Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and WomenMacDonald, George
Science
Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women
MacDonald, George
Fantasy fiction
In their arrangement, you would have supposed, at first sight, that
there was no design, for they seemed to lie as if cast there from
careless and playful hands; but it was a most harmonious confusion; and
as I looked at the play of their colours, especially when the waters
were in motion, I came at last to feel as if not one little pebble
could be displaced, without injuring the effect of the whole. Beneath
this floor of the water, lay the reflection of the blue inverted roof,
fretted with its silver stars, like a second deeper sea, clasping and
upholding the first. The fairy bath was probably fed from the fountain
in the court. Led by an irresistible desire, I undressed, and plunged
into the water. It clothed me as with a new sense and its object both
in one. The waters lay so close to me, they seemed to enter and revive
my heart. I rose to the surface, shook the water from my hair, and swam
as in a rainbow, amid the coruscations of the gems below seen through
the agitation caused by my motion. Then, with open eyes, I dived, and
swam beneath the surface. And here was a new wonder. For the basin,
thus beheld, appeared to extend on all sides like a sea, with here and
there groups as of ocean rocks, hollowed by ceaseless billows into
wondrous caves and grotesque pinnacles. Around the caves grew sea-weeds
of all hues, and the corals glowed between; while far off, I saw the
glimmer of what seemed to be creatures of human form at home in the
waters. I thought I had been enchanted; and that when I rose to the
surface, I should find myself miles from land, swimming alone upon a
heaving sea; but when my eyes emerged from the waters, I saw above me
the blue spangled vault, and the red pillars around. I dived again, and
found myself once more in the heart of a great sea. I then arose, and
swam to the edge, where I got out easily, for the water reached the
very brim, and, as I drew near washed in tiny waves over the black
marble border. I dressed, and went out, deeply refreshed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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