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
And the fairies themselves, the sprites, the children! They were
everywhere and anywhere. Jimbo flickered, went out, reappeared, then
flickered again; he held a towel in one hand and a table napkin in the
other. Monkey seemed more in the air than on the solid earth, for one
minute she was obviously a ball, and the next, with a motion like a
somersault, her hair shot loose across the sunlight as though she
flew. Both had their mouths wide open, shouting, though the wind
carried their words all away unheard. And Jane Anne stood apart. Her
welcome, if the gesture is capable of being described at all, was a
bow. She moved at the same time sedately across the field, as though
she intended to be seen separately from the rest. She wore hat and
gloves. She was evidently in earnest with her welcome. But Mr. John
Henry Campden, the author and discoverer of them all, Minks did not
see.
'But I don't see the writer himself!' he cried. 'I don't see Mr.
Campden.'
'You can't,' explained Rogers, 'he's standing behind his wife.'
And the little detail pleased the secretary hugely. The true artist,
he reflected, is never seen in his work.
It all was past and over--in thirty seconds. The spire of the church,
rising against a crimson sky, with fruit trees in the foreground and a
line of distant summits across the shining lake, replaced the row of
wonderful dancing figures. Rogers sank back in his corner, laughing,
and Minks, saying nothing, went across to his own at the other end of
the compartment. It all had been so swift and momentary that it seemed
like the flash of a remembered dream, a strip of memory's pictures, a
vivid picture of some dazzling cinematograph. Minks felt as if he had
just read the entire story again from one end to the other--in thirty
seconds. He felt different, though wherein exactly the difference lay
was beyond him to discover. 'It must be the spell of Bourcelles,' he
murmured to himself. 'Mr. Rogers warned me about it. It is a Fairyland
that thought has created out of common things. It is quite wonderful!'
He felt a glow all over him. His mind ran on for a moment to another
picture his master had painted for him, and he imagined Albinia and
the family out here, living in a little house on the borders of the
forest, a strip of vineyards, sunlight, mountains, happy scented
winds, and himself with a writing-table before a window overlooking
the lake... writing down Beauty.
CHAPTER XXXIII
We never meet; yet we meet day by day
Upon those hills of life, dim and immense:
The good we love, and sleep-our innocence.
O hills of life, high hills! And higher than they,
Our guardian spirits meet at prayer and play.
Beyond pain, joy, and hope, and long suspense,
Above the summits of our souls, far hence,
An angel meets an angel on the way.
Beyond all good I ever believed of thee
Or thou of me, these always love and live.
And though I fail of thy ideal of me,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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