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
The train emerged from the tunnel. He rushed out into the blaze of the
Interfering Sun. The lovely cluster vanished like a dream, and with it
the hint of explanation melted down in dew. Fields sped past with a
group of haystacks whose tarpaulin skirts spread and lifted in the
gust of wind the train made. He thought abruptly of Mother....
Perhaps, after all, he had taught her something, shown her Existence
as a big, streaming, endless thing in which months and years, possibly
even life itself, were merely little sections, each unintelligible
unless viewed as portions of the Whole, and not as separate,
difficult, puzzling items set apart. Possibly he had drawn her map to
bigger scale, increased her faith, given her more sense of repose and
peace, more courage therefore. She thought formerly of a day, but not
of its relation to all days before and behind. She stuck her husband's
'reviews' in the big book, afflicted by the poor financial results
they represented, but was unable to think of his work as a stage in a
long series of development and progress, no effort lost, no single
hope mislaid. And that was something--_if_ he had accomplished it.
Only, he feared he had not. There was the trouble. There lay the
secret of a certain ineffectiveness in his character. For he did not
realise that fear is simply suppressed desire, vivid signs of life,
and that desire is the ultimate causative agent everywhere and always.
'Behind Will stands Desire,' and Desire is Action.
And if he _had_ accomplished this, how was it done? Not by preaching,
certainly. Was it, then, simply by being, thinking, feeling it? A
glorious thought, if true! For assuredly he had this faculty of seeing
life whole, and even in boyhood he had looked ahead over its entire
map. He had, indeed, this way of relating all its people, and all its
parts together, instead of seeing them separate, unintelligible
because the context was left out. He lived intensely in the present,
yet looked backwards and forwards too at the same time. This large
sympathy, this big comforting vision was his gift. Consequently he
believed in Life. Had he also, then, the gift of making others feel
and believe it too...?
There he was again, thinking in a circle, as Laroche flew past with
its empty platforms, and warned him that Paris was getting close. He
bumped out of Fairyland, yet tumbled back once more for a final
reverie before the long ugly arms of the city snatched him finally
out. 'To see life whole,' he reflected, 'is to see it glorious. To
think one's self part of humanity at large is to bring the universe
down into the heart. But to see life whole, a whole heart is
necessary.... He's done it in that splendid story, and he bagged the
raw idea somehow from me. That's something at any rate. ... So few
think Beaaty.... But will others see it? That's the point!'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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