A Prisoner in Fairyland (The Book That 'Uncle Paul' Wrote)Blackwood, Algernon
Science
A Prisoner in Fairyland (The Book That 'Uncle Paul' Wrote)
Blackwood, Algernon
Magic -- Fiction; Voyages and travels -- Fiction
Cousin Henry was easily leader now. While Daddy remained absorbed with
his marvellous new story, enthusiastic and invisible, they ran about
the world at the heels of this 'busy engineer,' as Jane Ann entitled
him. He had long ago told them, with infinite and exaccurate detail,
of his journey to the garden and his rediscovery of the sprites,
forgotten during his twenty years of business life. And these sprites
were as familiar to them now as those of their own childhood. They
little knew that at night they met and talked with them. Daddy had put
them all into the Wumble Book, achieving mediocre success with the
rhymes, but amply atoning with the illustrations. The Woman of the
Haystack was evidently a monster pure and simple, till Jinny announced
that she merely had 'elephantitis,' and thus explained her
satisfactorily. The Lamplighter, with shining feet, taking enormous
strides from Neuchatel to a London slum, putting fire into eyes and
hearts _en route_, thrilled them by his radiant speed and ubiquitous
activity, while his doggerel left them coldly questioning. For the
rhymes did _not_ commend themselves to their sense of what was proper
in the use of words. His natural history left them unconvinced, though
the anatomy of the drawing fascinated them.
He walked upon his toes
As softly as a saying does,
For so the saying goes.
That he 'walked upon his toes' was all right, but that he 'walked
softly as a saying' meant nothing, even when explained that 'thus the
saying goes.'
'Poor old Daddy,' was Jinny's judgment; 'he's got to write something.
You see, he is an author. Some day he'll get his testimonial.'
It was Cousin Henry who led them with a surer, truer touch. He always
had an adventure up his sleeve--something their imaginations could
accept and recreate. Each in their own way, they supplied
interpretations as they were able.
Every walk they took together furnished the germ of an adventure.
'But I'm not exciting to-day,' he would object thirsting for a
convincing compliment that should persuade him to take them out. Only
the compliment never came quite as he hoped.
'Everybody's exciting somewhere,' said Monkey, leading the way and
knowing he would follow. 'We'll go to the Wind Wood.'
Jimbo took his hand then, and they went. Corners of the forest had
names now, born of stories and adventures he had placed there--the
Wind Wood, the Cuckoo Wood, where Daddy could not sleep because 'the
beastly cuckoo made such a noise'; the Wood where Mother Fell, and so
on. No walk was wholly unproductive.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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