I beheld the burning
globe descend and heard it hiss in the dark waters,
which, now, as if recovering a withheld spirit, began
again to roar and ramp and rise above my extremities;
and as my own body began to grow less and less each
moment in my sight, all my fears and apprehensions returned—all
my emotions of rapture took their departure.
The night I had already spent was too well remembered,
and too sullenly endured, not to occasion many terrible
misgivings as to its return; and with a shuddering horror,
which neither the past pleasures of the day, nor
the hope, now strong within me, of its return, could
dissipate, I resigned myself to that destiny from which
I had no prospect of escape. But with what a pleasurable
disappointment did I find, after some hours of
dreadful apprehension, that my limbs were yet free
from the waters—that the darkness and coldness of the
preceding night had failed to return; and while deploring,
however, the absence of that strong blaze,
which was now my chief privation, how was I gladdened
to behold, of a sudden, a broad and beautiful
stream of spendour, like a transparent pillar from the
heavens, equally bright, far more beautiful, though without
the heat, which marked and came with the day,
looking down immediately upon me. It grew as it approached,
in power and expansion, sending its pale and
resting with a smile of beautiful attraction, even upon the
billows of my mortal enemy. Shall I tell you that this
was the moon—making her first maiden ascent into the
blue world, of which she is so beautiful and well-beloved
a tenant—alone, and proud in her unapproachable
brightness. No songs of triumph ushered in her approach.
Her attendants were Silence and Quiet, and
they, like herself, and the Night to which they minister,
were born dumb. With what a feeling of delighted
awe, aided by her light, and emboldened by the placidity
of all around me, did I look upon the fierce waters I
had so much dreaded. There, in grim repose, stretched
out like myself in a slumbering quiet, did they rest beneath
her spells. Not a billow stirred—not a breath
came from them; and, but for the perpetual heavings
of their breasts, I should now have regarded them, and
all the terrors they had made me undergo, as a mere
dream, a delusion. But she—that gentle spirit—towards
morning began also to decay. She looked no
longer down with an eye all brightness and beauty;
slumber seemed to fall upon her, a film passed over her
brows; and now, I discovered, for the first time, the
numerous lesser lights that came in her train, the
brightness and beauty of which had been hitherto
merged entirely in her own. What a fairy picture of
sweetness and sublimity! There was not a shadow
upon me—there was not a cloud in the firmament;
and even the waters that howled fitfully in their sleep
at intervals, were wrapt in a garment of thin and fretted
silver. But when this Queen of Faery, scared by the
approaching day, had veiled her face in a dun mantle,
of the greater splendour, had done likewise,
what new wonders were before me! There was yet
another change, and newer inconveniences. Sounds
unheard and unconceived before, were in my ears—
the only strong feature of which was their utter discordance
one with the other. As far as I could see,
my whole body had been taken possession of by a troop
of as disagreeably incongrous creatures as you might
by any stretch of imagination conceive. Some were
horned and unhorned, tailed and untailed, winged and
unwinged, four-footed, two-footed, and no footed—
beast, bird, and reptile, flesh and fowl; the whole variety
as you know them now: all were there, making
as perfectly free with my system, as if it were purely
and entirely their own. Some were nipping the plants
and grass—some reposing their limbs upon my own;
and, not a few inconsiderately burrowing into my body
with their sharp horns, and taking other troublesome
and indecent liberties with the body they had so audaciously
invaded. I was indignant, as well I might be;
and strove, with a degree of vigour and violence which
merited to have been much more successful, to extricate
myself from their impertinence, but in vain. Some, indeed,
I did succeed in shuffling into the embraces of my
neighbour, the sea; but though I tumbled and twisted
in every possible direction, I failed to dislodge the great
mass, or persuade them into any civilities. While, as
if in punishment of my discontent, my limbs were
chained and fixed into the several positions in which I
had thrown them—lumps and depressions were the
consequence; and a body, otherwise superbly and symmetrically
These undulations in my animal make, your sages have
denominated valleys and mountains, and have spoken
of, and acted towards them, as if they had been in
reality the insensate masses, the names thus given them
are used to signify. I am thus suffering perpetual injuries,
bruises, and beatings from your people, in resentment
of which, I sometimes, (for I am slow to anger,)
with a contraction of a knee, overthrow a territory,
and with the upheaving of my chest or side,
swallow up a city or an empire, and perform other
feats of a like irregularity. One ambitious fool among
you, did, in cutting through what he called a mountain,
difigure terribly my left nostril, but I revenged myself
upon him in a corresponding style. I destroyed his
fleet by a breath, and sent him to his own dominions, a
fugitive, as he had left them, a fool. Others again, before
and since, not liking, it would seem, such elevations,
though in the formation of my frame actually
essential to symmetry, have levelled various of my
members, to an insipid evenness, and elevated, in
turn, many of my depressions, into positive deformities.
Some, not content with working their own advantage
at my expense, have allied themselves to my ancient
enemy, the sea—with whom I am continually at war,
and from whom I daily wrest and rescue some of my
members—cutting trenches in my very bosom to admit
his billows; and endeavouring, in this wanton manner,
not merely to disencumber me of my component parts,
but, with a species of cruelty, purely Turkish, actually
to disembowel me. There are other incursions, equally
barbarous, which your people are in the habit of making
revenge in lifting or relaxing a leg or an arm, by
which I have lodged a city or a state under the water.
It is by these changes (when fatigued in one position)
which I sometimes make, that your travellers have met
with new continents—thus, too, may you account for
the rising and falling of a lake or an islandin the progress
of a single night. In stating my many wrongs at
your hands, I may charge you with numerous robberies.
Not content with what I place on my surface for your
good and at your free disposal, you penetrate with pick-axe
and spear, into my very entrails, to pilfer my possessions.
Spoils which your fathers knew not of, or, if
they did, which they did not venture to touch, you now
grope into my treasuries for, lay violent hands on, and
pocket without acknowledgment, and without scruple.
“I have little else to say, but should not omit,
though it does not very greatly enter into the materials
of my own history, to speak of some things which
more immediately concern yourself. I will return.
I had scarcely become familiar with the presence of
beast and bird, as already spoken of, when I was made
conscious of other objects. Two fair creatures were
before, and dwelling above me. They dwelt in the
bosom of a rich star, that hung at a small distance
above my horizon. Beauty, and youth, and innocence
were about, and enveloped and was a part of them—
and from the moment I beheld, I loved—I worshipped
them. Their looks were love—their words were
music—their smiles were peace. Nor was I alone in
my adoration. The most savage of the wild tribes
that were about me bowed and humbled themselves
the serpent crawled into his cavern as they went by,
and the doves met in their pathway, in amorous discourse.
Scarcely less beautiful—not less perfectly
made—though less perfect as it would seem from subsequent
events—than the glorious forms and images
which came down from heaven, walking and conversing
with them, how could we refuse our homage?
These were your parents, boy. Alas! how very unlike
their children, then, though made to resemble
them, at last, as well in feature as in fortune—driven
from that habitation of delight—a flaming sword set
behind and waving over them—unknown dangers
assailing and threatening, and the first proof of their
fall from that high estate, and of their present deformity,
the relaxed homage of the brute—the increased
insolence of the snake—the timid fluttering of the
dove—the one growling and the other hissing, the
third flying before them in terror, as they passed to
their new abode. But it is time to pause.
“If I have not confined myself in this narrative entirely
to the circumstances of my own creation, I have
not, at least, extended my account to that of objects
not relevant thereto. Of the subsequent revolutions
in my life I need say nothing. The history might be
troublesome for me to relate, and somewhat fatiguing,
certainly, for you to hear. Still it might instruct you.
It consists, and in this respect differs not from your
own, of many vicissitudes, changes, shadows and sunshine,
hopes and apprehensions. Not the least of my
annoyances is the knowledge that I am at the mercy
of your race, the victim of all your caprice and extravagance.
now, however, with a spirit of retributive justice,
which marks all heaven's judgments, revenges me on
you hereafter. You will all, your great and low, lofty
and despised, alike, come and lie down in my bosom,
restoring me at last that which had been taken from
me at your formation. Of this you may not complain,
if, like me, you have been taught to know how many
are the trials of life, and how sweet is the slumber
that its close brings with it. You have other hopes,
than myself, and in this respect our destinies part
company. You dream of a high ascent into other
spheres—you put on a new life—you re-ascend that
pure and perfect star, from which your ancestors so
haplessly descended. This hope is not for me—yet
shall I be satisfied, if once again permitted to behold
that glory—their glory and my own, of which I so
freely partook—in which I so joyously luxuriated,
when the stars first sung their pæans, and the ponderous
spheres, in compliance with their high destiny,
uttered their full concerted harmonies, in token of
their common existence.”
The spirit had departed. I had been listening to
our common Parent. I had heard a story, such as one
may gather from the leaves and the plants, in the city
and in the forest, if disposed to listen to those messengers
of the eternal Providence, sent wisely for his
solace and instruction—illuminating his pathway, and
directing his feet.
| A DREAM OF THE EARTH. The book of my lady | |