The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III
General
The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III
Literature -- Collections
life, by the manners, and the barrier of utter abhorrence and want of
sympathy placed between us by feelings deeper than I can analyze. I
could sooner live with lunatics or brute animals. All this, and much
more than I can say, or have time to say, the reader must enter into
before he can comprehend the unimaginable horror which these dreams of
Oriental imagery and mythological tortures imprest upon me. Under the
connecting feeling of tropical heat and vertical sunlights I brought
together all creatures, birds, beasts, reptiles, all trees and plants,
usages and appearances, that are to be found in all tropical regions,
and assembled them together in China or Hindustan. From kindred
feelings I soon brought Egypt and all her gods under the same law. I
was stared at, hooted at, grinned at, chattered at, by monkeys, by
parrakeets, by cockatoos. I ran into pagodas, and was fixt for
centuries at the summit, or in secret rooms; I was the idol; I was the
priest; I was worshiped; I was sacrificed. I fled from the wrath of
Brahma, through all the forests of Asia; Vishnu hated me; Seeva laid
wait for me. I came suddenly upon Isis and Osiris; I had done a deed,
they said, which the ibis and the crocodile trembled at. I was buried
for a thousand years, in stone coffins, with mummies and sphinxes, in
narrow chambers, at the heart of eternal pyramids. I was kissed, with
cancerous kisses, by crocodiles, and was laid, confounded with all
unutterable abortions, amongst reeds and Nilotic mud.
Some slight abstraction I thus attempt of my Oriental dreams, which
filled me always with such amazement at the monstrous scenery, that
horror seemed absorbed for a while in sheer astonishment. Sooner or
later came a reflux of feeling that swallowed up the astonishment, and
left me, not so much in terror, as in hatred and abomination of what I
saw. Over every form, and threat, and punishment, and dim sightless
incarceration, brooded a killing sense of eternity and infinity. Into
these dreams only it was, with one or two slight exceptions, that any
circumstances of physical horror entered. All before had been moral
and spiritual terrors. But here the main agents were ugly birds, or
snakes, or crocodiles, especially the last. The curst crocodile became
to me the object of more horror than all the rest. I was compelled to
live with him, and (as was always the case in my dreams) for
centuries. Sometimes I escaped, and found myself in Chinese houses.
All the feet of the tables, sofas, etc., soon became instinct with
life; the abominable head of the crocodile, and his leering eyes,
looked out at me, multiplied into ten thousand repetitions; and I
stood loathing and fascinated. So often did this hideous reptile haunt
my dreams, that many times the very same dream was broken up in the
very same way. I heard gentle voices speaking to me (I hear everything
when I am sleeping), and instantly I awake; it was broad noon, and my
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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