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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/856-h.zip b/856-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..af13030 --- /dev/null +++ b/856-h.zip diff --git a/856-h/856-h.htm b/856-h/856-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b14ebb5 --- /dev/null +++ b/856-h/856-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1247 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="us-ascii"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + Dreams, by Jerome K. Jerome + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dreams, by Jerome K. Jerome + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Dreams + From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" + +Author: Jerome K. Jerome + +Release Date: July 26, 2008 [EBook #856] +Last Updated: January 15, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DREAMS *** + + + + +Produced by Ron Burkey, Amy Thomte, and David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + DREAMS + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Jerome K. Jerome + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <p> + The most extraordinary dream I ever had was one in which I fancied that, + as I was going into a theater, the cloak-room attendant stopped me in the + lobby and insisted on my leaving my legs behind me. + </p> + <p> + I was not surprised; indeed, my acquaintanceship with theater harpies + would prevent my feeling any surprise at such a demand, even in my waking + moments; but I was, I must honestly confess, considerably annoyed. It was + not the payment of the cloak-room fee that I so much minded—I + offered to give that to the man then and there. It was the parting with my + legs that I objected to. + </p> + <p> + I said I had never heard of such a rule being attempted to be put in force + at any respectable theater before, and that I considered it a most absurd + and vexatious regulation. I also said I should write to The Times about + it. + </p> + <p> + The man replied that he was very sorry, but that those were his + instructions. People complained that they could not get to and from their + seats comfortably, because other people's legs were always in the way; and + it had, therefore, been decided that, in future, everybody should leave + their legs outside. + </p> + <p> + It seemed to me that the management, in making this order, had clearly + gone beyond their legal right; and, under ordinary circumstances, I should + have disputed it. Being present, however, more in the character of a guest + than in that of a patron, I hardly like to make a disturbance; and so I + sat down and meekly prepared to comply with the demand. + </p> + <p> + I had never before known that the human leg did unscrew. I had always + thought it was a fixture. But the man showed me how to undo them, and I + found that they came off quite easily. + </p> + <p> + The discovery did not surprise me any more than the original request that + I should take them off had done. Nothing does surprise one in a dream. + </p> + <p> + I dreamed once that I was going to be hanged; but I was not at all + surprised about it. Nobody was. My relations came to see me off, I + thought, and to wish me "Good-by!" They all came, and were all very + pleasant; but they were not in the least astonished—not one of them. + Everybody appeared to regard the coming tragedy as one of the + most-naturally-to-be-expected things in the world. + </p> + <p> + They bore the calamity, besides, with an amount of stoicism that would + have done credit to a Spartan father. There was no fuss, no scene. On the + contrary, an atmosphere of mild cheerfulness prevailed. + </p> + <p> + Yet they were very kind. Somebody—an uncle, I think—left me a + packet of sandwiches and a little something in a flask, in case, as he + said, I should feel peckish on the scaffold. + </p> + <p> + It is "those twin-jailers of the daring" thought, Knowledge and + Experience, that teach us surprise. We are surprised and incredulous when, + in novels and plays, we come across good men and women, because Knowledge + and Experience have taught us how rare and problematical is the existence + of such people. In waking life, my friends and relations would, of course, + have been surprised at hearing that I had committed a murder, and was, in + consequence, about to be hanged, because Knowledge and Experience would + have taught them that, in a country where the law is powerful and the + police alert, the Christian citizen is usually pretty successful in + withstanding the voice of temptation, prompting him to commit crime of an + illegal character. + </p> + <p> + But into Dreamland, Knowledge and Experience do not enter. They stay + without, together with the dull, dead clay of which they form a part; + while the freed brain, released from their narrowing tutelage, steals + softly past the ebon gate, to wanton at its own sweet will among the mazy + paths that wind through the garden of Persephone. + </p> + <p> + Nothing that it meets with in that eternal land astonishes it because, + unfettered by the dense conviction of our waking mind, that nought outside + the ken of our own vision can in this universe be, all things to it are + possible and even probable. In dreams, we fly and wonder not—except + that we never flew before. We go naked, yet are not ashamed, though we + mildly wonder what the police are about that they do not stop us. We + converse with our dead, and think it was unkind that they did not come + back to us before. In dreams, there happens that which human language + cannot tell. In dreams, we see "the light that never was on sea or land," + we hear the sounds that never yet were heard by waking ears. + </p> + <p> + It is only in sleep that true imagination ever stirs within us. Awake, we + never imagine anything; we merely alter, vary, or transpose. We give + another twist to the kaleidoscope of the things we see around us, and + obtain another pattern; but not one of us has ever added one tiniest piece + of new glass to the toy. + </p> + <p> + A Dean Swift sees one race of people smaller, and another race of people + larger than the race of people that live down his own streets. And he also + sees a land where the horses take the place of men. A Bulwer Lytton lays + the scene of one of his novels inside the earth instead of outside. A + Rider Haggard introduces us to a lady whose age is a few years more than + the average woman would care to confess to; and pictures crabs larger than + the usual shilling or eighteen-penny size. The number of so called + imaginative writers who visit the moon is legion, and for all the novelty + that they find, when they get there, they might just as well have gone to + Putney. Others are continually drawing for us visions of the world one + hundred or one thousand years hence. There is always a depressing absence + of human nature about the place; so much so, that one feels great + consolation in the thought, while reading, that we ourselves shall be + comfortably dead and buried before the picture can be realized. In these + prophesied Utopias everybody is painfully good and clean and happy, and + all the work is done by electricity. + </p> + <p> + There is somewhat too much electricity, for my taste, in these worlds to + come. One is reminded of those pictorial enamel-paint advertisements that + one sees about so often now, in which all the members of an extensive + household are represented as gathered together in one room, spreading + enamel-paint over everything they can lay their hands upon. The old man is + on a step-ladder, daubing the walls and ceiling with "cuckoo's-egg green," + while the parlor-maid and the cook are on their knees, painting the floor + with "sealing-wax red." The old lady is doing the picture frames in "terra + cotta." The eldest daughter and her young man are making sly love in a + corner over a pot of "high art yellow," with which, so soon as they have + finished wasting their time, they will, it is manifest, proceed to elevate + the piano. Younger brothers and sisters are busy freshening up the chairs + and tables with "strawberry-jam pink" and "jubilee magenta." Every blessed + thing in that room is being coated with enamel paint, from the sofa to the + fire-irons, from the sideboard to the eight-day clock. If there is any + paint left over, it will be used up for the family Bible and the canary. + </p> + <p> + It is claimed for this invention that a little child can make as much mess + with it as can a grown-up person, and so all the children of the family + are represented in the picture as hard at work, enameling whatever few + articles of furniture and household use the grasping selfishness of their + elders has spared to them. One is painting the toasting fork in a + "skim-milk blue," while another is giving aesthetical value to the Dutch + oven by means of a new shade of art green. The bootjack is being renovated + in "old gold," and the baby is sitting on the floor, smothering its own + cradle with "flush-upon-a-maiden's cheek peach color." + </p> + <p> + One feels that the thing is being overdone. That family, before another + month is gone, will be among the strongest opponents of enamel paint that + the century has produced. Enamel paint will be the ruin of that once happy + home. Enamel paint has a cold, glassy, cynical appearance. Its presence + everywhere about the place will begin to irritate the old man in the + course of a week or so. He will call it, "This damn'd sticky stuff!" and + will tell the wife that he wonders she didn't paint herself and the + children with it while she was about it. She will reply, in an + exasperatingly quiet tone of voice, that she does like that. Perhaps he + will say next, that she did not warn him against it, and tell him what an + idiot he was making of himself, spoiling the whole house with his foolish + fads. Each one will persist that it was the other one who first suggested + the absurdity, and they will sit up in bed and quarrel about it every + night for a month. + </p> + <p> + The children having acquired a taste for smudging the concoction about, + and there being nothing else left untouched in the house, will try to + enamel the cat; and then there will be bloodshed, and broken windows, and + spoiled infants, and sorrows and yells. The smell of the paint will make + everybody ill; and the servants will give notice. Tradesmen's boys will + lean up against places that are not dry and get their clothes enameled and + claim compensation. And the baby will suck the paint off its cradle and + have fits. + </p> + <p> + But the person that will suffer most will, of course, be the eldest + daughter's young man. The eldest daughter's young man is always + unfortunate. He means well, and he tries hard. His great ambition is to + make the family love him. But fate is ever against him, and he only + succeeds in gaining their undisguised contempt. The fact of his being + "gone" on their Emily is, of itself, naturally sufficient to stamp him as + an imbecile in the eyes of Emily's brothers and sisters. The father finds + him slow, and thinks the girl might have done better; while the best that + his future mother-in-law (his sole supporter) can say for him is, that he + seems steady. + </p> + <p> + There is only one thing that prompts the family to tolerate him, and that + is the reflection that he is going to take Emily away from them. + </p> + <p> + On that understanding they put up with him. + </p> + <p> + The eldest daughter's young man, in this particular case, will, you may + depend upon it, choose that exact moment when the baby's life is hovering + in the balance, and the cook is waiting for her wages with her box in the + hall, and a coal-heaver is at the front door with a policeman, making a + row about the damage to his trousers, to come in, smiling, with a specimen + pot of some new high art, squashed-tomato-shade enamel paint, and suggest + that they should try it on the old man's pipe. + </p> + <p> + Then Emily will go off into hysterics, and Emily's male progenitor will + firmly but quietly lead that ill-starred yet true-hearted young man to the + public side of the garden-gate; and the engagement will be "off." + </p> + <p> + Too much of anything is a mistake, as the man said when his wife presented + him with four new healthy children in one day. We should practice + moderation in all matters. A little enamel paint would have been good. + They might have enameled the house inside and out, and have left the + furniture alone. Or they might have colored the furniture, and let the + house be. But an entirely and completely enameled home—a home, such + as enamel-paint manufacturers love to picture on their advertisements, + over which the yearning eye wanders in vain, seeking one single square + inch of un-enameled matter—is, I am convinced, a mistake. It may be + a home that, as the testimonials assure us, will easily wash. It may be an + "artistic" home; but the average man is not yet educated up to the + appreciation of it. The average man does not care for high art. At a + certain point, the average man gets sick of high art. + </p> + <p> + So, in these coming Utopias, in which out unhappy grandchildren will have + to drag out their colorless existence, there will be too much electricity. + They will grow to loathe electricity. + </p> + <p> + Electricity is going to light them, warm them, carry them, doctor them, + cook for them, execute them, if necessary. They are going to be weaned on + electricity, rocked in their cradles by electricity, slapped by + electricity, ruled and regulated and guided by electricity, buried by + electricity. I may be wrong, but I rather think they are going to be + hatched by electricity. + </p> + <p> + In the new world of our progressionist teachers, it is electricity that is + the real motive-power. The men and women are only marionettes—worked + by electricity. + </p> + <p> + But it was not to speak of the electricity in them, but of the originality + in them, that I referred to these works of fiction. There is no + originality in them whatever. Human thought is incapable of originality. + No man ever yet imagined a new thing—only some variation or + extension of an old thing. + </p> + <p> + The sailor, when he was asked what he would do with a fortune, promptly + replied: + </p> + <p> + "Buy all the rum and 'baccy there is in the world." + </p> + <p> + "And what after that?" they asked him. + </p> + <p> + "Eh?" + </p> + <p> + "What would you buy after that—after you had bought up all the rum + and tobacco there was in the world—what would you buy then?" + </p> + <p> + "After that? Oh! 'um!" (a long pause). "Oh!" (with inspiration) "why, more + 'baccy!" + </p> + <p> + Rum and tobacco he knew something of, and could therefore imagine about. + He did not know any other luxuries, therefore he could not conceive of any + others. + </p> + <p> + So if you ask one of these Utopian-dreaming gentry what, after they had + secured for their world all the electricity there was in the Universe, and + after every mortal thing in their ideal Paradise, was done and said and + thought by electricity, they could imagine as further necessary to human + happiness, they would probably muse for awhile, and then reply, "More + electricity." + </p> + <p> + They know electricity. They have seen the electric light, and heard of + electric boats and omnibuses. They have possibly had an electric shock at + a railway station for a penny. + </p> + <p> + Therefore, knowing that electricity does three things, they can go on and + "imagine" electricity doing three hundred things, and the very great ones + among them can imagine it doing three thousand things; but for them, or + anybody else, to imagine a new force, totally unconnected with and + different from anything yet known in nature, would be utterly impossible. + </p> + <p> + Human thought is not a firework, ever shooting off fresh forms and shapes + as it burns; it is a tree, growing very slowly—you can watch it long + and see no movement—very silently, unnoticed. It was planted in the + world many thousand years ago, a tiny, sickly plant. And men guarded it + and tended it, and gave up life and fame to aid its growth. In the hot + days of their youth, they came to the gate of the garden and knocked, + begging to be let in, and to be counted among the gardeners. And their + young companions without called to them to come back, and play the man + with bow and spear, and win sweet smiles from rosy lips, and take their + part amid the feast, and dance, not stoop with wrinkled brows, at + weaklings' work. And the passers by mocked them and called shame, and + others cried out to stone them. And still they stayed there laboring, that + the tree might grow a little, and they died and were forgotten. + </p> + <p> + And the tree grew fair and strong. The storms of ignorance passed over it, + and harmed it not. The fierce fires of superstition soared around it; but + men leaped into the flames and beat them back, perishing, and the tree + grew. With the sweat of their brow have men nourished its green leaves. + Their tears have moistened the earth about it. With their blood they have + watered its roots. + </p> + <p> + The seasons have come and passed, and the tree has grown and flourished. + And its branches have spread far and high, and ever fresh shoots are + bursting forth, and ever new leaves unfolding to the light. But they are + all part of the one tree—the tree that was planted on the first + birthday of the human race. The stem that bears them springs from the + gnarled old trunk that was green and soft when white-haired Time was a + little child; the sap that feeds them is drawn up through the roots that + twine and twist about the bones of the ages that are dead. + </p> + <p> + The human mind can no more produce an original thought than a tree can + bear an original fruit. As well might one cry for an original note in + music as expect an original idea from a human brain. + </p> + <p> + One wishes our friends, the critics, would grasp this simple truth, and + leave off clamoring for the impossible, and being shocked because they do + not get it. When a new book is written, the high-class critic opens it + with feelings of faint hope, tempered by strong conviction of coming + disappointment. As he pores over the pages, his brow darkens with virtuous + indignation, and his lip curls with the Godlike contempt that the + exceptionally great critic ever feels for everybody in this world, who is + not yet dead. Buoyed up by a touching, but totally fallacious, belief that + he is performing a public duty, and that the rest of the community is + waiting in breathless suspense to learn his opinion of the work in + question, before forming any judgment concerning it themselves, he, + nevertheless, wearily struggles through about a third of it. Then his + long-suffering soul revolts, and he flings it aside with a cry of despair. + </p> + <p> + "Why, there is no originality whatever in this," he says. "This book is + taken bodily from the Old Testament. It is the story of Adam and Eve all + over again. The hero is a mere man! with two arms, two legs, and a head + (so called). Why, it is only Moses's Adam under another name! And the + heroine is nothing but a woman! and she is described as beautiful, and as + having long hair. The author may call her 'Angelina,' or any other name he + chooses; but he has evidently, whether he acknowledges it or not, copied + her direct from Eve. The characters are barefaced plagiarisms from the + book of Genesis! Oh! to find an author with originality!" + </p> + <p> + One spring I went a walking tour in the country. It was a glorious spring. + Not the sort of spring they give us in these miserable times, under this + shameless government—a mixture of east wind, blizzard, snow, rain, + slush, fog, frost, hail, sleet and thunder-storms—but a sunny, + blue-sky'd, joyous spring, such as we used to have regularly every year + when I was a young man, and things were different. + </p> + <p> + It was an exceptionally beautiful spring, even for those golden days; and + as I wandered through the waking land, and saw the dawning of the coming + green, and watched the blush upon the hawthorn hedge, deepening each day + beneath the kisses of the sun, and looked up at the proud old mother + trees, dandling their myriad baby buds upon their strong fond arms, + holding them high for the soft west wind to caress as he passed laughing + by, and marked the primrose yellow creep across the carpet of the woods, + and saw the new flush of the field and saw the new light on the hills, and + heard the new-found gladness of the birds, and heard from copse and farm + and meadow the timid callings of the little new-born things, wondering to + find themselves alive, and smelt the freshness of the earth, and felt the + promise in the air, and felt a strong hand in the wind, my spirit rose + within me. Spring had come to me also, and stirred me with a strange new + life, with a strange new hope I, too, was part of nature, and it was + spring! Tender leaves and blossoms were unfolding from my heart. Bright + flowers of love and gratitude were opening round its roots. I felt new + strength in all my limbs. New blood was pulsing through my veins. Nobler + thoughts and nobler longings were throbbing through my brain. + </p> + <p> + As I walked, Nature came and talked beside me, and showed me the world and + myself, and the ways of God seemed clearer. + </p> + <p> + It seemed to me a pity that all the beautiful and precious thoughts and + ideas that were crowding in upon me should be lost to my fellow-men, and + so I pitched my tent at a little cottage, and set to work to write them + down then and there as they came to me. + </p> + <p> + "It has been complained of me," I said to myself, "that I do not write + literary and high class work—at least, not work that is + exceptionally literary and high-class. This reproach shall be removed. I + will write an article that shall be a classic. I have worked for the + ordinary, every-day reader. It is right that I should do something now to + improve the literature of my beloved country." + </p> + <p> + And I wrote a grand essay—though I say it who should not, though I + don't see why I shouldn't—all about spring, and the way it made you + feel, and what it made you think. It was simply crowded with elevated + thoughts and high-class ideas and cultured wit, was that essay. There was + only one fault about that essay: it was too brilliant. I wanted + commonplace relief. It would have exhausted the average reader; so much + cleverness would have wearied him. + </p> + <p> + I wish I could remember some of the beautiful things in that essay, and + here set them down; because then you would be able to see what they were + like for yourselves, and that would be so much more simpler than my + explaining to you how beautiful they were. Unfortunately, however, I + cannot now call to mind any of them. + </p> + <p> + I was very proud of this essay, and when I got back to town I called on a + very superior friend of mine, a critic, and read it to him. I do not care + for him to see any of my usual work, because he really is a very superior + person indeed, and the perusal of it appears to give him pains inside. But + this article, I thought, would do him good. + </p> + <p> + "What do you think of it?" I asked, when I had finished. + </p> + <p> + "Splendid," he replied, "excellently arranged. I never knew you were so + well acquainted with the works of the old writers. Why, there is scarcely + a classic of any note that you have not quoted from. But where—where," + he added, musing, "did you get that last idea but two from? It's the only + one I don't seem to remember. It isn't a bit of your own, is it?" + </p> + <p> + He said that, if so, he should advise me to leave it out. Not that it was + altogether bad, but that the interpolation of a modern thought among so + unique a collection of passages from the ancients seemed to spoil the + scheme. + </p> + <p> + And he enumerated the various dead-and-buried gentlemen from whom he + appeared to think I had collated my article. + </p> + <p> + "But," I replied, when I had recovered my astonishment sufficiently to + speak, "it isn't a collection at all. It is all original. I wrote the + thoughts down as they came to me. I have never read any of these people + you mention, except Shakespeare." + </p> + <p> + Of course Shakespeare was bound to be among them. I am getting to dislike + that man so. He is always being held up before us young authors as a + model, and I do hate models. There was a model boy at our school, I + remember, Henry Summers; and it was just the same there. It was + continually, "Look at Henry Summers! he doesn't put the preposition before + the verb, and spell business b-i-z!" or, "Why can't you write like Henry + Summers? He doesn't get the ink all over the copy-book and half-way up his + back!" We got tired of this everlasting "Look at Henry Summers!" after a + while, and so, one afternoon, on the way home, a few of us lured Henry + Summers up a dark court; and when he came out again he was not worth + looking at. + </p> + <p> + Now it is perpetually, "Look at Shakespeare!" "Why don't you write like + Shakespeare?" "Shakespeare never made that joke. Why don't you joke like + Shakespeare?" + </p> + <p> + If you are in the play-writing line it is still worse for you. "Why don't + you write plays like Shakespeare's?" they indignantly say. "Shakespeare + never made his comic man a penny steamboat captain." "Shakespeare never + made his hero address the girl as 'ducky.' Why don't you copy + Shakespeare?" If you do try to copy Shakespeare, they tell you that you + must be a fool to attempt to imitate Shakespeare. + </p> + <p> + Oh, shouldn't I like to get Shakespeare up our street, and punch him! + </p> + <p> + "I cannot help that," replied my critical friend—to return to our + previous question—"the germ of every thought and idea you have got + in that article can be traced back to the writers I have named. If you + doubt it, I will get down the books, and show you the passages for + yourself." + </p> + <p> + But I declined the offer. I said I would take his word for it, and would + rather not see the passages referred to. I felt indignant. "If," as I + said, "these men—these Platos and Socrateses and Ciceros and + Sophocleses and Aristophaneses and Aristotles and the rest of them had + been taking advantage of my absence to go about the world spoiling my + business for me, I would rather not hear any more about them." + </p> + <p> + And I put on my hat and came out, and I have never tried to write anything + original since. + </p> + <p> + I dreamed a dream once. (It is the sort of thing a man would dream. You + cannot very well dream anything else, I know. But the phrase sounds + poetical and biblical, and so I use it.) I dreamed that I was in a strange + country—indeed, one might say an extraordinary country. It was ruled + entirely by critics. + </p> + <p> + The people in this strange land had a very high opinion of critics—nearly + as high an opinion of critics as the critics themselves had, but not, of + course, quite—that not being practicable—and they had agreed + to be guided in all things by the critics. I stayed some years in that + land. But it was not a cheerful place to live in, so I dreamed. + </p> + <p> + There were authors in this country, at first, and they wrote books. But + the critics could find nothing original in the books whatever, and said it + was a pity that men, who might be usefully employed hoeing potatoes, + should waste their time and the time of the critics, which was of still + more importance, in stringing together a collection of platitudes, + familiar to every school-boy, and dishing up old plots and stories that + had already been cooked and recooked for the public until everybody had + been surfeited with them. + </p> + <p> + And the writers read what the critics said and sighed, and gave up writing + books, and went off and hoed potatoes; as advised. They had had no + experience in hoeing potatoes, and they hoed very badly; and the people + whose potatoes they hoed strongly recommended them to leave hoeing + potatoes, and to go back and write books. But you can't do what everybody + advises. + </p> + <p> + There were artists also in this strange world, at first, and they painted + pictures, which the critics came and looked at through eyeglasses. + </p> + <p> + "Nothing whatever original in them," said the critics; "same old colors, + same old perspective and form, same old sunset, same old sea and land, and + sky and figures. Why do these poor men waste their time, painting + pictures, when they might be so much more satisfactorily employed on + ladders painting houses?" + </p> + <p> + Nothing, by the by, you may have noticed, troubles your critic more than + the idea that the artist is wasting his time. It is the waste of time that + vexes the critic; he has such an exalted idea of the value of other + people's time. "Dear, dear me!" he says to himself, "why, in the time the + man must have taken to paint this picture or to write this book, he might + have blacked fifteen thousand pairs of boots, or have carried fifteen + thousand hods of mortar up a ladder. This is how the time of the world is + lost!" + </p> + <p> + It never occurs to him that, but for that picture or book, the artist + would, in all probability, have been mouching about with a pipe in his + mouth, getting into trouble. + </p> + <p> + It reminds me of the way people used to talk to me when I was a boy. I + would be sitting, as good as gold, reading "The Pirate's Lair," when some + cultured relative would look over my shoulder and say: "Bah! what are you + wasting your time with rubbish for? Why don't you go and do something + useful?" and would take the book away from me. Upon which I would get up, + and go out to "do something useful;" and would come home an hour + afterward, looking like a bit out of a battle picture, having tumbled + through the roof of Farmer Bate's greenhouse and killed a cactus, though + totally unable to explain how I came to be on the roof of Farmer Bate's + greenhouse. They had much better have left me alone, lost in "The Pirate's + Lair!" + </p> + <p> + The artists in this land of which I dreamed left off painting pictures, + after hearing what the critics said, and purchased ladders, and went off + and painted houses. + </p> + <p> + Because, you see, this country of which I dreamed was not one of those + vulgar, ordinary countries, such as exist in the waking world, where + people let the critics talk as much as ever they like, and nobody pays the + slightest attention to what they say. Here, in this strange land, the + critics were taken seriously, and their advice followed. + </p> + <p> + As for the poets and sculptors, they were very soon shut up. The idea of + any educated person wanting to read modern poetry when he could obtain + Homer, or caring to look at any other statue while there was still some of + the Venus de Medicis left, was too absurd. Poets and sculptors were only + wasting their time. + </p> + <p> + What new occupation they were recommended to adopt, I forget. Some calling + they knew nothing whatever about, and that they were totally unfitted for, + of course. + </p> + <p> + The musicians tried their art for a little while, but they, too, were of + no use. "Merely a repetition of the same notes in different combinations," + said the critics. "Why will people waste their time writing unoriginal + music, when they might be sweeping crossings?" + </p> + <p> + One man had written a play. I asked what the critics had said about him. + They showed me his tomb. + </p> + <p> + Then, there being no more artists or <i>litterateurs</i> or dramatists or + musicians left for their beloved critics to criticise, the general public + of this enlightened land said to themselves, "Why should not our critics + come and criticise us? Criticism is useful to a man. Have we not often + been told so? Look how useful it has been to the artists and writers—saved + the poor fellows from wasting their time? Why shouldn't we have some of + its benefits?" + </p> + <p> + They suggested the idea to the critics, and the critics thought it an + excellent one, and said they would undertake the job with pleasure. One + must say for the critics that they never shirk work. They will sit and + criticise for eighteen hours a day, if necessary, or even, if quite + unnecessary, for the matter of that. You can't give them too much to + criticise. They will criticise everything and everybody in this world. + They will criticise everything in the next world, too, when they get + there. I expect poor old Pluto has a lively time with them all, as it is. + </p> + <p> + So, when a man built a house, or a farm-yard hen laid an egg, the critics + were asked in to comment on it. They found that none of the houses were + original. On every floor were passages that seemed mere copies from + passages in other houses. They were all built on the same hackneyed plan; + cellars underneath, ground floor level with the street, attic at the top. + No originality anywhere! + </p> + <p> + So, likewise with the eggs. Every egg suggested reminiscences of other + eggs. + </p> + <p> + It was heartrending work. + </p> + <p> + The critics criticised all things. When a young couple fell in love, they + each, before thinking of marriage, called upon the critics for a criticism + of the other one. + </p> + <p> + Needless to say that, in the result, no marriage ever came of it. + </p> + <p> + "My dear young lady," the critics would say, after the inspection had + taken place, "I can discover nothing new whatever about the young man. You + would simply be wasting your time in marrying him." + </p> + <p> + Or, to the young man, it would be: + </p> + <p> + "Oh, dear, no! Nothing attractive about the girl at all. Who on earth gave + you that notion? Simply a lovely face and figure, angelic disposition, + beautiful mind, stanch heart, noble character. Why, there must have been + nearly a dozen such girls born into the world since its creation. You + would be only wasting your time loving her." + </p> + <p> + They criticised the birds for their hackneyed style of singing, and the + flowers for their hackneyed scents and colors. They complained of the + weather that it lacked originality—(true, they had not lived out an + English spring)—and found fault with the Sun because of the sameness + of his methods. + </p> + <p> + They criticised the babies. When a fresh infant was published in a house, + the critics would call in a body to pass their judgment upon it, and the + young mother would bring it down for them to sample. + </p> + <p> + "Did you ever see a child anything like that in this world before?" she + would say, holding it out to them. "Isn't it a wonderful baby? <i>You</i> + never saw a child with legs like that, I know. Nurse says he's the most + extraordinary baby she ever attended. Bless him!" + </p> + <p> + But the critics did not think anything of it. + </p> + <p> + "Tut, tut," they would reply, "there is nothing extraordinary about that + child—no originality whatever. Why, it's exactly like every other + baby—bald head, red face, big mouth, and stumpy nose. Why, that's + only a weak imitation of the baby next door. It's a plagiarism, that's + what that child is. You've been wasting your time, madam. If you can't do + anything more original than that, we should advise you to give up the + business altogether." + </p> + <p> + That was the end of criticism in that strange land. + </p> + <p> + "Oh! look here, we've had enough of you and your originality," said the + people to the critics, after that. "Why, <i>you</i> are not original, when + one comes to think of it, and your criticisms are not original. You've all + of you been saying exactly the same thing ever since the time of Solomon. + We are going to drown you and have a little peace." + </p> + <p> + "What, drown a critic!" cried the critics, "never heard of such a + monstrous proceeding in our lives!" + </p> + <p> + "No, we flatter ourselves it is an original idea," replied the public, + brutally. "You ought to be charmed with it. Out you come!" + </p> + <p> + So they took the critics out and drowned them, and then passed a short + act, making criticism a capital offense. + </p> + <p> + After that, the art and literature of the country followed, somewhat, the + methods of the quaint and curious school, but the land, notwithstanding, + was a much more cheerful place to live in, I dreamed. + </p> + <p> + But I never finished telling you about the dream in which I thought I left + my legs behind me when I went into a certain theater. + </p> + <p> + I dreamed that the ticket the man gave me for my legs was No. 19, and I + was worried all through the performance for fear No. 61 should get hold of + them, and leave me his instead. Mine are rather a fine pair of legs, and I + am, I confess, a little proud of them—at all events, I prefer them + to anybody else's. Besides, number sixty-one's might be a skinny pair, and + not fit me. + </p> + <p> + It quite spoiled my evening, fretting about this. + </p> + <p> + Another extraordinary dream I had was one in which I dreamed that I was + engaged to be married to my Aunt Jane. That was not, however, the + extraordinary part of it; I have often known people to dream things like + that. I knew a man who once dreamed that he was actually married to his + own mother-in-law! He told me that never in his life had he loved the + alarm clock with more deep and grateful tenderness than he did that + morning. The dream almost reconciled him to being married to his real + wife. They lived quite happily together for a few days, after that dream. + </p> + <p> + No; the extraordinary part of my dream was, that I knew it was a dream. + "What on earth will uncle say to this engagement?" I thought to myself, in + my dream. "There's bound to be a row about it. We shall have a deal of + trouble with uncle, I feel sure." And this thought quite troubled me until + the sweet reflection came: "Ah! well, it's only a dream." + </p> + <p> + And I made up my mind that I would wake up as soon as uncle found out + about the engagement, and leave him and Aunt Jane to fight the matter out + between themselves. + </p> + <p> + It is a very great comfort, when the dream grows troubled and alarming, to + feel that it is only a dream, and to know that we shall awake soon and be + none the worse for it. We can dream out the foolish perplexity with a + smile then. + </p> + <p> + Sometimes the dream of life grows strangely troubled and perplexing, and + then he who meets dismay the bravest is he who feels that the fretful play + is but a dream—a brief, uneasy dream of three score years and ten, + or thereabouts, from which, in a little while, he will awake—at + least, he dreams so. + </p> + <p> + How dull, how impossible life would be without dreams—waking dreams, + I mean—the dreams that we call "castles in the air," built by the + kindly hands of Hope! Were it not for the mirage of the oasis, drawing his + footsteps ever onward, the weary traveler would lie down in the desert + sand and die. It is the mirage of distant success, of happiness that, like + the bunch of carrots fastened an inch beyond the donkey's nose, seems + always just within our reach, if only we will gallop fast enough, that + makes us run so eagerly along the road of Life. + </p> + <p> + Providence, like a father with a tired child, lures us ever along the way + with tales and promises, until, at the frowning gate that ends the road, + we shrink back, frightened. Then, promises still more sweet he stoops and + whispers in our ear, and timid yet partly reassured, and trying to hide + our fears, we gather up all that is left of our little stock of hope and, + trusting yet half afraid, push out our groping feet into the darkness. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Dreams, by Jerome K. 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Jerome + +Posting Date: July 26, 2008 [EBook #856] +Release Date: March 1997 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DREAMS *** + + + + +Produced by Ron Burkey, and Amy Thomte + + + + + +DREAMS + +By Jerome K. Jerome + + +The most extraordinary dream I ever had was one in which I fancied that, +as I was going into a theater, the cloak-room attendant stopped me in +the lobby and insisted on my leaving my legs behind me. + +I was not surprised; indeed, my acquaintanceship with theater harpies +would prevent my feeling any surprise at such a demand, even in my +waking moments; but I was, I must honestly confess, considerably +annoyed. It was not the payment of the cloak-room fee that I so much +minded--I offered to give that to the man then and there. It was the +parting with my legs that I objected to. + +I said I had never heard of such a rule being attempted to be put in +force at any respectable theater before, and that I considered it a most +absurd and vexatious regulation. I also said I should write to The Times +about it. + +The man replied that he was very sorry, but that those were his +instructions. People complained that they could not get to and from +their seats comfortably, because other people's legs were always in +the way; and it had, therefore, been decided that, in future, everybody +should leave their legs outside. + +It seemed to me that the management, in making this order, had clearly +gone beyond their legal right; and, under ordinary circumstances, I +should have disputed it. Being present, however, more in the +character of a guest than in that of a patron, I hardly like to make a +disturbance; and so I sat down and meekly prepared to comply with the +demand. + +I had never before known that the human leg did unscrew. I had always +thought it was a fixture. But the man showed me how to undo them, and I +found that they came off quite easily. + +The discovery did not surprise me any more than the original request +that I should take them off had done. Nothing does surprise one in a +dream. + +I dreamed once that I was going to be hanged; but I was not at all +surprised about it. Nobody was. My relations came to see me off, I +thought, and to wish me "Good-by!" They all came, and were all very +pleasant; but they were not in the least astonished--not one of +them. Everybody appeared to regard the coming tragedy as one of the +most-naturally-to-be-expected things in the world. + +They bore the calamity, besides, with an amount of stoicism that would +have done credit to a Spartan father. There was no fuss, no scene. On +the contrary, an atmosphere of mild cheerfulness prevailed. + +Yet they were very kind. Somebody--an uncle, I think--left me a packet +of sandwiches and a little something in a flask, in case, as he said, I +should feel peckish on the scaffold. + +It is "those twin-jailers of the daring" thought, Knowledge and +Experience, that teach us surprise. We are surprised and incredulous +when, in novels and plays, we come across good men and women, because +Knowledge and Experience have taught us how rare and problematical is +the existence of such people. In waking life, my friends and relations +would, of course, have been surprised at hearing that I had committed a +murder, and was, in consequence, about to be hanged, because Knowledge +and Experience would have taught them that, in a country where the +law is powerful and the police alert, the Christian citizen is usually +pretty successful in withstanding the voice of temptation, prompting him +to commit crime of an illegal character. + +But into Dreamland, Knowledge and Experience do not enter. They stay +without, together with the dull, dead clay of which they form a part; +while the freed brain, released from their narrowing tutelage, steals +softly past the ebon gate, to wanton at its own sweet will among the +mazy paths that wind through the garden of Persephone. + +Nothing that it meets with in that eternal land astonishes it because, +unfettered by the dense conviction of our waking mind, that nought +outside the ken of our own vision can in this universe be, all things +to it are possible and even probable. In dreams, we fly and wonder +not--except that we never flew before. We go naked, yet are not ashamed, +though we mildly wonder what the police are about that they do not stop +us. We converse with our dead, and think it was unkind that they did +not come back to us before. In dreams, there happens that which human +language cannot tell. In dreams, we see "the light that never was on sea +or land," we hear the sounds that never yet were heard by waking ears. + +It is only in sleep that true imagination ever stirs within us. Awake, +we never imagine anything; we merely alter, vary, or transpose. We give +another twist to the kaleidoscope of the things we see around us, and +obtain another pattern; but not one of us has ever added one tiniest +piece of new glass to the toy. + +A Dean Swift sees one race of people smaller, and another race of people +larger than the race of people that live down his own streets. And he +also sees a land where the horses take the place of men. A Bulwer Lytton +lays the scene of one of his novels inside the earth instead of outside. +A Rider Haggard introduces us to a lady whose age is a few years more +than the average woman would care to confess to; and pictures crabs +larger than the usual shilling or eighteen-penny size. The number of so +called imaginative writers who visit the moon is legion, and for all +the novelty that they find, when they get there, they might just as well +have gone to Putney. Others are continually drawing for us visions of +the world one hundred or one thousand years hence. There is always a +depressing absence of human nature about the place; so much so, that one +feels great consolation in the thought, while reading, that we ourselves +shall be comfortably dead and buried before the picture can be realized. +In these prophesied Utopias everybody is painfully good and clean and +happy, and all the work is done by electricity. + +There is somewhat too much electricity, for my taste, in these worlds +to come. One is reminded of those pictorial enamel-paint advertisements +that one sees about so often now, in which all the members of an +extensive household are represented as gathered together in one room, +spreading enamel-paint over everything they can lay their hands upon. +The old man is on a step-ladder, daubing the walls and ceiling with +"cuckoo's-egg green," while the parlor-maid and the cook are on their +knees, painting the floor with "sealing-wax red." The old lady is doing +the picture frames in "terra cotta." The eldest daughter and her young +man are making sly love in a corner over a pot of "high art yellow," +with which, so soon as they have finished wasting their time, they +will, it is manifest, proceed to elevate the piano. Younger brothers +and sisters are busy freshening up the chairs and tables with +"strawberry-jam pink" and "jubilee magenta." Every blessed thing in that +room is being coated with enamel paint, from the sofa to the fire-irons, +from the sideboard to the eight-day clock. If there is any paint left +over, it will be used up for the family Bible and the canary. + +It is claimed for this invention that a little child can make as much +mess with it as can a grown-up person, and so all the children of +the family are represented in the picture as hard at work, enameling +whatever few articles of furniture and household use the grasping +selfishness of their elders has spared to them. One is painting the +toasting fork in a "skim-milk blue," while another is giving aesthetical +value to the Dutch oven by means of a new shade of art green. The +bootjack is being renovated in "old gold," and the baby is sitting on +the floor, smothering its own cradle with "flush-upon-a-maiden's cheek +peach color." + +One feels that the thing is being overdone. That family, before another +month is gone, will be among the strongest opponents of enamel paint +that the century has produced. Enamel paint will be the ruin of that +once happy home. Enamel paint has a cold, glassy, cynical appearance. +Its presence everywhere about the place will begin to irritate the old +man in the course of a week or so. He will call it, "This damn'd sticky +stuff!" and will tell the wife that he wonders she didn't paint herself +and the children with it while she was about it. She will reply, in an +exasperatingly quiet tone of voice, that she does like that. Perhaps he +will say next, that she did not warn him against it, and tell him what +an idiot he was making of himself, spoiling the whole house with his +foolish fads. Each one will persist that it was the other one who first +suggested the absurdity, and they will sit up in bed and quarrel about +it every night for a month. + +The children having acquired a taste for smudging the concoction about, +and there being nothing else left untouched in the house, will try to +enamel the cat; and then there will be bloodshed, and broken windows, +and spoiled infants, and sorrows and yells. The smell of the paint will +make everybody ill; and the servants will give notice. Tradesmen's +boys will lean up against places that are not dry and get their clothes +enameled and claim compensation. And the baby will suck the paint off +its cradle and have fits. + +But the person that will suffer most will, of course, be the eldest +daughter's young man. The eldest daughter's young man is always +unfortunate. He means well, and he tries hard. His great ambition is +to make the family love him. But fate is ever against him, and he only +succeeds in gaining their undisguised contempt. The fact of his being +"gone" on their Emily is, of itself, naturally sufficient to stamp him +as an imbecile in the eyes of Emily's brothers and sisters. The father +finds him slow, and thinks the girl might have done better; while the +best that his future mother-in-law (his sole supporter) can say for him +is, that he seems steady. + +There is only one thing that prompts the family to tolerate him, and +that is the reflection that he is going to take Emily away from them. + +On that understanding they put up with him. + +The eldest daughter's young man, in this particular case, will, you +may depend upon it, choose that exact moment when the baby's life is +hovering in the balance, and the cook is waiting for her wages with +her box in the hall, and a coal-heaver is at the front door with a +policeman, making a row about the damage to his trousers, to come in, +smiling, with a specimen pot of some new high art, squashed-tomato-shade +enamel paint, and suggest that they should try it on the old man's pipe. + +Then Emily will go off into hysterics, and Emily's male progenitor will +firmly but quietly lead that ill-starred yet true-hearted young man to +the public side of the garden-gate; and the engagement will be "off." + +Too much of anything is a mistake, as the man said when his wife +presented him with four new healthy children in one day. We should +practice moderation in all matters. A little enamel paint would have +been good. They might have enameled the house inside and out, and have +left the furniture alone. Or they might have colored the furniture, and +let the house be. But an entirely and completely enameled home--a +home, such as enamel-paint manufacturers love to picture on their +advertisements, over which the yearning eye wanders in vain, seeking one +single square inch of un-enameled matter--is, I am convinced, a mistake. +It may be a home that, as the testimonials assure us, will easily wash. +It may be an "artistic" home; but the average man is not yet educated up +to the appreciation of it. The average man does not care for high art. +At a certain point, the average man gets sick of high art. + +So, in these coming Utopias, in which out unhappy grandchildren will +have to drag out their colorless existence, there will be too much +electricity. They will grow to loathe electricity. + +Electricity is going to light them, warm them, carry them, doctor them, +cook for them, execute them, if necessary. They are going to be weaned +on electricity, rocked in their cradles by electricity, slapped by +electricity, ruled and regulated and guided by electricity, buried by +electricity. I may be wrong, but I rather think they are going to be +hatched by electricity. + +In the new world of our progressionist teachers, it is electricity that +is the real motive-power. The men and women are only marionettes--worked +by electricity. + +But it was not to speak of the electricity in them, but of the +originality in them, that I referred to these works of fiction. There +is no originality in them whatever. Human thought is incapable of +originality. No man ever yet imagined a new thing--only some variation +or extension of an old thing. + +The sailor, when he was asked what he would do with a fortune, promptly +replied: + +"Buy all the rum and 'baccy there is in the world." + +"And what after that?" they asked him. + +"Eh?" + +"What would you buy after that--after you had bought up all the rum and +tobacco there was in the world--what would you buy then?" + +"After that? Oh! 'um!" (a long pause). "Oh!" (with inspiration) "why, +more 'baccy!" + +Rum and tobacco he knew something of, and could therefore imagine about. +He did not know any other luxuries, therefore he could not conceive of +any others. + +So if you ask one of these Utopian-dreaming gentry what, after they had +secured for their world all the electricity there was in the Universe, +and after every mortal thing in their ideal Paradise, was done and said +and thought by electricity, they could imagine as further necessary to +human happiness, they would probably muse for awhile, and then reply, +"More electricity." + +They know electricity. They have seen the electric light, and heard of +electric boats and omnibuses. They have possibly had an electric shock +at a railway station for a penny. + +Therefore, knowing that electricity does three things, they can go on +and "imagine" electricity doing three hundred things, and the very great +ones among them can imagine it doing three thousand things; but for +them, or anybody else, to imagine a new force, totally unconnected +with and different from anything yet known in nature, would be utterly +impossible. + +Human thought is not a firework, ever shooting off fresh forms and +shapes as it burns; it is a tree, growing very slowly--you can watch it +long and see no movement--very silently, unnoticed. It was planted in +the world many thousand years ago, a tiny, sickly plant. And men guarded +it and tended it, and gave up life and fame to aid its growth. In +the hot days of their youth, they came to the gate of the garden and +knocked, begging to be let in, and to be counted among the gardeners. +And their young companions without called to them to come back, and play +the man with bow and spear, and win sweet smiles from rosy lips, and +take their part amid the feast, and dance, not stoop with wrinkled +brows, at weaklings' work. And the passers by mocked them and called +shame, and others cried out to stone them. And still they stayed there +laboring, that the tree might grow a little, and they died and were +forgotten. + +And the tree grew fair and strong. The storms of ignorance passed over +it, and harmed it not. The fierce fires of superstition soared around +it; but men leaped into the flames and beat them back, perishing, and +the tree grew. With the sweat of their brow have men nourished its green +leaves. Their tears have moistened the earth about it. With their blood +they have watered its roots. + +The seasons have come and passed, and the tree has grown and flourished. +And its branches have spread far and high, and ever fresh shoots are +bursting forth, and ever new leaves unfolding to the light. But they +are all part of the one tree--the tree that was planted on the first +birthday of the human race. The stem that bears them springs from the +gnarled old trunk that was green and soft when white-haired Time was a +little child; the sap that feeds them is drawn up through the roots that +twine and twist about the bones of the ages that are dead. + +The human mind can no more produce an original thought than a tree can +bear an original fruit. As well might one cry for an original note in +music as expect an original idea from a human brain. + +One wishes our friends, the critics, would grasp this simple truth, and +leave off clamoring for the impossible, and being shocked because they +do not get it. When a new book is written, the high-class critic opens +it with feelings of faint hope, tempered by strong conviction of coming +disappointment. As he pores over the pages, his brow darkens with +virtuous indignation, and his lip curls with the Godlike contempt that +the exceptionally great critic ever feels for everybody in this world, +who is not yet dead. Buoyed up by a touching, but totally fallacious, +belief that he is performing a public duty, and that the rest of the +community is waiting in breathless suspense to learn his opinion of the +work in question, before forming any judgment concerning it themselves, +he, nevertheless, wearily struggles through about a third of it. Then +his long-suffering soul revolts, and he flings it aside with a cry of +despair. + +"Why, there is no originality whatever in this," he says. "This book is +taken bodily from the Old Testament. It is the story of Adam and Eve all +over again. The hero is a mere man! with two arms, two legs, and a head +(so called). Why, it is only Moses's Adam under another name! And the +heroine is nothing but a woman! and she is described as beautiful, and +as having long hair. The author may call her 'Angelina,' or any other +name he chooses; but he has evidently, whether he acknowledges it +or not, copied her direct from Eve. The characters are barefaced +plagiarisms from the book of Genesis! Oh! to find an author with +originality!" + +One spring I went a walking tour in the country. It was a glorious +spring. Not the sort of spring they give us in these miserable times, +under this shameless government--a mixture of east wind, blizzard, snow, +rain, slush, fog, frost, hail, sleet and thunder-storms--but a sunny, +blue-sky'd, joyous spring, such as we used to have regularly every year +when I was a young man, and things were different. + +It was an exceptionally beautiful spring, even for those golden days; +and as I wandered through the waking land, and saw the dawning of the +coming green, and watched the blush upon the hawthorn hedge, deepening +each day beneath the kisses of the sun, and looked up at the proud old +mother trees, dandling their myriad baby buds upon their strong fond +arms, holding them high for the soft west wind to caress as he passed +laughing by, and marked the primrose yellow creep across the carpet of +the woods, and saw the new flush of the field and saw the new light on +the hills, and heard the new-found gladness of the birds, and heard +from copse and farm and meadow the timid callings of the little new-born +things, wondering to find themselves alive, and smelt the freshness of +the earth, and felt the promise in the air, and felt a strong hand in +the wind, my spirit rose within me. Spring had come to me also, and +stirred me with a strange new life, with a strange new hope I, too, +was part of nature, and it was spring! Tender leaves and blossoms were +unfolding from my heart. Bright flowers of love and gratitude were +opening round its roots. I felt new strength in all my limbs. New blood +was pulsing through my veins. Nobler thoughts and nobler longings were +throbbing through my brain. + +As I walked, Nature came and talked beside me, and showed me the world +and myself, and the ways of God seemed clearer. + +It seemed to me a pity that all the beautiful and precious thoughts and +ideas that were crowding in upon me should be lost to my fellow-men, and +so I pitched my tent at a little cottage, and set to work to write them +down then and there as they came to me. + +"It has been complained of me," I said to myself, "that I do not write +literary and high class work--at least, not work that is exceptionally +literary and high-class. This reproach shall be removed. I will write +an article that shall be a classic. I have worked for the ordinary, +every-day reader. It is right that I should do something now to improve +the literature of my beloved country." + +And I wrote a grand essay--though I say it who should not, though I +don't see why I shouldn't--all about spring, and the way it made you +feel, and what it made you think. It was simply crowded with elevated +thoughts and high-class ideas and cultured wit, was that essay. There +was only one fault about that essay: it was too brilliant. I wanted +commonplace relief. It would have exhausted the average reader; so much +cleverness would have wearied him. + +I wish I could remember some of the beautiful things in that essay, and +here set them down; because then you would be able to see what they +were like for yourselves, and that would be so much more simpler than +my explaining to you how beautiful they were. Unfortunately, however, I +cannot now call to mind any of them. + +I was very proud of this essay, and when I got back to town I called on +a very superior friend of mine, a critic, and read it to him. I do not +care for him to see any of my usual work, because he really is a very +superior person indeed, and the perusal of it appears to give him pains +inside. But this article, I thought, would do him good. + +"What do you think of it?" I asked, when I had finished. + +"Splendid," he replied, "excellently arranged. I never knew you were +so well acquainted with the works of the old writers. Why, there is +scarcely a classic of any note that you have not quoted from. But +where--where," he added, musing, "did you get that last idea but two +from? It's the only one I don't seem to remember. It isn't a bit of your +own, is it?" + +He said that, if so, he should advise me to leave it out. Not that it +was altogether bad, but that the interpolation of a modern thought among +so unique a collection of passages from the ancients seemed to spoil the +scheme. + +And he enumerated the various dead-and-buried gentlemen from whom he +appeared to think I had collated my article. + +"But," I replied, when I had recovered my astonishment sufficiently to +speak, "it isn't a collection at all. It is all original. I wrote the +thoughts down as they came to me. I have never read any of these people +you mention, except Shakespeare." + +Of course Shakespeare was bound to be among them. I am getting to +dislike that man so. He is always being held up before us young authors +as a model, and I do hate models. There was a model boy at our school, +I remember, Henry Summers; and it was just the same there. It was +continually, "Look at Henry Summers! he doesn't put the preposition +before the verb, and spell business b-i-z!" or, "Why can't you write +like Henry Summers? He doesn't get the ink all over the copy-book and +half-way up his back!" We got tired of this everlasting "Look at Henry +Summers!" after a while, and so, one afternoon, on the way home, a few +of us lured Henry Summers up a dark court; and when he came out again he +was not worth looking at. + +Now it is perpetually, "Look at Shakespeare!" "Why don't you write like +Shakespeare?" "Shakespeare never made that joke. Why don't you joke like +Shakespeare?" + +If you are in the play-writing line it is still worse for you. "Why +don't you write plays like Shakespeare's?" they indignantly say. +"Shakespeare never made his comic man a penny steamboat captain." +"Shakespeare never made his hero address the girl as 'ducky.' Why don't +you copy Shakespeare?" If you do try to copy Shakespeare, they tell you +that you must be a fool to attempt to imitate Shakespeare. + +Oh, shouldn't I like to get Shakespeare up our street, and punch him! + +"I cannot help that," replied my critical friend--to return to our +previous question--"the germ of every thought and idea you have got +in that article can be traced back to the writers I have named. If +you doubt it, I will get down the books, and show you the passages for +yourself." + +But I declined the offer. I said I would take his word for it, and would +rather not see the passages referred to. I felt indignant. "If," as +I said, "these men--these Platos and Socrateses and Ciceros and +Sophocleses and Aristophaneses and Aristotles and the rest of them had +been taking advantage of my absence to go about the world spoiling my +business for me, I would rather not hear any more about them." + +And I put on my hat and came out, and I have never tried to write +anything original since. + +I dreamed a dream once. (It is the sort of thing a man would dream. +You cannot very well dream anything else, I know. But the phrase sounds +poetical and biblical, and so I use it.) I dreamed that I was in a +strange country--indeed, one might say an extraordinary country. It was +ruled entirely by critics. + +The people in this strange land had a very high opinion of +critics--nearly as high an opinion of critics as the critics themselves +had, but not, of course, quite--that not being practicable--and they had +agreed to be guided in all things by the critics. I stayed some years in +that land. But it was not a cheerful place to live in, so I dreamed. + +There were authors in this country, at first, and they wrote books. But +the critics could find nothing original in the books whatever, and said +it was a pity that men, who might be usefully employed hoeing potatoes, +should waste their time and the time of the critics, which was of still +more importance, in stringing together a collection of platitudes, +familiar to every school-boy, and dishing up old plots and stories that +had already been cooked and recooked for the public until everybody had +been surfeited with them. + +And the writers read what the critics said and sighed, and gave up +writing books, and went off and hoed potatoes; as advised. They had +had no experience in hoeing potatoes, and they hoed very badly; and +the people whose potatoes they hoed strongly recommended them to leave +hoeing potatoes, and to go back and write books. But you can't do what +everybody advises. + +There were artists also in this strange world, at first, and they +painted pictures, which the critics came and looked at through +eyeglasses. + +"Nothing whatever original in them," said the critics; "same old colors, +same old perspective and form, same old sunset, same old sea and land, +and sky and figures. Why do these poor men waste their time, painting +pictures, when they might be so much more satisfactorily employed on +ladders painting houses?" + +Nothing, by the by, you may have noticed, troubles your critic more than +the idea that the artist is wasting his time. It is the waste of time +that vexes the critic; he has such an exalted idea of the value of other +people's time. "Dear, dear me!" he says to himself, "why, in the time +the man must have taken to paint this picture or to write this book, +he might have blacked fifteen thousand pairs of boots, or have carried +fifteen thousand hods of mortar up a ladder. This is how the time of the +world is lost!" + +It never occurs to him that, but for that picture or book, the artist +would, in all probability, have been mouching about with a pipe in his +mouth, getting into trouble. + +It reminds me of the way people used to talk to me when I was a boy. +I would be sitting, as good as gold, reading "The Pirate's Lair," when +some cultured relative would look over my shoulder and say: "Bah! what +are you wasting your time with rubbish for? Why don't you go and do +something useful?" and would take the book away from me. Upon which I +would get up, and go out to "do something useful;" and would come home +an hour afterward, looking like a bit out of a battle picture, having +tumbled through the roof of Farmer Bate's greenhouse and killed a +cactus, though totally unable to explain how I came to be on the roof of +Farmer Bate's greenhouse. They had much better have left me alone, lost +in "The Pirate's Lair!" + +The artists in this land of which I dreamed left off painting pictures, +after hearing what the critics said, and purchased ladders, and went off +and painted houses. + +Because, you see, this country of which I dreamed was not one of those +vulgar, ordinary countries, such as exist in the waking world, where +people let the critics talk as much as ever they like, and nobody pays +the slightest attention to what they say. Here, in this strange land, +the critics were taken seriously, and their advice followed. + +As for the poets and sculptors, they were very soon shut up. The idea of +any educated person wanting to read modern poetry when he could obtain +Homer, or caring to look at any other statue while there was still some +of the Venus de Medicis left, was too absurd. Poets and sculptors were +only wasting their time. + +What new occupation they were recommended to adopt, I forget. Some +calling they knew nothing whatever about, and that they were totally +unfitted for, of course. + +The musicians tried their art for a little while, but they, too, were +of no use. "Merely a repetition of the same notes in different +combinations," said the critics. "Why will people waste their time +writing unoriginal music, when they might be sweeping crossings?" + +One man had written a play. I asked what the critics had said about him. +They showed me his tomb. + +Then, there being no more artists or _litterateurs_ or dramatists or +musicians left for their beloved critics to criticise, the general +public of this enlightened land said to themselves, "Why should not our +critics come and criticise us? Criticism is useful to a man. Have we +not often been told so? Look how useful it has been to the artists and +writers--saved the poor fellows from wasting their time? Why shouldn't +we have some of its benefits?" + +They suggested the idea to the critics, and the critics thought it an +excellent one, and said they would undertake the job with pleasure. One +must say for the critics that they never shirk work. They will sit and +criticise for eighteen hours a day, if necessary, or even, if quite +unnecessary, for the matter of that. You can't give them too much to +criticise. They will criticise everything and everybody in this world. +They will criticise everything in the next world, too, when they get +there. I expect poor old Pluto has a lively time with them all, as it +is. + +So, when a man built a house, or a farm-yard hen laid an egg, the +critics were asked in to comment on it. They found that none of the +houses were original. On every floor were passages that seemed mere +copies from passages in other houses. They were all built on the same +hackneyed plan; cellars underneath, ground floor level with the street, +attic at the top. No originality anywhere! + +So, likewise with the eggs. Every egg suggested reminiscences of other +eggs. + +It was heartrending work. + +The critics criticised all things. When a young couple fell in love, +they each, before thinking of marriage, called upon the critics for a +criticism of the other one. + +Needless to say that, in the result, no marriage ever came of it. + +"My dear young lady," the critics would say, after the inspection had +taken place, "I can discover nothing new whatever about the young man. +You would simply be wasting your time in marrying him." + +Or, to the young man, it would be: + +"Oh, dear, no! Nothing attractive about the girl at all. Who on +earth gave you that notion? Simply a lovely face and figure, angelic +disposition, beautiful mind, stanch heart, noble character. Why, there +must have been nearly a dozen such girls born into the world since its +creation. You would be only wasting your time loving her." + +They criticised the birds for their hackneyed style of singing, and the +flowers for their hackneyed scents and colors. They complained of the +weather that it lacked originality--(true, they had not lived out an +English spring)--and found fault with the Sun because of the sameness of +his methods. + +They criticised the babies. When a fresh infant was published in a +house, the critics would call in a body to pass their judgment upon it, +and the young mother would bring it down for them to sample. + +"Did you ever see a child anything like that in this world before?" she +would say, holding it out to them. "Isn't it a wonderful baby? _You_ +never saw a child with legs like that, I know. Nurse says he's the most +extraordinary baby she ever attended. Bless him!" + +But the critics did not think anything of it. + +"Tut, tut," they would reply, "there is nothing extraordinary about +that child--no originality whatever. Why, it's exactly like every other +baby--bald head, red face, big mouth, and stumpy nose. Why, that's only +a weak imitation of the baby next door. It's a plagiarism, that's what +that child is. You've been wasting your time, madam. If you can't do +anything more original than that, we should advise you to give up the +business altogether." + +That was the end of criticism in that strange land. + +"Oh! look here, we've had enough of you and your originality," said the +people to the critics, after that. "Why, _you_ are not original, when +one comes to think of it, and your criticisms are not original. You've +all of you been saying exactly the same thing ever since the time of +Solomon. We are going to drown you and have a little peace." + +"What, drown a critic!" cried the critics, "never heard of such a +monstrous proceeding in our lives!" + +"No, we flatter ourselves it is an original idea," replied the public, +brutally. "You ought to be charmed with it. Out you come!" + +So they took the critics out and drowned them, and then passed a short +act, making criticism a capital offense. + +After that, the art and literature of the country followed, +somewhat, the methods of the quaint and curious school, but the land, +notwithstanding, was a much more cheerful place to live in, I dreamed. + +But I never finished telling you about the dream in which I thought I +left my legs behind me when I went into a certain theater. + +I dreamed that the ticket the man gave me for my legs was No. 19, and I +was worried all through the performance for fear No. 61 should get hold +of them, and leave me his instead. Mine are rather a fine pair of legs, +and I am, I confess, a little proud of them--at all events, I prefer +them to anybody else's. Besides, number sixty-one's might be a skinny +pair, and not fit me. + +It quite spoiled my evening, fretting about this. + +Another extraordinary dream I had was one in which I dreamed that I +was engaged to be married to my Aunt Jane. That was not, however, the +extraordinary part of it; I have often known people to dream things like +that. I knew a man who once dreamed that he was actually married to his +own mother-in-law! He told me that never in his life had he loved the +alarm clock with more deep and grateful tenderness than he did that +morning. The dream almost reconciled him to being married to his real +wife. They lived quite happily together for a few days, after that +dream. + +No; the extraordinary part of my dream was, that I knew it was a dream. +"What on earth will uncle say to this engagement?" I thought to myself, +in my dream. "There's bound to be a row about it. We shall have a deal +of trouble with uncle, I feel sure." And this thought quite troubled me +until the sweet reflection came: "Ah! well, it's only a dream." + +And I made up my mind that I would wake up as soon as uncle found out +about the engagement, and leave him and Aunt Jane to fight the matter +out between themselves. + +It is a very great comfort, when the dream grows troubled and alarming, +to feel that it is only a dream, and to know that we shall awake soon +and be none the worse for it. We can dream out the foolish perplexity +with a smile then. + +Sometimes the dream of life grows strangely troubled and perplexing, and +then he who meets dismay the bravest is he who feels that the fretful +play is but a dream--a brief, uneasy dream of three score years and ten, +or thereabouts, from which, in a little while, he will awake--at least, +he dreams so. + +How dull, how impossible life would be without dreams--waking dreams, I +mean--the dreams that we call "castles in the air," built by the kindly +hands of Hope! Were it not for the mirage of the oasis, drawing his +footsteps ever onward, the weary traveler would lie down in the desert +sand and die. It is the mirage of distant success, of happiness that, +like the bunch of carrots fastened an inch beyond the donkey's nose, +seems always just within our reach, if only we will gallop fast enough, +that makes us run so eagerly along the road of Life. + +Providence, like a father with a tired child, lures us ever along the +way with tales and promises, until, at the frowning gate that ends the +road, we shrink back, frightened. Then, promises still more sweet he +stoops and whispers in our ear, and timid yet partly reassured, and +trying to hide our fears, we gather up all that is left of our little +stock of hope and, trusting yet half afraid, push out our groping feet +into the darkness. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Dreams, by Jerome K. 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For example, throughout the text, "tonight" +and "tomorrow" appear as "to-night" and "to-morrow". This is +intentional, and is not simply a legacy of words having been broken +across lines in the printed text. +3. The pound (currency) symbol has been replaced by the word +"pounds". + + + + +DREAMS. + +The most extraordinary dream I ever had was one in which I fancied +that, as I was going into a theater, the cloak-room attendant stopped +me in the lobby and insisted on my leaving my legs behind me. + +I was not surprised; indeed, my acquaintanceship with theater harpies +would prevent my feeling any surprise at such a demand, even in my +waking moments; but I was, I must honestly confess, considerably +annoyed. It was not the payment of the cloak-room fee that I so much +minded--I offered to give that to the man then and there. It was the +parting with my legs that I objected to. + +I said I had never heard of such a rule being attempted to be put in +force at any respectable theater before, and that I considered it a +most absurd and vexatious regulation. I also said I should write to +The Times about it. + +The man replied that he was very sorry, but that those were his +instructions. People complained that they could not get to and from +their seats comfortably, because other people's legs were always in +the way; and it had, therefore, been decided that, in future, +everybody should leave their legs outside. + +It seemed to me that the management, in making this order, had clearly +gone beyond their legal right; and, under ordinary circumstances, I +should have disputed it. Being present, however, more in the +character of a guest than in that of a patron, I hardly like to make a +disturbance; and so I sat down and meekly prepared to comply with the +demand. + +I had never before known that the human leg did unscrew. I had always +thought it was a fixture. But the man showed me how to undo them, and +I found that they came off quite easily. + +The discovery did not surprise me any more than the original request +that I should take them off had done. Nothing does surprise one in a +dream. + +I dreamed once that I was going to be hanged; but I was not at all +surprised about it. Nobody was. My relations came to see me off, I +thought, and to wish me "Good-by!" They all came, and were all very +pleasant; but they were not in the least astonished--not one of them. +Everybody appeared to regard the coming tragedy as one of the +most-naturally-to-be-expected things in the world. + +They bore the calamity, besides, with an amount of stoicism that would +have done credit to a Spartan father. There was no fuss, no scene. +On the contrary, an atmosphere of mild cheerfulness prevailed. + +Yet they were very kind. Somebody--an uncle, I think--left me a +packet of sandwiches and a little something in a flask, in case, as he +said, I should feel peckish on the scaffold. + +It is "those twin-jailers of the daring" thought, Knowledge and +Experience, that teach us surprise. We are surprised and incredulous +when, in novels and plays, we come across good men and women, because +Knowledge and Experience have taught us how rare and problematical is +the existence of such people. In waking life, my friends and +relations would, of course, have been surprised at hearing that I had +committed a murder, and was, in consequence, about to be hanged, +because Knowledge and Experience would have taught them that, in a +country where the law is powerful and the police alert, the Christian +citizen is usually pretty successful in withstanding the voice of +temptation, prompting him to commit crime of an illegal character. + +But into Dreamland, Knowledge and Experience do not enter. They stay +without, together with the dull, dead clay of which they form a part; +while the freed brain, released from their narrowing tutelage, steals +softly past the ebon gate, to wanton at its own sweet will among the +mazy paths that wind through the garden of Persephone. + +Nothing that it meets with in that eternal land astonishes it because, +unfettered by the dense conviction of our waking mind, that nought +outside the ken of our own vision can in this universe be, all things +to it are possible and even probable. In dreams, we fly and wonder +not--except that we never flew before. We go naked, yet are not +ashamed, though we mildly wonder what the police are about that they +do not stop us. We converse with our dead, and think it was unkind +that they did not come back to us before. In dreams, there happens +that which human language cannot tell. In dreams, we see "the light +that never was on sea or land," we hear the sounds that never yet were +heard by waking ears. + +It is only in sleep that true imagination ever stirs within us. +Awake, we never imagine anything; we merely alter, vary, or transpose. +We give another twist to the kaleidoscope of the things we see around +us, and obtain another pattern; but not one of us has ever added one +tiniest piece of new glass to the toy. + +A Dean Swift sees one race of people smaller, and another race of +people larger than the race of people that live down his own streets. +And he also sees a land where the horses take the place of men. A +Bulwer Lytton lays the scene of one of his novels inside the earth +instead of outside. A Rider Haggard introduces us to a lady whose age +is a few years more than the average woman would care to confess to; +and pictures crabs larger than the usual shilling or eighteen-penny +size. The number of so called imaginative writers who visit the moon +is legion, and for all the novelty that they find, when they get +there, they might just as well have gone to Putney. Others are +continually drawing for us visions of the world one hundred or one +thousand years hence. There is always a depressing absence of human +nature about the place; so much so, that one feels great consolation +in the thought, while reading, that we ourselves shall be comfortably +dead and buried before the picture can be realized. In these +prophesied Utopias everybody is painfully good and clean and happy, +and all the work is done by electricity. + +There is somewhat too much electricity, for my taste, in these worlds +to come. One is reminded of those pictorial enamel-paint +advertisements that one sees about so often now, in which all the +members of an extensive household are represented as gathered together +in one room, spreading enamel-paint over everything they can lay their +hands upon. The old man is on a step-ladder, daubing the walls and +ceiling with "cuckoo's-egg green," while the parlor-maid and the cook +are on their knees, painting the floor with "sealing-wax red." The +old lady is doing the picture frames in "terra cotta." The eldest +daughter and her young man are making sly love in a corner over a pot +of "high art yellow," with which, so soon as they have finished +wasting their time, they will, it is manifest, proceed to elevate the +piano. Younger brothers and sisters are busy freshening up the chairs +and tables with "strawberry-jam pink " and "jubilee magenta." Every +blessed thing in that room is being coated with enamel paint, from the +sofa to the fire-irons, from the sideboard to the eight-day clock. If +there is any paint left over, it will be used up for the family Bible +and the canary. + +It is claimed for this invention that a little child can make as much +mess with it as can a grown-up person, and so all the children of the +family are represented in the picture as hard at work, enameling +whatever few articles of furniture and household use the grasping +selfishness of their elders has spared to them. One is painting the +toasting fork in a "skim-milk blue," while another is giving +aesthetical value to the Dutch oven by means of a new shade of art +green. The bootjack is being renovated in "old gold," and the baby is +sitting on the floor, smothering its own cradle with +"flush-upon-a-maiden's cheek peach color." + +One feels that the thing is being overdone. That family, before +another month is gone, will be among the strongest opponents of enamel +paint that the century has produced. Enamel paint will be the ruin of +that once happy home. Enamel paint has a cold, glassy, cynical +appearance. Its presence everywhere about the place will begin to +irritate the old man in the course of a week or so. He will call it, +"This damn'd sticky stuff!" and will tell the wife that he wonders she +didn't paint herself and the children with it while she was about it. +She will reply, in an exasperatingly quiet tone of voice, that she +does like that. Perhaps he will say next, that she did not warn him +against it, and tell him what an idiot he was making of himself, +spoiling the whole house with his foolish fads. Each one will persist +that it was the other one who first suggested the absurdity, and they +will sit up in bed and quarrel about it every night for a month. + +The children having acquired a taste for smudging the concoction +about, and there being nothing else left untouched in the house, will +try to enamel the cat; and then there will be bloodshed, and broken +windows, and spoiled infants, and sorrows and yells. The smell of the +paint will make everybody ill; and the servants will give notice. +Tradesmen's boys will lean up against places that are not dry and get +their clothes enameled and claim compensation. And the baby will suck +the paint off its cradle and have fits. + +But the person that will suffer most will, of course, be the eldest +daughter's young man. The eldest daughter's young man is always +unfortunate. He means well, and he tries hard. His great ambition is +to make the family love him. But fate is ever against him, and he +only succeeds in gaining their undisguised contempt. The fact of his +being "gone" on their Emily is, of itself, naturally sufficient to +stamp him as an imbecile in the eyes of Emily's brothers and sisters. +The father finds him slow, and thinks the girl might have done better; +while the best that his future mother-in-law (his sole supporter) can +say for him is, that he seems steady. + +There is only one thing that prompts the family to tolerate him, and +that is the reflection that he is going to take Emily away from them. + +On that understanding they put up with him. + +The eldest daughter's young man, in this particular case, will, you +may depend upon it, choose that exact moment when the baby's life is +hovering in the balance, and the cook is waiting for her wages with +her box in the hall, and a coal-heaver is at the front door with a +policeman, making a row about the damage to his trousers, to come in, +smiling, with a specimen pot of some new high art, +squashed-tomato-shade enamel paint, and suggest that they should try +it on the old man's pipe. + +Then Emily will go off into hysterics, and Emily's male progenitor +will firmly but quietly lead that ill-starred yet true-hearted young +man to the public side of the garden-gate; and the engagement will be +"off." + +Too much of anything is a mistake, as the man said when his wife +presented him with four new healthy children in one day. We should +practice moderation in all matters. A little enamel paint would have +been good. They might have enameled the house inside and out, and +have left the furniture alone. Or they might have colored the +furniture, and let the house be. But an entirely and completely +enameled home--a home, such as enamel-paint manufacturers love to +picture on their advertisements, over which the yearning eye wanders +in vain, seeking one single square inch of un-enameled matter--is, I +am convinced, a mistake. It may be a home that, as the testimonials +assure us, will easily wash. It may be an "artistic" home; but the +average man is not yet educated up to the appreciation of it. The +average man does not care for high art. At a certain point, the +average man gets sick of high art. + +So, in these coming Utopias, in which out unhappy grandchildren will +have to drag out their colorless existence, there will be too much +electricity. They will grow to loathe electricity. + +Electricity is going to light them, warm them, carry them, doctor +them, cook for them, execute them, if necessary. They are going to be +weaned on electricity, rocked in their cradles by electricity, slapped +by electricity, ruled and regulated and guided by electricity, buried +by electricity. I may be wrong, but I rather think they are going to +be hatched by electricity. + +In the new world of our progressionist teachers, it is electricity +that is the real motive-power. The men and women are only +marionettes--worked by electricity. + +But it was not to speak of the electricity in them, but of the +originality in them, that I referred to these works of fiction. There +is no originality in them whatever. Human thought is incapable of +originality. No man ever yet imagined a new thing--only some +variation or extension of an old thing. + +The sailor, when he was asked what he would do with a fortune, +promptly replied: + +"Buy all the rum and 'baccy there is in the world." + +"And what after that?" they asked him. + +"Eh?" + +"What would you buy after that--after you had bought up all the rum +and tobacco there was in the world--what would you buy then?" + +"After that? Oh! 'um!" (a long pause). "Oh!" (with inspiration) "why, +more 'baccy!" + +Rum and tobacco he knew something of, and could therefore imagine +about. He did not know any other luxuries, therefore he could not +conceive of any others. + +So if you ask one of these Utopian-dreaming gentry what, after they +had secured for their world all the electricity there was in the +Universe, and after every mortal thing in their ideal Paradise, was +done and said and thought by electricity, they could imagine as +further necessary to human happiness, they would probably muse for +awhile, and then reply, "More electricity." + +They know electricity. They have seen the electric light, and heard +of electric boats and omnibuses. They have possibly had an electric +shock at a railway station for a penny. + +Therefore, knowing that electricity does three things, they can go on +and "imagine" electricity doing three hundred things, and the very +great ones among them can imagine it doing three thousand things; but +for them, or anybody else, to imagine a new force, totally unconnected +with and different from anything yet known in nature, would be utterly +impossible. + +Human thought is not a firework, ever shooting off fresh forms and +shapes as it burns; it is a tree, growing very slowly--you can watch +it long and see no movement--very silently, unnoticed. It was planted +in the world many thousand years ago, a tiny, sickly plant. And men +guarded it and tended it, and gave up life and fame to aid its growth. +In the hot days of their youth, they came to the gate of the garden +and knocked, begging to be let in, and to be counted among the +gardeners. And their young companions without called to them to come +back, and play the man with bow and spear, and win sweet smiles from +rosy lips, and take their part amid the feast, and dance, not stoop +with wrinkled brows, at weaklings' work. And the passers by mocked +them and called shame, and others cried out to stone them. And still +they stayed there laboring, that the tree might grow a little, and +they died and were forgotten. + +And the tree grew fair and strong. The storms of ignorance passed +over it, and harmed it not. The fierce fires of superstition soared +around it; but men leaped into the flames and beat them back, +perishing, and the tree grew. With the sweat of their brow have men +nourished its green leaves. Their tears have moistened the earth +about it. With their blood they have watered its roots. + +The seasons have come and passed, and the tree has grown and +flourished. And its branches have spread far and high, and ever fresh +shoots are bursting forth, and ever new leaves unfolding to the light. +But they are all part of the one tree--the tree that was planted on +the first birthday of the human race. The stem that bears them +springs from the gnarled old trunk that was green and soft when +white-haired Time was a little child; the sap that feeds them is drawn +up through the roots that twine and twist about the bones of the ages +that are dead. + +The human mind can no more produce an original thought than a tree can +bear an original fruit. As well might one cry for an original note in +music as expect an original idea from a human brain. + +One wishes our friends, the critics, would grasp this simple truth, +and leave off clamoring for the impossible, and being shocked because +they do not get it. When a new book is written, the high-class critic +opens it with feelings of faint hope, tempered by strong conviction of +coming disappointment. As he pores over the pages, his brow darkens +with virtuous indignation, and his lip curls with the Godlike contempt +that the exceptionally great critic ever feels for everybody in this +world, who is not yet dead. Buoyed up by a touching, but totally +fallacious, belief that he is performing a public duty, and that the +rest of the community is waiting in breathless suspense to learn his +opinion of the work in question, before forming any judgment +concerning it themselves, he, nevertheless, wearily struggles through +about a third of it. Then his long-suffering soul revolts, and he +flings it aside with a cry of despair. + +"Why, there is no originality whatever in this," he says. "This book +is taken bodily from the Old Testament. It is the story of Adam and +Eve all over again. The hero is a mere man! with two arms, two legs, +and a head (so called). Why, it is only Moses's Adam under another +name! And the heroine is nothing but a woman! and she is described as +beautiful, and as having long hair. The author may call her +'Angelina,' or any other name he chooses; but he has evidently, +whether he acknowledges it or not, copied her direct from Eve. The +characters are barefaced plagiarisms from the book of Genesis! Oh! to +find an author with originality!" + +One spring I went a walking tour in the country. It was a glorious +spring. Not the sort of spring they give us in these miserable times, +under this shameless government--a mixture of east wind, blizzard, +snow, rain, slush, fog, frost, hail, sleet and thunder-storms--but a +sunny, blue-sky'd, joyous spring, such as we used to have regularly +every year when I was a young man, and things were different. + +It was an exceptionally beautiful spring, even for those golden days; +and as I wandered through the waking land, and saw the dawning of the +coming green, and watched the blush upon the hawthorn hedge, deepening +each day beneath the kisses of the sun, and looked up at the proud old +mother trees, dandling their myriad baby buds upon their strong fond +arms, holding them high for the soft west wind to caress as he passed +laughing by, and marked the primrose yellow creep across the carpet of +the woods, and saw the new flush of the field and saw the new light on +the hills, and heard the new-found gladness of the birds, and heard +from copse and farm and meadow the timid callings of the little +new-born things, wondering to find themselves alive, and smelt the +freshness of the earth, and felt the promise in the air, and felt a +strong hand in the wind, my spirit rose within me. Spring had come to +me also, and stirred me with a strange new life, with a strange new +hope I, too, was part of nature, and it was spring! Tender leaves and +blossoms were unfolding from my heart. Bright flowers of love and +gratitude were opening round its roots. I felt new strength in all my +limbs. New blood was pulsing through my veins. Nobler thoughts and +nobler longings were throbbing through my brain. + +As I walked, Nature came and talked beside me, and showed me the world +and myself, and the ways of God seemed clearer. + +It seemed to me a pity that all the beautiful and precious thoughts +and ideas that were crowding in upon me should be lost to my +fellow-men, and so I pitched my tent at a little cottage, and set to +work to write them down then and there as they came to me. + +"It has been complained of me," I said to myself, "that I do not write +literary and high class work--at least, not work that is exceptionally +literary and high-class. This reproach shall be removed. I will +write an article that shall be a classic. I have worked for the +ordinary, every-day reader. It is right that I should do something +now to improve the literature of my beloved country." + +And I wrote a grand essay--though I say it who should not, though I +don't see why I shouldn't--all about spring, and the way it made you +feel, and what it made you think. It was simply crowded with elevated +thoughts and high-class ideas and cultured wit, was that essay. There +was only one fault about that essay: it was too brilliant. I wanted +commonplace relief. It would have exhausted the average reader; so +much cleverness would have wearied him. + +I wish I could remember some of the beautiful things in that essay, +and here set them down; because then you would be able to see what +they were like for yourselves, and that would be so much more simpler +than my explaining to you how beautiful they were. Unfortunately, +however, I cannot now call to mind any of them. + +I was very proud of this essay, and when I got back to town I called +on a very superior friend of mine, a critic, and read it to him. I do +not care for him to see any of my usual work, because he really is a +very superior person indeed, and the perusal of it appears to give him +pains inside. But this article, I thought, would do him good. + +"What do you think of it?" I asked, when I had finished. + +"Splendid," he replied, "excellently arranged. I never knew you were +so well acquainted with the works of the old writers. Why, there is +scarcely a classic of any note that you have not quoted from. But +where--where," he added, musing, "did you get that last idea but two +from? It's the only one I don't seem to remember. It isn't a bit of +your own, is it?" + +He said that, if so, he should advise me to leave it out. Not that it +was altogether bad, but that the interpolation of a modern thought +among so unique a collection of passages from the ancients seemed to +spoil the scheme. + +And he enumerated the various dead-and-buried gentlemen from whom he +appeared to think I had collated my article. + +"But," I replied, when I had recovered my astonishment sufficiently to +speak, "it isn't a collection at all. It is all original. I wrote +the thoughts down as they came to me. I have never read any of these +people you mention, except Shakespeare." + +Of course Shakespeare was bound to be among them. I am getting to +dislike that man so. He is always being held up before us young +authors as a model, and I do hate models. There was a model boy at +our school, I remember, Henry Summers; and it was just the same there. +It was continually, "Look at Henry Summers! he doesn't put the +preposition before the verb, and spell business b-i-z!" or, "Why can't +you write like Henry Summers? He doesn't get the ink all over the +copy-book and half-way up his back!" We got tired of this everlasting +"Look at Henry Summers!" after a while, and so, one afternoon, on the +way home, a few of us lured Henry Summers up a dark court; and when he +came out again he was not worth looking at. + +Now it is perpetually, "Look at Shakespeare!" "Why don't you write +like Shakespeare?" "Shakespeare never made that joke. Why don't you +joke like Shakespeare?" + +If you are in the play-writing line it is still worse for you. "Why +don't you write plays like Shakespeare's?" they indignantly say. +"Shakespeare never made his comic man a penny steamboat captain." +"Shakespeare never made his hero address the girl as 'ducky.' Why +don't you copy Shakespeare?" If you do try to copy Shakespeare, they +tell you that you must be a fool to attempt to imitate Shakespeare. + +Oh, shouldn't I like to get Shakespeare up our street, and punch him! + +"I cannot help that," replied my critical friend--to return to our +previous question--"the germ of every thought and idea you have got in +that article can be traced back to the writers I have named. If you +doubt it, I will get down the books, and show you the passages for +yourself." + +But I declined the offer. I said I would take his word for it, and +would rather not see the passages referred to. I felt indignant. +"If," as I said, "these men--these Platos and Socrateses and Ciceros +and Sophocleses and Aristophaneses and Aristotles and the rest of them +had been taking advantage of my absence to go about the world spoiling +my business for me, I would rather not hear any more about them." + +And I put on my hat and came out, and I have never tried to write +anything original since. + +I dreamed a dream once. (It is the sort of thing a man would dream. +You cannot very well dream anything else, I know. But the phrase +sounds poetical and biblical, and so I use it.) I dreamed that I was +in a strange country--indeed, one might say an extraordinary country. +It was ruled entirely by critics. + +The people in this strange land had a very high opinion of +critics--nearly as high an opinion of critics as the critics +themselves had, but not, of course, quite--that not being +practicable--and they had agreed to be guided in all things by the +critics. I stayed some years in that land. But it was not a cheerful +place to live in, so I dreamed. + +There were authors in this country, at first, and they wrote books. +But the critics could find nothing original in the books whatever, and +said it was a pity that men, who might be usefully employed hoeing +potatoes, should waste their time and the time of the critics, which +was of still more importance, in stringing together a collection of +platitudes, familiar to every school-boy, and dishing up old plots and +stories that had already been cooked and recooked for the public until +everybody had been surfeited with them. + +And the writers read what the critics said and sighed, and gave up +writing books, and went off and hoed potatoes; as advised. They had +had no experience in hoeing potatoes, and they hoed very badly; and +the people whose potatoes they hoed strongly recommended them to leave +hoeing potatoes, and to go back and write books. But you can't do +what everybody advises. + +There were artists also in this strange world, at first, and they +painted pictures, which the critics came and looked at through +eyeglasses. + +"Nothing whatever original in them," said the critics; "same old +colors, same old perspective and form, same old sunset, same old sea +and land, and sky and figures. Why do these poor men waste their +time, painting pictures, when they might be so much more +satisfactorily employed on ladders painting houses?" + +Nothing, by the by, you may have noticed, troubles your critic more +than the idea that the artist is wasting his time. It is the waste of +time that vexes the critic; he has such an exalted idea of the value +of other people's time. "Dear, dear me!" he says to himself, "why, in +the time the man must have taken to paint this picture or to write +this book, he might have blacked fifteen thousand pairs of boots, or +have carried fifteen thousand hods of mortar up a ladder. This is how +the time of the world is lost!" + +It never occurs to him that, but for that picture or book, the artist +would, in all probability, have been mouching about with a pipe in his +mouth, getting into trouble. + +It reminds me of the way people used to talk to me when I was a boy. +I would be sitting, as good as gold, reading "The Pirate's Lair," when +some cultured relative would look over my shoulder and say: "Bah! +what are you wasting your time with rubbish for? Why don't you go and +do something useful?" and would take the book away from me. Upon +which I would get up, and go out to "do something useful;" and would +come home an hour afterward, looking like a bit out of a battle +picture, having tumbled through the roof of Farmer Bate's greenhouse +and killed a cactus, though totally unable to explain how I came to be +on the roof of Farmer Bate's greenhouse. They had much better have +left me alone, lost in "The Pirate's Lair!" + +The artists in this land of which I dreamed left off painting +pictures, after hearing what the critics said, and purchased ladders, +and went off and painted houses. + +Because, you see, this country of which I dreamed was not one of those +vulgar, ordinary countries, such as exist in the waking world, where +people let the critics talk as much as ever they like, and nobody pays +the slightest attention to what they say. Here, in this strange land, +the critics were taken seriously, and their advice followed. + +As for the poets and sculptors, they were very soon shut up. The idea +of any educated person wanting to read modern poetry when he could +obtain Homer, or caring to look at any other statue while there was +still some of the Venus de Medicis left, was too absurd. Poets and +sculptors were only wasting their time + +What new occupation they were recommended to adopt, I forget. Some +calling they knew nothing whatever about, and that they were totally +unfitted for, of course. + +The musicians tried their art for a little while, but they, too, were +of no use. "Merely a repetition of the same notes in different +combinations," said the critics. "Why will people waste their time +writing unoriginal music, when they might be sweeping crossings?" + +One man had written a play. I asked what the critics had said about +him. They showed me his tomb. + +Then, there being no more artists or _litterateurs_ or dramatists or +musicians left for their beloved critics to criticise, the general +public of this enlightened land said to themselves, "Why should not +our critics come and criticise us? Criticism is useful to a man. +Have we not often been told so? Look how useful it has been to the +artists and writers--saved the poor fellows from wasting their time? +Why shouldn't we have some of its benefits?" + +They suggested the idea to the critics, and the critics thought it an +excellent one, and said they would undertake the job with pleasure. +One must say for the critics that they never shirk work. They will +sit and criticise for eighteen hours a day, if necessary, or even, if +quite unnecessary, for the matter of that. You can't give them too +much to criticise. They will criticise everything and everybody in +this world. They will criticise everything in the next world, too, +when they get there. I expect poor old Pluto has a lively time with +them all, as it is. + +So, when a man built a house, or a farm-yard hen laid an egg, the +critics were asked in to comment on it. They found that none of the +houses were original. On every floor were passages that seemed mere +copies from passages in other houses. They were all built on the same +hackneyed plan; cellars underneath, ground floor level with the +street, attic at the top. No originality anywhere! + +So, likewise with the eggs. Every egg suggested reminiscences of +other eggs. + +It was heartrending work. + +The critics criticised all things. When a young couple fell in love, +they each, before thinking of marriage, called upon the critics for a +criticism of the other one. + +Needless to say that, in the result, no marriage ever came of it. + +"My dear young lady," the critics would say, after the inspection had +taken place, "I can discover nothing new whatever about the young man. +You would simply be wasting your time in marrying him." + +Or, to the young man, it would be: + +"Oh, dear, no! Nothing attractive about the girl at all. Who on +earth gave you that notion? Simply a lovely face and figure, angelic +disposition, beautiful mind, stanch heart, noble character. Why, +there must have been nearly a dozen such girls born into the world +since its creation. You would be only wasting your time loving her." + +They criticised the birds for their hackneyed style of singing, and +the flowers for their hackneyed scents and colors. They complained of +the weather that it lacked originality--(true, they had not lived out +an English spring)--and found fault with the Sun because of the +sameness of his methods. + +They criticised the babies. When a fresh infant was published in a +house, the critics would call in a body to pass their judgment upon +it, and the young mother would bring it down for them to sample. + +"Did you ever see a child anything like that in this world before?" +she would say, holding it out to them. "Isn't it a wonderful baby? +_You_ never saw a child with legs like that, I know. Nurse says he's +the most extraordinary baby she ever attended. Bless him!" + +But the critics did not think anything of it. + +"Tut, tut," they would reply, "there is nothing extraordinary about +that child--no originality whatever. Why, it's exactly like every +other baby--bald head, red face, big mouth, and stumpy nose. Why, +that's only a weak imitation of the baby next door. It's a +plagiarism, that's what that child is. You've been wasting your time, +madam. If you can't do anything more original than that, we should +advise you to give up the business altogether." + +That was the end of criticism in that strange land. + +"Oh! look here, we've had enough of you and your originality," said +the people to the critics, after that. "Why, _you_ are not original, +when one comes to think of it, and your criticisms are not original. +You've all of you been saying exactly the same thing ever since the +time of Solomon. We are going to drown you and have a little peace." + +"What, drown a critic!" cried the critics, "never heard of such a +monstrous proceeding in our lives!" + +"No, we flatter ourselves it is an original idea," replied the public, +brutally. "You ought to be charmed with it. Out you come!" + +So they took the critics out and drowned them, and then passed a short +act, making criticism a capital offense. + +After that, the art and literature of the country followed, somewhat, +the methods of the quaint and curious school, but the land, +notwithstanding, was a much more cheerful place to live in, I dreamed. + +But I never finished telling you about the dream in which I thought I +left my legs behind me when I went into a certain theater. + +I dreamed that the ticket the man gave me for my legs was No. 19, and +I was worried all through the performance for fear No. 61 should get +hold of them, and leave me his instead. Mine are rather a fine pair +of legs, and I am, I confess, a little proud of them--at all events, I +prefer them to anybody else's. Besides, number sixty-one's might be a +skinny pair, and not fit me. + +It quite spoiled my evening, fretting about this. + +Another extraordinary dream I had was one in which I dreamed that I +was engaged to be married to my Aunt Jane. That was not, however, the +extraordinary part of it; I have often known people to dream things +like that. I knew a man who once dreamed that he was actually married +to his own mother-in-law! He told me that never in his life had he +loved the alarm clock with more deep and grateful tenderness than he +did that morning. The dream almost reconciled him to being married to +his real wife. They lived quite happily together for a few days, +after that dream. + +No; the extraordinary part of my dream was, that I knew it was a +dream. "What on earth will uncle say to this engagement?" I thought +to myself, in my dream. "There's bound to be a row about it. We +shall have a deal of trouble with uncle, I feel sure." And this +thought quite troubled me until the sweet reflection came: "Ah! well, +it's only a dream." + +And I made up my mind that I would wake up as soon as uncle found out +about the engagement, and leave him and Aunt Jane to fight the matter +out between themselves. + +It is a very great comfort, when the dream grows troubled and +alarming, to feel that it is only a dream, and to know that we shall +awake soon and be none the worse for it. We can dream out the foolish +perplexity with a smile then. + +Sometimes the dream of life grows strangely troubled and perplexing, +and then he who meets dismay the bravest is he who feels that the +fretful play is but a dream--a brief, uneasy dream of three score +years and ten, or thereabouts, from which, in a little while, he will +awake--at least, he dreams so. + +How dull, how impossible life would be without dreams--waking dreams, +I mean--the dreams that we call "castles in the air," built by the +kindly hands of Hope! Were it not for the mirage of the oasis, +drawing his footsteps ever onward, the weary traveler would lie down +in the desert sand and die. It is the mirage of distant success, of +happiness that, like the bunch of carrots fastened an inch beyond the +donkey's nose, seems always just within our reach, if only we will +gallop fast enough, that makes us run so eagerly along the road of +Life. + +Providence, like a father with a tired child, lures us ever along the +way with tales and promises, until, at the frowning gate that ends the +road, we shrink back, frightened. Then, promises still more sweet he +stoops and whispers in our ear, and timid yet partly reassured, and +trying to hide our fears, we gather up all that is left of our little +stock of hope and, trusting yet half afraid, push out our groping feet +into the darkness. + + + +End of Project Gutenberg etext of Dreams, by Jerome K. Jerome. +
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