Dreams by Olive Schreiner (best books to read for self development TXT) 📖
- Author: Olive Schreiner
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it, and the yellow curls above his forehead pressed against it; and his
knees were drawn up to her, and he held her breast fast with his hands.
And Reason said, “Who is he, and what is he doing here?”
And she said, “See his little wings—”
And Reason said, “Put him down.”
And she said, “He is asleep, and he is drinking! I will carry him to the
Land of Freedom. He has been a child so long, so long, I have carried him.
In the Land of Freedom he will be a man. We will walk together there, and
his great white wings will overshadow me. He has lisped one word only to
me in the desert—‘Passion!’ I have dreamed he might learn to say
‘Friendship’ in that land.”
And Reason said, “Put him down!”
And she said, “I will carry him so—with one arm, and with the other I will
fight the water.”
He said, “Lay him down on the ground. When you are in the water you will
forget to fight, you will think only of him. Lay him down.” He said, “He
will not die. When he finds you have left him alone he will open his wings
and fly. He will be in the Land of Freedom before you. Those who reach
the Land of Freedom, the first hand they see stretching down the bank to
help them shall be Love’s. He will be a man then, not a child. In your
breast he cannot thrive; put him down that he may grow.”
And she took her bosom from his mouth, and he bit her, so that the blood
ran down on to the ground. And she laid him down on the earth; and she
covered her wound. And she bent and stroked his wings. And I saw the hair
on her forehead turned white as snow, and she had changed from youth to
age.
And she stood far off on the bank of the river. And she said, “For what do
I go to this far land which no one has ever reached? Oh, I am alone! I am
utterly alone!”
And Reason, that old man, said to her, “Silence! What do you hear?”
And she listened intently, and she said, “I hear a sound of feet, a
thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands, and they beat this
way!”
He said, “They are the feet of those that shall follow you. Lead on! make
a track to the water’s edge! Where you stand now, the ground will be
beaten flat by ten thousand times ten thousand feet.” And he said, “Have
you seen the locusts how they cross a stream? First one comes down to the
water-edge, and it is swept away, and then another comes and then another,
and then another, and at last with their bodies piled up a bridge is built
and the rest pass over.”
She said, “And, of those that come first, some are swept away, and are
heard of no more; their bodies do not even build the bridge?”
“And are swept away, and are heard of no more—and what of that?” he said.
“And what of that—” she said.
“They make a track to the water’s edge.”
“They make a track to the water’s edge—.” And she said, “Over that bridge
which shall be built with our bodies, who will pass?”
He said, “The entire human race.”
And the woman grasped her staff.
And I saw her turn down that dark path to the river.
And I awoke; and all about me was the yellow afternoon light: the sinking
sun lit up the fingers of the milk bushes; and my horse stood by me quietly
feeding. And I turned on my side, and I watched the ants run by thousands
in the red sand. I thought I would go on my way now—the afternoon was
cooler. Then a drowsiness crept over me again, and I laid back my head and
fell asleep.
And I dreamed a dream.
I dreamed I saw a land. And on the hills walked brave women and brave men,
hand in hand. And they looked into each other’s eyes, and they were not
afraid.
And I saw the women also hold each other’s hands.
And I said to him beside me, “What place is this?”
And he said, “This is heaven.”
And I said, “Where is it?”
And he answered, “On earth.”
And I said, “When shall these things be?”
And he answered, “IN THE FUTURE.”
And I awoke, and all about me was the sunset light; and on the low hills
the sun lay, and a delicious coolness had crept over everything; and the
ants were going slowly home. And I walked towards my horse, who stood
quietly feeding. Then the sun passed down behind the hills; but I knew
that the next day he would arise again.
VI. A DREAM OF WILD BEES.
A mother sat alone at an open window. Through it came the voices of the
children as they played under the acacia-trees, and the breath of the hot
afternoon air. In and out of the room flew the bees, the wild bees, with
their legs yellow with pollen, going to and from the acacia-trees, droning
all the while. She sat on a low chair before the table and darned. She
took her work from the great basket that stood before her on the table:
some lay on her knee and half covered the book that rested there. She
watched the needle go in and out; and the dreary hum of the bees and the
noise of the children’s voices became a confused murmur in her ears, as she
worked slowly and more slowly. Then the bees, the long-legged wasp-like
fellows who make no honey, flew closer and closer to her head, droning.
Then she grew more and more drowsy, and she laid her hand, with the
stocking over it, on the edge of the table, and leaned her head upon it.
And the voices of the children outside grew more and more dreamy, came now
far, now near; then she did not hear them, but she felt under her heart
where the ninth child lay. Bent forward and sleeping there, with the bees
flying about her head, she had a weird brain-picture; she thought the bees
lengthened and lengthened themselves out and became human creatures and
moved round and round her. Then one came to her softly, saying, “Let me
lay my hand upon thy side where the child sleeps. If I shall touch him he
shall be as I.”
She asked, “Who are you?”
And he said, “I am Health. Whom I touch will have always the red blood
dancing in his veins; he will not know weariness nor pain; life will be a
long laugh to him.”
“No,” said another, “let me touch; for I am Wealth. If I touch him
material care shall not feed on him. He shall live on the blood and sinews
of his fellow-men, if he will; and what his eye lusts for, his hand will
have. He shall not know ‘I want.’” And the child lay still like lead.
And another said, “Let me touch him: I am Fame. The man I touch, I lead
to a high hill where all men may see him. When he dies he is not
forgotten, his name rings down the centuries, each echoes it on to his
fellows. Think—not to be forgotten through the ages!”
And the mother lay breathing steadily, but in the brain-picture they
pressed closer to her.
“Let me touch the child,” said one, “for I am Love. If I touch him he
shall not walk through life alone. In the greatest dark, when he puts out
his hand he shall find another hand by it. When the world is against him,
another shall say, ‘You and I.’” And the child trembled.
But another pressed close and said, “Let me touch; for I am Talent. I can
do all things—that have been done before. I touch the soldier, the
statesman, the thinker, and the politician who succeed; and the writer who
is never before his time, and never behind it. If I touch the child he
shall not weep for failure.”
About the mother’s head the bees were flying, touching her with their long
tapering limbs; and, in her brain-picture, out of the shadow of the room
came one with sallow face, deep-lined, the cheeks drawn into hollows, and a
mouth smiling quiveringly. He stretched out his hand. And the mother drew
back, and cried, “Who are you?” He answered nothing; and she looked up
between his eyelids. And she said, “What can you give the child—health?”
And he said, “The man I touch, there wakes up in his blood a burning fever,
that shall lick his blood as fire. The fever that I will give him shall be
cured when his life is cured.”
“You give wealth?”
He shook his head. “The man whom I touch, when he bends to pick up gold,
he sees suddenly a light over his head in the sky; while he looks up to see
it, the gold slips from between his fingers, or sometimes another passing
takes it from them.”
“Fame?”
He answered, “likely not. For the man I touch there is a path traced out
in the sand by a finger which no man sees. That he must follow. Sometimes
it leads almost to the top, and then turns down suddenly into the valley.
He must follow it, though none else sees the tracing.”
“Love?”
He said, “He shall hunger for it—but he shall not find it. When he
stretches out his arms to it, and would lay his heart against a thing he
loves, then, far off along the horizon he shall see a light play. He must
go towards it. The thing he loves will not journey with him; he must
travel alone. When he presses somewhat to his burning heart, crying,
‘Mine, mine, my own!’ he shall hear a voice—‘Renounce! renounce! this is
not thine!’”
“He shall succeed?”
He said, “He shall fail. When he runs with others they shall reach the
goal before him. For strange voices shall call to him and strange lights
shall beckon him, and he must wait and listen. And this shall be the
strangest: far off across the burning sands where, to other men, there is
only the desert’s waste, he shall see a blue sea! On that sea the sun
shines always, and the water is blue as burning amethyst, and the foam is
white on the shore. A great land rises from it, and he shall see upon the
mountain-tops burning gold.”
The mother said, “He shall reach it?”
And he smiled curiously.
She said, “It is real?”
And he said, “What IS real?”
And she looked up between his half-closed eyelids, and said, “Touch.”
And he leaned forward and laid his hand upon the sleeper, and whispered to
it, smiling; and this only she heard—“This shall be thy reward—that the
ideal shall be real to thee.”
And the child trembled; but the mother slept on heavily and her brain-picture vanished. But deep within her the antenatal thing that lay here
had a dream. In those eyes that had never seen the day, in that half-shaped brain was a sensation of light! Light—that it never had seen.
Light—that perhaps it never should see. Light—that existed somewhere!
And already it had its reward: the Ideal was real to it.
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