The World I Live In by Helen Keller (books to read fiction txt) 📖

Shut your eyes, and see them come—the knights and ladies of my revel. Plumed and turbaned they come, clad in mail and silken broideries, gentle maids in Quaker gray, gay princes in scarlet cloaks, coquettes with roses in their hair, monks in cowls that might have covered the tall Minster Tower, demure little girls hugging paper dolls, and rollicking school-boys with ruddy morning faces, an absent-minded professor carrying his shoes under his arms and looking wise, followed by cronies, fairies, goblins, and all the troops just loosed from Noah's storm-tossed ark. They walked, they strutted, they soared, they swam, and some came in through fire. One sprite climbed up to the moon on a ladder made of leaves and frozen dew-drops. A peacock with a great hooked bill flew in and out among the branches of a pomegranate-tree pecking the rosy fruit. He screamed so loud that Apollo turned in his chariot of flame and from his burnished bow shot golden arrows at him. This did not disturb the peacock in the least; for he spread his gem-like wings and flourished his wonderful, fire-tipped tail in the very face of the sun-god! Then came Venus—an exact copy of my own plaster cast—serene, calm-eyed, dancing "high and disposedly" like Queen Elizabeth, surrounded by a troop of lovely Cupids mounted on rose-tinted clouds, blown hither and thither by sweet winds, while all around danced flowers and streams and queer little Japanese cherry-trees in pots! They were followed by jovial Pan with green hair and jewelled sandals, and by his side—I could scarcely believe my eyes!—walked a modest nun counting her beads. At a little distance were seen three dancers arm-in-arm, a lean, starved platitude, a rosy, dimpled joke, and a steel-ribbed sermon on predestination. Close upon them came a whole string of Nights with wind-blown hair and Days with faggots on their backs. All at once I saw the ample figure of Life rise above the whirling mass holding a naked child in one hand and in the other a gleaming sword. A bear crouched at her feet, and all about her swirled and glowed a multitudinous host of tiny atoms which sang all together, "We are the will of God." Atom wedded atom, and chemical married chemical, and the cosmic dance went on in changing, changeless measure, until my head sang like a buzz-saw.

Just as I was thinking I would leave this scene of phantoms and take a stroll in the quiet groves of Slumber I noticed a commotion near one of the entrances to my enchanted palace. It was evident from the whispering and buzzing that went round that more celebrities had arrived. The first personage I saw was Homer, blind no more, leading by a golden chain the white-beaked ships of the Achaians bobbing their heads and squawking like so many white swans. Plato and Mother Goose with the numerous children of the shoe came next. Simple Simon, Jill, and Jack who had had his head mended, and the cat that fell into the cream—all these danced in a giddy reel, while Plato solemnly discoursed on the laws of Topsyturvy Land. Then followed grim-visaged Calvin and "violet-crowned, sweet-smiling Sappho" who danced a Schottische. Aristophanes and Molière joined for a measure, both talking at once, Molière in Greek and Aristophanes in German. I thought this odd, because it occurred to me that German was a dead language before Aristophanes was born. Bright-eyed Shelley brought in a fluttering lark which burst into the song of Chaucer's chanticleer. Henry Esmond gave his hand in a stately minuet to Diana of the Crossways. He evidently did not understand her nineteenth century wit; for he did not laugh. Perhaps he had lost his taste for clever women. Anon Dante and Swedenborg came together conversing earnestly about things remote and mystical. Swedenborg said it was very warm. Dante replied that it might rain in the night.

Suddenly there was a great clamour, and I found that "The Battle of the Books" had begun raging anew. Two figures entered in lively dispute. One was dressed in plain homespun and the other wore a scholar's gown over a suit of motley. I gathered from their conversation that they were Cotton Mather and William Shakspere. Mather insisted that the witches in "Macbeth" should be caught and hanged. Shakspere replied that the witches had already suffered enough at the hands of commentators. They were pushed aside by the twelve knights of the Round Table, who marched in bearing on a salver the goose that laid golden eggs. "The Pope's Mule" and "The Golden Bull" had a combat of history and fiction such as I had read of in books, but never before witnessed. These little animals were put to rout by a huge elephant which lumbered in with Rudyard Kipling riding high on its trunk. The elephant changed suddenly to "a rakish craft." (I do not know what a rakish craft is; but this was very rakish and very crafty.) It must have been abandoned long ago by wild pirates of the southern seas; for clinging to the rigging, and jovially cheering as the ship went down, I made out a man with blazing eyes, clad in a velveteen jacket. As the ship disappeared from sight, Falstaff rushed to the rescue of the lonely navigator—and stole his purse! But Miranda persuaded him to give it back. Stevenson said, "Who steals my purse steals trash." Falstaff laughed and called this a good joke, as good as any he had heard in his day.

This was the signal for a rushing swarm of quotations. They surged to and fro, an inchoate throng of half finished phrases, mutilated sentences, parodied sentiments, and brilliant metaphors. I could not distinguish any phrases or ideas of my own making. I saw a poor, ragged, shrunken sentence that might have been mine own catch the wings of a fair idea with the light of genius shining like a halo about its head.

Ever and anon the dancers changed partners without invitation or permission. Thoughts fell in love at sight, married in a measure, and joined hands without previous courtship. An incongruity is the wedding of two thoughts which have had no reasonable courtship, and marriages without wooing are apt to lead to domestic discord, even to the breaking up of an ancient, time-honoured family. Among the wedded couples were certain similes hitherto inviolable in their bachelorhood and spinsterhood, and held in great respect. Their extraordinary proceedings nearly broke up the dance. But the fatuity of their union was evident to them, and they parted. Other similes seemed to have the habit of living in discord. They had been many times married and divorced. They belonged to the notorious society of Mixed Metaphors.

A company of phantoms floated in and out wearing tantalizing garments of oblivion. They seemed about to dance, then vanished. They reappeared half a dozen times, but never unveiled their faces. The imp Curiosity pulled Memory by the sleeve and said, "Why do they run away? 'Tis strange knavery!" Out ran Memory to capture them. After a great deal of racing and puffing and collision it apprehended some of the fugitives and brought them in. But when it tore off their masks, lo! some were disappointingly commonplace, and others were gipsy quotations trying to conceal the punctuation marks that belonged to them. Memory was much chagrined to have had such a hard chase only to catch this sorry lot of graceless rogues.

Into the rabble strode four stately giants who called themselves History, Philosophy, Law, and Medicine. They seemed too solemn and imposing to join in a masque. But even as I gazed at these formidable guests, they all split into fragments which went whirling, dancing in divisions, subdivisions, re-subdivisions of scientific nonsense! History split into philology, ethnology, anthropology, and mythology, and these again split finer than the splitting of hairs. Each speciality hugged its bit of knowledge and waltzed it round and round. The rest of the company began to nod, and I felt drowsy myself. To put an end to the solemn gyrations, a troop of fairies mercifully waved poppies over us all, the masque faded, my head fell, and I started. Sleep had wakened me. At my elbow I found my old friend Bottom.

"Bottom," I said, "I have had a dream past the wit of man to say what dream it was. Methought I was—there is no man can tell what. The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, his hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report what my dream was."