The Mahatma and the Hare: A Dream StoryHaggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider)
Science
The Mahatma and the Hare: A Dream Story
Haggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider)
Adventure stories; Fantasy fiction
It sat up and very reflectively began to rub its still shadowy nose
with a shadowy paw. I think that it remembered the sting of the salt
water in the cut made by the glass of the window through which it had
sprung.
Believing that its remarkable story was done, and that presently it
would altogether melt away and vanish out of my knowledge, I looked
about me. First I looked above the towering Gates to see whether the
Lights had yet begun to change. Then as they had not I looked down the
Great White Road, following it for miles and miles, until even to my
spirit sight it lost itself in the Nowhere.
Presently coming up this Road towards us I saw a man dressed in a green
coat, riding-breeches and boots and a peaked cap, who held in his hand
a hunting-whip. He was a fine-looking person of middle age, with a
pleasant, open countenance, bright blue eyes, and very red cheeks, on
which he wore light-coloured whiskers. In short a jovial-looking
individual, with whom things had evidently always gone well, one to
whom sorrow and disappointment and mental struggle were utter
strangers. He, at least, had never known what it is to “endure
hardness” in all his life.
Studying his nature as one can do on the Road, I perceived also that in
him there was no guile. He was a good-minded, God-fearing man according
to his simple lights, who had done many kindnesses and contributed
liberally towards the wants of the poor, though as he had been very
rich, it had cost him little thus to gratify the natural promptings of
his heart.
Moreover he was what Jorsen calls a “young soul,” quite young indeed,
by which I mean that he had not often walked the Road in previous
states of life, as for instance that Eastern woman had done who
accosted me before the arrival of the Hare. So to speak his crude
nature had scarcely outgrown the primitive human condition in which
necessity as well as taste make it customary and pleasant to men to
kill; that condition through which almost every boy passes on his way
to manhood, I suppose by the working of some secret law of
reminiscence.
It was this thought that first led me to connect the new-comer with the
Red-faced Man of the Hare’s story. It may seem strange that I should
have been so dense, but the truth is that it never occurred to me, any
more than it had done to the Hare, that such a person would be at all
likely to tread the Road for many years to come. I had gathered that he
was comparatively young, and although I had argued otherwise with the
Hare, had concluded therefore that he would continue to live his happy
earth life until old age brought him to a natural end. Hence my
obtuseness.
The man was drifting towards me thoughtfully, evidently much bewildered
by his new surroundings but not in the least afraid. Indeed there none
are afraid; when they glide from their death-beds to the Road they
leave fear behind them with the other terrors of our mortal lot.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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