Springfield (Ill.) -- Fiction; Springfield (Ill.) -- In literature; Utopias in literature
A great rose-colored, egg-shaped boulder is dug from the midst of the
lawn of the Governor’s yard. She hides in a clump of bushes to watch;
for the digging is by no mortal hand, but by spiritual presences which
are the souls of the primeval trees of the city, looming, whispering,
rustling above the place. Then the boulder is there, rolled over on the
grass, and a bolt from the clear starry heaven strikes it. The book
comes flying forth. It has the same airy, other-worldly presence and
power as when described by the first witness. But it soars to the Shrine
of Flowers consecrated to the especial sect and the esoteric teachings
of Roxana Grey and her immediate predecessors. But she does not know
where it has gone, it has circled and wandered so, appearing and
disappearing. And it is with a tremendous leaping of the heart she finds
it next day on her altar with wings gone but with pages open to be read
to the faithful. Its main themes are the teachings of the trees, of
which we have spoken, woven with her own traditional doctrines of the
flowers, but all these teachings in most heightened and glorified
aspects. Along the margins are old texts from the special books of her
shrine, and from Swedenborg and the Old and New Testaments.
When the great hostess of Springfield begins her testimony my first
question, since I am but a man, is whether her hair in 2018 gleams with
the same darling golden hue.
And have the red-haired girls the courage to dress like daffodils, in
2018? She insists I am the wicked one to be pressing this devilish
investigation, when there are rarer things to impart,—but in the glad
Mystic Year, since I must know, she is endowed with the hair of what
might be called her 1920 Grandmother-self, and the only change she
notices is a more painful tendency to freckles, from riding horseback in
a certain notable cavalry, behind a certain young lady commander, Avanel
Boone,—of whom more anon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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