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diff --git a/old/27683.txt b/old/27683.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ef9544a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/27683.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3305 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of The World I Live In, by Helen Keller + + +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: The World I Live In + + +Author: Helen Keller + + + +Release Date: January 1, 2009 [eBook #27683] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORLD I LIVE IN*** + + +E-text prepared by David Clarke, Emmy, and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 27683-h.htm or 27683-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/6/8/27683/27683-h/27683-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/6/8/27683/27683-h.zip) + + + + + +THE WORLD I LIVE IN + + * * * * * + +HELEN KELLER + + + "The autobiography of Helen Keller is + unquestionably one of the most remarkable records + ever published."--_British Weekly._ + + "This book is a human document of intense + interest, and without a parallel, we suppose, in + the history of literature."--_Yorkshire Post._ + + "Miss Keller's autobiography, well written and + full of practical interest in all sides of life, + literary, artistic and social, records an + extraordinary victory over physical + disabilities."--_Times._ + + "This book is a record of the miraculous. No one + can read it without being profoundly touched by + the patience and devotion which brought the blind, + deaf-mute child into touch with human life, + without being filled with wonder at the quick + intelligence which made such communication with + the outside world possible."--_Queen._ + + _Illustrated, price 7s. 6d._ + + POPULAR EDITION, _net, 1s._ + + + The Story of My Life + + By HELEN KELLER + + * * * * * + + The Practice of Optimism + + _Cloth, net, 1s. 6d.; paper, net, 1s._ + + * * * * * + + LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON, E.C. + + * * * * * + + +[Illustration: Copyright, 1907, by The Whitman Studio + +Helen Keller in Her Study] + +THE WORLD I LIVE IN + +by + +HELEN KELLER + +Author of "The Story of My Life," Etc. + +Illustrated + + + + + + + +Hodder and Stoughton +London New York Toronto + +Copyright 1904, 1908, by The Century Co. + + + + + TO + + HENRY H. ROGERS + + MY DEAR FRIEND OF + + MANY YEARS + + + + +PREFACE + + +The essays and the poem in this book appeared originally in the "Century +Magazine," the essays under the titles "A Chat About the Hand," "Sense +and Sensibility," and "My Dreams." Mr. Gilder suggested the articles, +and I thank him for his kind interest and encouragement. But he must +also accept the responsibility which goes with my gratitude. For it is +owing to his wish and that of other editors that I talk so much about +myself. + +Every book is in a sense autobiographical. But while other +self-recording creatures are permitted at least to seem to change the +subject, apparently nobody cares what I think of the tariff, the +conservation of our natural resources, or the conflicts which revolve +about the name of Dreyfus. If I offer to reform the education system of +the world, my editorial friends say, "That is interesting. But will you +please tell us what idea you had of goodness and beauty when you were +six years old?" First they ask me to tell the life of the child who is +mother to the woman. Then they make me my own daughter and ask for an +account of grown-up sensations. Finally I am requested to write about my +dreams, and thus I become an anachronical grandmother; for it is the +special privilege of old age to relate dreams. The editors are so kind +that they are no doubt right in thinking that nothing I have to say +about the affairs of the universe would be interesting. But until they +give me opportunity to write about matters that are not-me, the world +must go on uninstructed and unreformed, and I can only do my best with +the one small subject upon which I am allowed to discourse. + +In "The Chant of Darkness" I did not intend to set up as a poet. I +thought I was writing prose, except for the magnificent passage from Job +which I was paraphrasing. But this part seemed to my friends to separate +itself from the exposition, and I made it into a kind of poem. + + H. K. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER I + PAGE + THE SEEING HAND 3 + + CHAPTER II + THE HANDS OF OTHERS 19 + + CHAPTER III + THE HAND OF THE RACE 33 + + CHAPTER IV + THE POWER OF TOUCH 45 + + CHAPTER V + THE FINER VIBRATIONS 63 + + CHAPTER VI + SMELL, THE FALLEN ANGEL 77 + + CHAPTER VII + RELATIVE VALUES OF THE SENSES 95 + + CHAPTER VIII + THE FIVE-SENSED WORLD 103 + + CHAPTER IX + INWARD VISIONS 115 + + CHAPTER X + ANALOGIES IN SENSE PERCEPTION 129 + + CHAPTER X + BEFORE THE SOUL DAWN 141 + + CHAPTER XII + THE LARGER SANCTIONS 153 + + CHAPTER XIII + THE DREAM WORLD 169 + + CHAPTER XIV + DREAMS AND REALITY 195 + + CHAPTER XV + A WAKING DREAM 209 + + A CHANT OF DARKNESS 229 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + HELEN KELLER IN HER STUDY _Frontispiece_ + + THE MEDALLION _Facing page_ 22 + + "LISTENING" TO THE TREES " " 70 + + THE LITTLE BOY NEXT DOOR " " 120 + + + + +THE SEEING HAND + + + + +I + +THE SEEING HAND + + +I HAVE just touched my dog. He was rolling on the grass, with pleasure +in every muscle and limb. I wanted to catch a picture of him in my +fingers, and I touched him as lightly as I would cobwebs; but lo, his +fat body revolved, stiffened and solidified into an upright position, +and his tongue gave my hand a lick! He pressed close to me, as if he +were fain to crowd himself into my hand. He loved it with his tail, with +his paw, with his tongue. If he could speak, I believe he would say with +me that paradise is attained by touch; for in touch is all love and +intelligence. + +This small incident started me on a chat about hands, and if my chat is +fortunate I have to thank my dog-star. In any case, it is pleasant to +have something to talk about that no one else has monopolized; it is +like making a new path in the trackless woods, blazing the trail where +no foot has pressed before. I am glad to take you by the hand and lead +you along an untrodden way into a world where the hand is supreme. But +at the very outset we encounter a difficulty. You are so accustomed to +light, I fear you will stumble when I try to guide you through the land +of darkness and silence. The blind are not supposed to be the best of +guides. Still, though I cannot warrant not to lose you, I promise that +you shall not be led into fire or water, or fall into a deep pit. If +you will follow me patiently, you will find that "there's a sound so +fine, nothing lives 'twixt it and silence," and that there is more meant +in things than meets the eye. + +My hand is to me what your hearing and sight together are to you. In +large measure we travel the same highways, read the same books, speak +the same language, yet our experiences are different. All my comings and +goings turn on the hand as on a pivot. It is the hand that binds me to +the world of men and women. The hand is my feeler with which I reach +through isolation and darkness and seize every pleasure, every activity +that my fingers encounter. With the dropping of a little word from +another's hand into mine, a slight flutter of the fingers, began the +intelligence, the joy, the fullness of my life. Like Job, I feel as if +a hand had made me, fashioned me together round about and moulded my +very soul. + +In all my experiences and thoughts I am conscious of a hand. Whatever +moves me, whatever thrills me, is as a hand that touches me in the dark, +and that touch is my reality. You might as well say that a sight which +makes you glad, or a blow which brings the stinging tears to your eyes, +is unreal as to say that those impressions are unreal which I have +accumulated by means of touch. The delicate tremble of a butterfly's +wings in my hand, the soft petals of violets curling in the cool folds +of their leaves or lifting sweetly out of the meadow-grass, the clear, +firm outline of face and limb, the smooth arch of a horse's neck and +the velvety touch of his nose--all these, and a thousand resultant +combinations, which take shape in my mind, constitute my world. + +Ideas make the world we live in, and impressions furnish ideas. My world +is built of touch-sensations, devoid of physical colour and sound; but +without colour and sound it breathes and throbs with life. Every object +is associated in my mind with tactual qualities which, combined in +countless ways, give me a sense of power, of beauty, or of incongruity: +for with my hands I can feel the comic as well as the beautiful in the +outward appearance of things. Remember that you, dependent on your +sight, do not realize how many things are tangible. All palpable things +are mobile or rigid, solid or liquid, big or small, warm or cold, and +these qualities are variously modified. The coolness of a water-lily +rounding into bloom is different from the coolness of an evening wind in +summer, and different again from the coolness of the rain that soaks +into the hearts of growing things and gives them life and body. The +velvet of the rose is not that of a ripe peach or of a baby's dimpled +cheek. The hardness of the rock is to the hardness of wood what a man's +deep bass is to a woman's voice when it is low. What I call beauty I +find in certain combinations of all these qualities, and is largely +derived from the flow of curved and straight lines which is over all +things. + +"What does the straight line mean to you?" I think you will ask. + +It _means_ several things. It symbolizes duty. It seems to have the +quality of inexorableness that duty has. When I have something to do +that must not be set aside, I feel as if I were going forward in a +straight line, bound to arrive somewhere, or go on forever without +swerving to the right or to the left. + +That is what it means. To escape this moralizing you should ask, "How +does the straight line feel?" It feels, as I suppose it looks, +straight--a dull thought drawn out endlessly. Eloquence to the touch +resides not in straight lines, but in unstraight lines, or in many +curved and straight lines together. They appear and disappear, are now +deep, now shallow, now broken off or lengthened or swelling. They rise +and sink beneath my fingers, they are full of sudden starts and pauses, +and their variety is inexhaustible and wonderful. So you see I am not +shut out from the region of the beautiful, though my hand cannot +perceive the brilliant colours in the sunset or on the mountain, or +reach into the blue depths of the sky. + +Physics tells me that I am well off in a world which, I am told, knows +neither cold nor sound, but is made in terms of size, shape, and +inherent qualities; for at least every object appears to my fingers +standing solidly right side up, and is not an inverted image on the +retina which, I understand, your brain is at infinite though unconscious +labour to set back on its feet. A tangible object passes complete into +my brain with the warmth of life upon it, and occupies the same place +that it does in space; for, without egotism, the mind is as large as the +universe. When I think of hills, I think of the upward strength I tread +upon. When water is the object of my thought, I feel the cool shock of +the plunge and the quick yielding of the waves that crisp and curl and +ripple about my body. The pleasing changes of rough and smooth, pliant +and rigid, curved and straight in the bark and branches of a tree give +the truth to my hand. The immovable rock, with its juts and warped +surface, bends beneath my fingers into all manner of grooves and +hollows. The bulge of a watermelon and the puffed-up rotundities of +squashes that sprout, bud, and ripen in that strange garden planted +somewhere behind my finger-tips are the ludicrous in my tactual memory +and imagination. My fingers are tickled to delight by the soft ripple +of a baby's laugh, and find amusement in the lusty crow of the barnyard +autocrat. Once I had a pet rooster that used to perch on my knee and +stretch his neck and crow. A bird in my hand was then worth two in +the--barnyard. + +My fingers cannot, of course, get the impression of a large whole at a +glance; but I feel the parts, and my mind puts them together. I move +around my house, touching object after object in order, before I can +form an idea of the entire house. In other people's houses I can touch +only what is shown to me--the chief objects of interest, carvings on the +wall, or a curious architectural feature, exhibited like the family +album. Therefore a house with which I am not familiar has for me, at +first, no general effect or harmony of detail. It is not a complete +conception, but a collection of object-impressions which, as they come +to me, are disconnected and isolated. But my mind is full of +associations, sensations, theories, and with them it constructs the +house. The process reminds me of the building of Solomon's temple, where +was neither saw, nor hammer, nor any tool heard while the stones were +being laid one upon another. The silent worker is imagination which +decrees reality out of chaos. + +Without imagination what a poor thing my world would be! My garden would +be a silent patch of earth strewn with sticks of a variety of shapes and +smells. But when the eye of my mind is opened to its beauty, the bare +ground brightens beneath my feet, and the hedge-row bursts into leaf, +and the rose-tree shakes its fragrance everywhere. I know how budding +trees look, and I enter into the amorous joy of the mating birds, and +this is the miracle of imagination. + +Twofold is the miracle when, through my fingers, my imagination reaches +forth and meets the imagination of an artist which he has embodied in a +sculptured form. Although, compared with the life-warm, mobile face of a +friend, the marble is cold and pulseless and unresponsive, yet it is +beautiful to my hand. Its flowing curves and bendings are a real +pleasure; only breath is wanting; but under the spell of the imagination +the marble thrills and becomes the divine reality of the ideal. +Imagination puts a sentiment into every line and curve, and the statue +in my touch is indeed the goddess herself who breathes and moves and +enchants. + +It is true, however, that some sculptures, even recognized masterpieces, +do not please my hand. When I touch what there is of the Winged Victory, +it reminds me at first of a headless, limbless dream that flies towards +me in an unrestful sleep. The garments of the Victory thrust stiffly out +behind, and do not resemble garments that I have felt flying, +fluttering, folding, spreading in the wind. But imagination fulfils +these imperfections, and straightway the Victory becomes a powerful and +spirited figure with the sweep of sea-winds in her robes and the +splendour of conquest in her wings. + +I find in a beautiful statue perfection of bodily form, the qualities of +balance and completeness. The Minerva, hung with a web of poetical +allusion, gives me a sense of exhilaration that is almost physical; and +I like the luxuriant, wavy hair of Bacchus and Apollo, and the wreath of +ivy, so suggestive of pagan holidays. + +So imagination crowns the experience of my hands. And they learned their +cunning from the wise hand of another, which, itself guided by +imagination, led me safely in paths that I knew not, made darkness light +before me, and made crooked ways straight. + + + + +THE HANDS OF OTHERS + + + + +II + +THE HANDS OF OTHERS + + +THE warmth and protectiveness of the hand are most homefelt to me who +have always looked to it for aid and joy. I understand perfectly how the +Psalmist can lift up his voice with strength and gladness, singing, "I +put my trust in the Lord at all times, and his hand shall uphold me, and +I shall dwell in safety." In the strength of the human hand, too, there +is something divine. I am told that the glance of a beloved eye thrills +one from a distance; but there is no distance in the touch of a beloved +hand. Even the letters I receive are-- + + Kind letters that betray the heart's deep history, + In which we feel the presence of a hand. + +It is interesting to observe the differences in the hands of people. +They show all kinds of vitality, energy, stillness, and cordiality. I +never realized how living the hand is until I saw those chill plaster +images in Mr. Hutton's collection of casts. The hand I know in life has +the fullness of blood in its veins, and is elastic with spirit. How +different dear Mr. Hutton's hand was from its dull, insensate image! To +me the cast lacks the very form of the hand. Of the many casts in Mr. +Hutton's collection I did not recognize any, not even my own. But a +loving hand I never forget. I remember in my fingers the large hands of +Bishop Brooks, brimful of tenderness and a strong man's joy. If you were +deaf and blind, and could have held Mr. Jefferson's hand, you would have +seen in it a face and heard a kind voice unlike any other you have +known. Mark Twain's hand is full of whimsies and the drollest humours, +and while you hold it the drollery changes to sympathy and championship. + +[Illustration: Copyright, 1907, by the Whitman Studio + +The Medallion + +The bas-relief on the wall is a portrait of the Queen Dowager of Spain, +which Her Majesty had made for Miss Keller + +To face page 22] + +I am told that the words I have just written do not "describe" the hands +of my friends, but merely endow them with the kindly human qualities +which I know they possess, and which language conveys in abstract words. +The criticism implies that I am not giving the primary truth of what I +feel; but how otherwise do descriptions in books I read, written by men +who can see, render the visible look of a face? I read that a face is +strong, gentle; that it is full of patience, of intellect; that it is +fine, sweet, noble, beautiful. Have I not the same right to use these +words in describing what I feel as you have in describing what you see? +They express truly what I feel in the hand. I am seldom conscious of +physical qualities, and I do not remember whether the fingers of a hand +are short or long, or the skin is moist or dry. No more can you, without +conscious effort, recall the details of a face, even when you have seen +it many times. If you do recall the features, and say that an eye is +blue, a chin sharp, a nose short, or a cheek sunken, I fancy that you do +not succeed well in giving the impression of the person,--not so well +as when you interpret at once to the heart the essential moral qualities +of the face--its humour, gravity, sadness, spirituality. If I should +tell you in physical terms how a hand feels, you would be no wiser for +my account than a blind man to whom you describe a face in detail. +Remember that when a blind man recovers his sight, he does not recognize +the commonest thing that has been familiar to his touch, the dearest +face intimate to his fingers, and it does not help him at all that +things and people have been described to him again and again. So you, +who are untrained of touch, do not recognize a hand by the grasp; and +so, too, any description I might give would fail to make you acquainted +with a friendly hand which my fingers have often folded about, and +which my affection translates to my memory. + +I cannot describe hands under any class or type; there is no democracy +of hands. Some hands tell me that they do everything with the maximum of +bustle and noise. Other hands are fidgety and unadvised, with nervous, +fussy fingers which indicate a nature sensitive to the little pricks of +daily life. Sometimes I recognize with foreboding the kindly but stupid +hand of one who tells with many words news that is no news. I have met a +bishop with a jocose hand, a humourist with a hand of leaden gravity, a +man of pretentious valour with a timorous hand, and a quiet, apologetic +man with a fist of iron. When I was a little girl I was taken to see[A] +a woman who was blind and paralysed. I shall never forget how she held +out her small, trembling hand and pressed sympathy into mine. My eyes +fill with tears as I think of her. The weariness, pain, darkness, and +sweet patience were all to be felt in her thin, wasted, groping, loving +hand. + +Few people who do not know me will understand, I think, how much I get +of the mood of a friend who is engaged in oral conversation with +somebody else. My hand follows his motions; I touch his hand, his arm, +his face. I can tell when he is full of glee over a good joke which has +not been repeated to me, or when he is telling a lively story. One of +my friends is rather aggressive, and his hand always announces the +coming of a dispute. By his impatient jerk I know he has argument ready +for some one. I have felt him start as a sudden recollection or a new +idea shot through his mind. I have felt grief in his hand. I have felt +his soul wrap itself in darkness majestically as in a garment. Another +friend has positive, emphatic hands which show great pertinacity of +opinion. She is the only person I know who emphasizes her spelled words +and accents them as she emphasizes and accents her spoken words when I +read her lips. I like this varied emphasis better than the monotonous +pound of unmodulated people who hammer their meaning into my palm. + +Some hands, when they clasp yours, beam and bubble over with gladness. +They throb and expand with life. Strangers have clasped my hand like +that of a long-lost sister. Other people shake hands with me as if with +the fear that I may do them mischief. Such persons hold out civil +finger-tips which they permit you to touch, and in the moment of +contract they retreat, and inwardly you hope that you will not be called +upon again to take that hand of "dormouse valour." It betokens a prudish +mind, ungracious pride, and not seldom mistrust. It is the antipode to +the hand of those who have large, lovable natures. + +The handshake of some people makes you think of accident and sudden +death. Contrast this ill-boding hand with the quick, skilful, quiet hand +of a nurse whom I remember with affection because she took the best +care of my teacher. I have clasped the hands of some rich people that +spin not and toil not, and yet are not beautiful. Beneath their soft, +smooth roundness what a chaos of undeveloped character! + +I am sure there is no hand comparable to the physician's in patient +skill, merciful gentleness and splendid certainty. No wonder that Ruskin +finds in the sure strokes of the surgeon the perfection of control and +delicate precision for the artist to emulate. If the physician is a man +of great nature, there will be healing for the spirit in his touch. This +magic touch of well-being was in the hand of a dear friend of mine who +was our doctor in sickness and health. His happy cordial spirit did his +patients good whether they needed medicine or not. + +As there are many beauties of the face, so the beauties of the hand are +many. Touch has its ecstasies. The hands of people of strong +individuality and sensitiveness are wonderfully mobile. In a glance of +their finger-tips they express many shades of thought. Now and again I +touch a fine, graceful, supple-wristed hand which spells with the same +beauty and distinction that you must see in the handwriting of some +highly cultivated people. I wish you could see how prettily little +children spell in my hand. They are wild flowers of humanity, and their +finger motions wild flowers of speech. + +All this is my private science of palmistry, and when I tell your +fortune it is by no mysterious intuition or gipsy witchcraft, but by +natural, explicable recognition of the embossed character in your hand. +Not only is the hand as easy to recognize as the face, but it reveals +its secrets more openly and unconsciously. People control their +countenances, but the hand is under no such restraint. It relaxes and +becomes listless when the spirit is low and dejected; the muscles +tighten when the mind is excited or the heart glad; and permanent +qualities stand written on it all the time. + +FOOTNOTE: + +[A] The excellent proof-reader has put a query to my use of the word +"see." If I had said "visit," he would have asked no questions, yet what +does "visit" mean but "see" (_visitare_)? Later I will try to defend +myself for using as much of the English language as I have succeeded in +learning. + + + + +THE HAND OF THE RACE + + + + +III + +THE HAND OF THE RACE + + +LOOK in your "Century Dictionary," or if you are blind, ask your teacher +to do it for you, and learn how many idioms are made on the idea of +hand, and how many words are formed from the Latin root _manus_--enough +words to name all the essential affairs of life. "Hand," with quotations +and compounds, occupies twenty-four columns, eight pages of this +dictionary. The hand is defined as "the organ of apprehension." How +perfectly the definition fits my case in both senses of the word +"apprehend"! With my hand I seize and hold all that I find in the three +worlds--physical, intellectual, and spiritual. + +Think how man has regarded the world in terms of the hand. All life is +divided between what lies _on one hand_ and on the other. The products +of skill are _manu_factures. The conduct of affairs is _man_agement. +History seems to be the record--alas for our chronicles of war!--of the +_man_oeuvres of armies. But the history of peace, too, the narrative of +labour in the field, the forest, and the vineyard, is written in the +victorious sign _manual_--the sign of the hand that has conquered the +wilderness. The labourer himself is called a _hand_. In _man_acle and +_manu_mission we read the story of human slavery and freedom. + +The minor idioms are myriad; but I will not recall too many, lest you +cry, "Hands off!" I cannot desist, however, from this word-game until I +have set down a few. Whatever is not one's own by first possession is +_second-hand_. That is what I am told my knowledge is. But my +well-meaning friends come to my defence, and, not content with endowing +me with natural _first-hand_ knowledge which is rightfully mine, ascribe +to me a preternatural sixth sense and credit to miracles and heaven-sent +compensations all that I have won and discovered with my good right +hand. And with my left hand too; for with that I read, and it is as true +and honourable as the other. By what half-development of human power has +the left hand been neglected? When we arrive at the acme of civilization +shall we not all be ambidextrous, and in our _hand-to-hand_ contests +against difficulties shall we not be doubly triumphant? It occurs to me, +by the way, that when my teacher was training my unreclaimed spirit, her +struggle against the powers of darkness, with the stout arm of +discipline and the light of the manual alphabet, was in two senses a +hand-to-hand conflict. + +No essay would be complete without quotations from Shakspere. In the +field which, in the presumption of my youth, I thought was my own he has +reaped before me. In almost every play there are passages where the hand +plays a part. Lady Macbeth's heart-broken soliloquy over her little +hand, from which all the perfumes of Arabia will not wash the stain, is +the most pitiful moment in the tragedy. Mark Antony rewards Scarus, the +bravest of his soldiers, by asking Cleopatra to give him her hand: +"Commend unto his lips thy favouring hand." In a different mood he is +enraged because Thyreus, whom he despises, has presumed to kiss the hand +of the queen, "my playfellow, the kingly seal of high hearts." When +Cleopatra is threatened with the humiliation of gracing Caesar's triumph, +she snatches a dagger, exclaiming, "I will trust my resolution and my +good hands." With the same swift instinct, Cassius trusts to his hands +when he stabs Caesar: "Speak, hands, for me!" "Let me kiss your hand," +says the blind Gloster to Lear. "Let me wipe it first," replies the +broken old king; "it smells of mortality." How charged is this single +touch with sad meaning! How it opens our eyes to the fearful purging +Lear has undergone, to learn that royalty is no defence against +ingratitude and cruelty! Gloster's exclamation about his son, "Did I but +live to see thee in my touch, I'd say I had eyes again," is as true to a +pulse within me as the grief he feels. The ghost in "Hamlet" recites the +wrongs from which springs the tragedy: + + Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand. + At once of life, of crown, of queen dispatch'd. + +How that passage in "Othello" stops your breath--that passage full of +bitter double intention in which Othello's suspicion tips with evil what +he says about Desdemona's hand; and she in innocence answers only the +innocent meaning of his words: "For 'twas that hand that gave away my +heart." + +Not all Shakspere's great passages about the hand are tragic. Remember +the light play of words in "Romeo and Juliet" where the dialogue, flying +nimbly back and forth, weaves a pretty sonnet about the hand. And who +knows the hand, if not the lover? + +The touch of the hand is in every chapter of the Bible. Why, you could +almost rewrite Exodus as the story of the hand. Everything is done by +the hand of the Lord and of Moses. The oppression of the Hebrews is +translated thus: "The hand of Pharaoh was heavy upon the Hebrews." Their +departure out of the land is told in these vivid words: "The Lord +brought the children of Israel out of the house of bondage with a strong +hand and a stretched-out arm." At the stretching out of the hand of +Moses the waters of the Red Sea part and stand all on a heap. When the +Lord lifts his hand in anger, thousands perish in the wilderness. Every +act, every decree in the history of Israel, as indeed in the history of +the human race, is sanctioned by the hand. Is it not used in the great +moments of swearing, blessing, cursing, smiting, agreeing, marrying, +building, destroying? Its sacredness is in the law that no sacrifice is +valid unless the sacrificer lay his hand upon the head of the victim. +The congregation lay their hands on the heads of those who are sentenced +to death. How terrible the dumb condemnation of their hands must be to +the condemned! When Moses builds the altar on Mount Sinai, he is +commanded to use no tool, but rear it with his own hands. Earth, sea, +sky, man, and all lower animals are holy unto the Lord because he has +formed them with his hand. When the Psalmist considers the heavens and +the earth, he exclaims: "What is man, O Lord, that thou art mindful of +him? For thou hast made him to have dominion over the works of thy +hands." The supplicating gesture of the hand always accompanies the +spoken prayer, and with clean hands goes the pure heart. + +Christ comforted and blessed and healed and wrought many miracles with +his hands. He touched the eyes of the blind, and they were opened. When +Jairus sought him, overwhelmed with grief, Jesus went and laid his hands +on the ruler's daughter, and she awoke from the sleep of death to her +father's love. You also remember how he healed the crooked woman. He +said to her, "Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity," and he laid +his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she +glorified God. + +Look where we will, we find the hand in time and history, working, +building, inventing, bringing civilization out of barbarism. The hand +symbolizes power and the excellence of work. The mechanic's hand, that +minister of elemental forces, the hand that hews, saws, cuts, builds, is +useful in the world equally with the delicate hand that paints a wild +flower or moulds a Grecian urn, or the hand of a statesman that writes a +law. The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of thee." Blessed +be the hand! Thrice blessed be the hands that work! + + + + +THE POWER OF TOUCH + + + + +IV + +THE POWER OF TOUCH + + +SOME months ago, in a newspaper which announced the publication of the +"Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind," appeared the following +paragraph: + +"Many poems and stories must be omitted because they deal with sight. +Allusion to moonbeams, rainbows, starlight, clouds, and beautiful +scenery may not be printed, because they serve to emphasize the blind +man's sense of his affliction." + +That is to say, I may not talk about beautiful mansions and gardens +because I am poor. I may not read about Paris and the West Indies +because I cannot visit them in their territorial reality. I may not +dream of heaven because it is possible that I may never go there. Yet a +venturesome spirit impels me to use words of sight and sound whose +meaning I can guess only from analogy and fancy. This hazardous game is +half the delight, the frolic, of daily life. I glow as I read of +splendours which the eye alone can survey. Allusions to moonbeams and +clouds do not emphasize the sense of my affliction: they carry my soul +beyond affliction's narrow actuality. + +Critics delight to tell us what we cannot do. They assume that blindness +and deafness sever us completely from the things which the seeing and +the hearing enjoy, and hence they assert we have no moral right to talk +about beauty, the skies, mountains, the song of birds, and colours. They +declare that the very sensations we have from the sense of touch are +"vicarious," as though our friends felt the sun for us! They deny _a +priori_ what they have not seen and I have felt. Some brave doubters +have gone so far even as to deny my existence. In order, therefore, that +I may know that I exist, I resort to Descartes's method: "I think, +therefore I am." Thus I am metaphysically established, and I throw upon +the doubters the burden of proving my non-existence. When we consider +how little has been found out about the mind, is it not amazing that any +one should presume to define what one can know or cannot know? I admit +that there are innumerable marvels in the visible universe unguessed by +me. Likewise, O confident critic, there are a myriad sensations +perceived by me of which you do not dream. + +Necessity gives to the eye a precious power of seeing, and in the same +way it gives a precious power of feeling to the whole body. Sometimes it +seems as if the very substance of my flesh were so many eyes looking out +at will upon a world new created every day. The silence and darkness +which are said to shut me in, open my door most hospitably to countless +sensations that distract, inform, admonish, and amuse. With my three +trusty guides, touch, smell, and taste, I make many excursions into the +borderland of experience which is in sight of the city of Light. Nature +accommodates itself to every man's necessity. If the eye is maimed, so +that it does not see the beauteous face of day, the touch becomes more +poignant and discriminating. Nature proceeds through practice to +strengthen and augment the remaining senses. For this reason the blind +often hear with greater ease and distinctness than other people. The +sense of smell becomes almost a new faculty to penetrate the tangle and +vagueness of things. Thus, according to an immutable law, the senses +assist and reinforce one another. + +It is not for me to say whether we see best with the hand or the eye. I +only know that the world I see with my fingers is alive, ruddy, and +satisfying. Touch brings the blind many sweet certainties which our more +fortunate fellows miss, because their sense of touch is uncultivated. +When they look at things, they put their hands in their pockets. No +doubt that is one reason why their knowledge is often so vague, +inaccurate, and useless. It is probable, too, that our knowledge of +phenomena beyond the reach of the hand is equally imperfect. But, at all +events, we behold them through a golden mist of fantasy. + +There is nothing, however, misty or uncertain about what we can touch. +Through the sense of touch I know the faces of friends, the illimitable +variety of straight and curved lines, all surfaces, the exuberance of +the soil, the delicate shapes of flowers, the noble forms of trees, and +the range of mighty winds. Besides objects, surfaces, and atmospherical +changes, I perceive countless vibrations. I derive much knowledge of +everyday matter from the jars and jolts which are to be felt everywhere +in the house. + +Footsteps, I discover, vary tactually according to the age, the sex, and +the manners of the walker. It is impossible to mistake a child's patter +for the tread of a grown person. The step of the young man, strong and +free, differs from the heavy, sedate tread of the middle-aged, and from +the step of the old man, whose feet drag along the floor, or beat it +with slow, faltering accents. On a bare floor a girl walks with a rapid, +elastic rhythm which is quite distinct from the graver step of the +elderly woman. I have laughed over the creak of new shoes and the +clatter of a stout maid performing a jig in the kitchen. One day, in the +dining-room of an hotel, a tactual dissonance arrested my attention. I +sat still and listened with my feet. I found that two waiters were +walking back and forth, but not with the same gait. A band was playing, +and I could feel the music-waves along the floor. One of the waiters +walked in time to the band, graceful and light, while the other +disregarded the music and rushed from table to table to the beat of some +discord in his own mind. Their steps reminded me of a spirited war-steed +harnessed with a cart-horse. + +Often footsteps reveal in some measure the character and the mood of the +walker. I feel in them firmness and indecision, hurry and deliberation, +activity and laziness, fatigue, carelessness, timidity, anger, and +sorrow. I am most conscious of these moods and traits in persons with +whom I am familiar. + +Footsteps are frequently interrupted by certain jars and jerks, so that +I know when one kneels, kicks, shakes something, sits down, or gets up. +Thus I follow to some extent the actions of people about me and the +changes of their postures. Just now a thick, soft patter of bare, padded +feet and a slight jolt told me that my dog had jumped on the chair to +look out of the window. I do not, however, allow him to go +uninvestigated; for occasionally I feel the same motion, and find him, +not on the chair, but trespassing on the sofa. + +When a carpenter works in the house or in the barn near by, I know by +the slanting, up-and-down, toothed vibration, and the ringing concussion +of blow upon blow, that he is sawing or hammering. If I am near enough, +a certain vibration, travelling back and forth along a wooden surface, +brings me the information that he is using a plane. + +A slight flutter on the rug tells me that a breeze has blown my papers +off the table. A round thump is a signal that a pencil has rolled on the +floor. If a book falls, it gives a flat thud. A wooden rap on the +balustrade announces that dinner is ready. Many of these vibrations are +obliterated out of doors. On a lawn or the road, I can feel only +running, stamping, and the rumble of wheels. + +By placing my hand on a person's lips and throat, I gain an idea of many +specific vibrations, and interpret them: a boy's chuckle, a man's +"Whew!" of surprise, the "Hem!" of annoyance or perplexity, the moan of +pain, a scream, a whisper, a rasp, a sob, a choke, and a gasp. The +utterances of animals, though wordless, are eloquent to me--the cat's +purr, its mew, its angry, jerky, scolding spit; the dog's bow-wow of +warning or of joyous welcome, its yelp of despair, and its contented +snore; the cow's moo; a monkey's chatter; the snort of a horse; the +lion's roar, and the terrible snarl of the tiger. Perhaps I ought to +add, for the benefit of the critics and doubters who may peruse this +essay, that with my own hands I have felt all these sounds. From my +childhood to the present day I have availed myself of every opportunity +to visit zoological gardens, menageries, and the circus, and all the +animals, except the tiger, have talked into my hand. I have touched the +tiger only in a museum, where he is as harmless as a lamb. I have, +however, heard him talk by putting my hand on the bars of his cage. I +have touched several lions in the flesh, and felt them roar royally, +like a cataract over rocks. + +To continue, I know the _plop_ of liquid in a pitcher. So if I spill my +milk, I have not the excuse of ignorance. I am also familiar with the +pop of a cork, the sputter of a flame, the tick-tack of the clock, the +metallic swing of the windmill, the laboured rise and fall of the pump, +the voluminous spurt of the hose, the deceptive tap of the breeze at +door and window, and many other vibrations past computing. + +There are tactual vibrations which do not belong to skin-touch. They +penetrate the skin, the nerves, the bones, like pain, heat, and cold. +The beat of a drum smites me through from the chest to the +shoulder-blades. The din of the train, the bridge, and grinding +machinery retains its "old-man-of-the-sea" grip upon me long after its +cause has been left behind. If vibration and motion combine in my touch +for any length of time, the earth seems to run away while I stand still. +When I step off the train, the platform whirls round, and I find it +difficult to walk steadily. + +Every atom of my body is a vibroscope. But my sensations are not +infallible. I reach out, and my fingers meet something furry, which +jumps about, gathers itself together as if to spring, and acts like an +animal. I pause a moment for caution. I touch it again more firmly, and +find it is a fur coat fluttering and flapping in the wind. To me, as to +you, the earth seems motionless, and the sun appears to move; for the +rays of the afternoon withdraw more and more, as they touch my face, +until the air becomes cool. From this I understand how it is that the +shore seems to recede as you sail away from it. Hence I feel no +incredulity when you say that parallel lines appear to converge, and the +earth and sky to meet. My few senses long ago revealed to me their +imperfections and deceptivity. + +Not only are the senses deceptive, but numerous usages in our language +indicate that people who have five senses find it difficult to keep +their functions distinct. I understand that we hear views, see tones, +taste music. I am told that voices have colour. Tact, which I have +supposed to be a matter of nice perception, turns out to be a matter of +taste. Judging from the large use of the word, taste appears to be the +most important of all the senses. Taste governs the great and small +conventions of life. Certainly the language of the senses is full of +contradictions, and my fellows who have five doors to their house are +not more surely at home in themselves than I. May I not, then, be +excused if this account of my sensations lacks precision? + + + + +THE FINER VIBRATIONS + + + + +V + +THE FINER VIBRATIONS + + +I HAVE spoken of the numerous jars and jolts which daily minister to my +faculties. The loftier and grander vibrations which appeal to my +emotions are varied and abundant. I listen with awe to the roll of the +thunder and the muffled avalanche of sound when the sea flings itself +upon the shore. And I love the instrument by which all the diapasons of +the ocean are caught and released in surging floods--the many-voiced +organ. If music could be seen, I could point where the organ-notes go, +as they rise and fall, climb up and up, rock and sway, now loud and +deep, now high and stormy, anon soft and solemn, with lighter +vibrations interspersed between and running across them. I should say +that organ-music fills to an ecstasy the act of feeling. + +There is tangible delight in other instruments, too. The violin seems +beautifully alive as it responds to the lightest wish of the master. The +distinction between its notes is more delicate than between the notes of +the piano. + +I enjoy the music of the piano most when I touch the instrument. If I +keep my hand on the piano-case, I detect tiny quavers, returns of +melody, and the hush that follows. This explains to me how sound can die +away to the listening ear: + + . . . How thin and clear, + And thinner, clearer, farther going! + O sweet and far from cliff and scar + The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! + +I am able to follow the dominant spirit and mood of the music. I catch +the joyous dance as it bounds over the keys, the slow dirge, the +reverie. I thrill to the fiery sweep of notes crossed by thunderous +tones in the "Walkuere," where _Wotan_ kindles the dread flames that +guard the sleeping _Brunhild_. How wonderful is the instrument on which +a great musician sings with his hands! I have never succeeded in +distinguishing one composition from another. I think this is impossible; +but the concentration and strain upon my attention would be so great +that I doubt if the pleasure derived would be commensurate to the +effort. + +Nor can I distinguish easily a tune that is sung. But by placing my hand +on another's throat and cheek, I enjoy the changes of the voice. I know +when it is low or high, clear or muffled, sad or cheery. The thin, +quavering sensation of an old voice differs in my touch from the +sensation of a young voice. A Southerner's drawl is quite unlike the +Yankee twang. Sometimes the flow and ebb of a voice is so enchanting +that my fingers quiver with exquisite pleasure, even if I do not +understand a word that is spoken. + +On the other hand, I am exceedingly sensitive to the harshness of noises +like grinding, scraping, and the hoarse creak of rusty locks. +Fog-whistles are my vibratory nightmares. I have stood near a bridge in +process of construction, and felt the tactual din, the rattle of heavy +masses of stone, the roll of loosened earth, the rumble of engines, the +dumping of dirt-cars, the triple blows of vulcan hammers. I can also +smell the fire-pots, the tar and cement. So I have a vivid idea of +mighty labours in steel and stone, and I believe that I am acquainted +with all the fiendish noises which can be made by man or machinery. The +whack of heavy falling bodies, the sudden shivering splinter of chopped +logs, the crystal shatter of pounded ice, the crash of a tree hurled to +the earth by a hurricane, the irrational, persistent chaos of noise made +by switching freight-trains, the explosion of gas, the blasting of +stone, and the terrific grinding of rock upon rock which precedes the +collapse--all these have been in my touch-experience, and contribute to +my idea of Bedlam, of a battle, a waterspout, an earthquake, and other +enormous accumulations of sound. + +Touch brings me into contact with the traffic and manifold activity of +the city. Besides the bustle and crowding of people and the nondescript +grating and electric howling of street-cars, I am conscious of +exhalations from many different kinds of shops; from automobiles, drays, +horses, fruit stands, and many varieties of smoke. + + Odours strange and musty, + The air sharp and dusty + With lime and with sand, + That no one can stand, + Make the street impassable, + The people irascible, + Until every one cries, + As he trembling goes + With the sight of his eyes + And the scent of his nose + Quite stopped--or at least much diminished-- + "Gracious! when will this city be finished?"[B] + + +[Illustration: Copyright, 1907, by The Whitman Studio + +"Listening" to the Trees + +To face page 70] + +The city is interesting; but the tactual silence of the country is +always most welcome after the din of town and the irritating concussions +of the train. How noiseless and undisturbing are the demolition, the +repairs and the alterations, of nature! With no sound of hammer or saw +or stone severed from stone, but a music of rustles and ripe thumps on +the grass come the fluttering leaves and mellow fruits which the wind +tumbles all day from the branches. Silently all droops, all withers, all +is poured back into the earth that it may recreate; all sleeps while the +busy architects of day and night ply their silent work elsewhere. The +same serenity reigns when all at once the soil yields up a newly wrought +creation. Softly the ocean of grass, moss, and flowers rolls surge upon +surge across the earth. Curtains of foliage drape the bare branches. +Great trees make ready in their sturdy hearts to receive again birds +which occupy their spacious chambers to the south and west. Nay, there +is no place so lowly that it may not lodge some happy creature. The +meadow brook undoes its icy fetters with rippling notes, gurgles, and +runs free. And all this is wrought in less than two months to the music +of nature's orchestra, in the midst of balmy incense. + +The thousand soft voices of the earth have truly found their way to +me--the small rustle in tufts of grass, the silky swish of leaves, the +buzz of insects, the hum of bees in blossoms I have plucked, the flutter +of a bird's wings after his bath, and the slender rippling vibration +of water running over pebbles. Once having been felt, these loved voices +rustle, buzz, hum, flutter, and ripple in my thought forever, an undying +part of happy memories. + +Between my experiences and the experiences of others there is no gulf of +mute space which I may not bridge. For I have endlessly varied, +instructive contacts with all the world, with life, with the atmosphere +whose radiant activity enfolds us all. The thrilling energy of the +all-encasing air is warm and rapturous. Heat-waves and sound-waves play +upon my face in infinite variety and combination, until I am able to +surmise what must be the myriad sounds that my senseless ears have not +heard. + +The air varies in different regions, at different seasons of the year, +and even different hours of the day. The odorous, fresh sea-breezes are +distinct from the fitful breezes along river banks, which are humid and +freighted with inland smells. The bracing, light, dry air of the +mountains can never be mistaken for the pungent salt air of the ocean. +The air of winter is dense, hard, compressed. In the spring it has new +vitality. It is light, mobile, and laden with a thousand palpitating +odours from earth, grass, and sprouting leaves. The air of midsummer is +dense, saturated, or dry and burning, as if it came from a furnace. When +a cool breeze brushes the sultry stillness, it brings fewer odours than +in May, and frequently the odour of a coming tempest. The avalanche of +coolness which sweeps through the low-hanging air bears little +resemblance to the stinging coolness of winter. + +The rain of winter is raw, without odour, and dismal. The rain of spring +is brisk, fragrant, charged with life-giving warmth. I welcome it +delightedly as it visits the earth, enriches the streams, waters the +hills abundantly, makes the furrows soft with showers for the seed, +elicits a perfume which I cannot breathe deep enough. Spring rain is +beautiful, impartial, lovable. With pearly drops it washes every leaf on +tree and bush, ministers equally to salutary herbs and noxious growths, +searches out every living thing that needs its beneficence. + +The senses assist and reinforce each other to such an extent that I am +not sure whether touch or smell tells me the most about the world. +Everywhere the river of touch is joined by the brooks of +odour-perception. Each season has its distinctive odours. The spring is +earthy and full of sap. July is rich with the odour of ripening grain +and hay. As the season advances, a crisp, dry, mature odour +predominates, and golden-rod, tansy, and everlastings mark the onward +march of the year. In autumn, soft, alluring scents fill the air, +floating from thicket, grass, flower, and tree, and they tell me of time +and change, of death and life's renewal, desire and its fulfilment. + +FOOTNOTE: + +[B] George Arnold. + + + + +SMELL, THE FALLEN ANGEL + + + + +VI + +SMELL, THE FALLEN ANGEL + + +FOR some inexplicable reason the sense of smell does not hold the high +position it deserves among its sisters. There is something of the fallen +angel about it. When it woos us with woodland scents and beguiles us +with the fragrance of lovely gardens, it is admitted frankly to our +discourse. But when it gives us warning of something noxious in our +vicinity, it is treated as if the demon had got the upper hand of the +angel, and is relegated to outer darkness, punished for its faithful +service. It is most difficult to keep the true significance of words +when one discusses the prejudices of mankind, and I find it hard to give +an account of odour-perceptions which shall be at once dignified and +truthful. + +In my experience smell is most important, and I find that there is high +authority for the nobility of the sense which we have neglected and +disparaged. It is recorded that the Lord commanded that incense be burnt +before him continually with a sweet savour. I doubt if there is any +sensation arising from sight more delightful than the odours which +filter through sun-warmed, wind-tossed branches, or the tide of scents +which swells, subsides, rises again wave on wave, filling the wide world +with invisible sweetness. A whiff of the universe makes us dream of +worlds we have never seen, recalls in a flash entire epochs of our +dearest experience. I never smell daisies without living over again the +ecstatic mornings that my teacher and I spent wandering in the fields, +while I learned new words and the names of things. Smell is a potent +wizard that transports us across a thousand miles and all the years we +have lived. The odour of fruits wafts me to my Southern home, to my +childish frolics in the peach orchard. Other odours, instantaneous and +fleeting, cause my heart to dilate joyously or contract with remembered +grief. Even as I think of smells, my nose is full of scents that start +awake sweet memories of summers gone and ripening grain fields far away. + +The faintest whiff from a meadow where the new-mown hay lies in the hot +sun displaces the here and the now. I am back again in the old red barn. +My little friends and I are playing in the haymow. A huge mow it is, +packed with crisp, sweet hay, from the top of which the smallest child +can reach the straining rafters. In their stalls beneath are the farm +animals. Here is Jerry, unresponsive, unbeautiful Jerry, crunching his +oats like a true pessimist, resolved to find his feed not good--at least +not so good as it ought to be. Again I touch Brownie, eager, grateful +little Brownie, ready to leave the juiciest fodder for a pat, straining +his beautiful, slender neck for a caress. Near by stands Lady Belle, +with sweet, moist mouth, lazily extracting the sealed-up cordial from +timothy and clover, and dreaming of deep June pastures and murmurous +streams. + +The sense of smell has told me of a coming storm hours before there was +any sign of it visible. I notice first a throb of expectancy, a slight +quiver, a concentration in my nostrils. As the storm draws nearer, my +nostrils dilate the better to receive the flood of earth-odours which +seem to multiply and extend, until I feel the splash of rain against my +cheek. As the tempest departs, receding farther and farther, the odours +fade, become fainter and fainter, and die away beyond the bar of space. + +I know by smell the kind of house we enter. I have recognized an +old-fashioned country house because it has several layers of odours, +left by a succession of families, of plants, perfumes, and draperies. + +In the evening quiet there are fewer vibrations than in the daytime, and +then I rely more largely upon smell. The sulphuric scent of a match +tells me that the lamps are being lighted. Later I note the wavering +trail of odour that flits about and disappears. It is the curfew signal; +the lights are out for the night. + +Out of doors I am aware by smell and touch of the ground we tread and +the places we pass. Sometimes, when there is no wind, the odours are so +grouped that I know the character of the country, and can place a +hayfield, a country store, a garden, a barn, a grove of pines, a +farmhouse with the windows open. + +The other day I went to walk toward a familiar wood. Suddenly a +disturbing odour made me pause in dismay. Then followed a peculiar, +measured jar, followed by dull, heavy thunder. I understood the odour +and the jar only too well. The trees were being cut down. We climbed the +stone wall to the left. It borders the wood which I have loved so long +that it seems to be my peculiar possession. But to-day an unfamiliar +rush of air and an unwonted outburst of sun told me that my tree friends +were gone. The place was empty, like a deserted dwelling. I stretched +out my hand. Where once stood the steadfast pines, great, beautiful, +sweet, my hand touched raw, moist stumps. All about lay broken branches, +like the antlers of stricken deer. The fragrant, piled-up sawdust +swirled and tumbled about me. An unreasoning resentment flashed through +me at this ruthless destruction of the beauty that I love. But there is +no anger, no resentment in nature. The air is equally charged with the +odours of life and of destruction, for death equally with growth forever +ministers to all-conquering life. The sun shines as ever, and the winds +riot through the newly opened spaces. I know that a new forest will +spring where the old one stood, as beautiful, as beneficent. + +Touch sensations are permanent and definite. Odours deviate and are +fugitive, changing in their shades, degrees, and location. There is +something else in odour which gives me a sense of distance. I should +call it horizon--the line where odour and fancy meet at the farthest +limit of scent. + +Smell gives me more idea than touch or taste of the manner in which +sight and hearing probably discharge their functions. Touch seems to +reside in the object touched, because there is a contact of surfaces. In +smell there is no notion of relievo, and odour seems to reside not in +the object smelt, but in the organ. Since I smell a tree at a distance, +it is comprehensible to me that a person sees it without touching it. I +am not puzzled over the fact that he receives it as an image on his +retina without relievo, since my smell perceives the tree as a thin +sphere with no fullness or content. By themselves, odours suggest +nothing. I must learn by association to judge from them of distance, of +place, and of the actions or the surroundings which are the usual +occasions for them, just as I am told people judge from colour, light, +and sound. + +From exhalations I learn much about people. I often know the work they +are engaged in. The odours of wood, iron, paint, and drugs cling to the +garments of those that work in them. Thus I can distinguish the +carpenter from the ironworker, the artist from the mason or the chemist. +When a person passes quickly from one place to another I get a scent +impression of where he has been--the kitchen, the garden, or the +sick-room. I gain pleasurable ideas of freshness and good taste from the +odours of soap, toilet water, clean garments, woollen and silk stuffs, +and gloves. + +I have not, indeed, the all-knowing scent of the hound or the wild +animal. None but the halt and the blind need fear my skill in pursuit; +for there are other things besides water, stale trails, confusing cross +tracks to put me at fault. Nevertheless, human odours are as varied and +capable of recognition as hands and faces. The dear odours of those I +love are so definite, so unmistakable, that nothing can quite obliterate +them. If many years should elapse before I saw an intimate friend again, +I think I should recognize his odour instantly in the heart of Africa, +as promptly as would my brother that barks. + +Once, long ago, in a crowded railway station, a lady kissed me as she +hurried by. I had not touched even her dress. But she left a scent with +her kiss which gave me a glimpse of her. The years are many since she +kissed me. Yet her odour is fresh in my memory. + +It is difficult to put into words the thing itself, the elusive +person-odour. There seems to be no adequate vocabulary of smells, and I +must fall back on approximate phrase and metaphor. + +Some people have a vague, unsubstantial odour that floats about, mocking +every effort to identify it. It is the will-o'-the-wisp of my olfactive +experience. Sometimes I meet one who lacks a distinctive person-scent, +and I seldom find such a one lively or entertaining. On the other hand, +one who has a pungent odour often possesses great vitality, energy, and +vigour of mind. + +Masculine exhalations are as a rule stronger, more vivid, more widely +differentiated than those of women. In the odour of young men there is +something elemental, as of fire, storm, and salt sea. It pulsates with +buoyancy and desire. It suggests all things strong and beautiful and +joyous, and gives me a sense of physical happiness. I wonder if others +observe that all infants have the same scent--pure, simple, +undecipherable as their dormant personality. It is not until the age of +six or seven that they begin to have perceptible individual odours. +These develop and mature along with their mental and bodily powers. + +What I have written about smell, especially person-smell, will perhaps +be regarded as the abnormal sentiment of one who can have no idea of the +"world of reality and beauty which the eye perceives." There are people +who are colour-blind, people who are tone-deaf. Most people are +smell-blind-and-deaf. We should not condemn a musical composition on the +testimony of an ear which cannot distinguish one chord from another, or +judge a picture by the verdict of a colour-blind critic. The sensations +of smell which cheer, inform, and broaden my life are not less pleasant +merely because some critic who treads the wide, bright pathway of the +eye has not cultivated his olfactive sense. Without the shy, fugitive, +often unobserved sensations and the certainties which taste, smell, and +touch give me, I should be obliged to take my conception of the universe +wholly from others. I should lack the alchemy by which I now infuse into +my world light, colour, and the Protean spark. The sensuous reality +which interthreads and supports all the gropings of my imagination would +be shattered. The solid earth would melt from under my feet and disperse +itself in space. The objects dear to my hands would become formless, +dead things, and I should walk among them as among invisible ghosts. + + + + +RELATIVE VALUES OF THE SENSES + + + + +VII + +RELATIVE VALUES OF THE SENSES + + +I WAS once without the sense of smell and taste for several days. It +seemed incredible, this utter detachment from odours, to breathe the air +in and observe never a single scent. The feeling was probably similar, +though less in degree, to that of one who first loses sight and cannot +but expect to see the light again any day, any minute. I knew I should +smell again some time. Still, after the wonder had passed off, a +loneliness crept over me as vast as the air whose myriad odours I +missed. The multitudinous subtle delights that smell makes mine became +for a time wistful memories. When I recovered the lost sense, my heart +bounded with gladness. It is a fine dramatic touch that Hans Andersen +gives to the story of Kay and Gerda in the passage about flowers. Kay, +whom the wicked magician's glass has blinded to human love, rushes away +fiercely from home when he discovers that the roses have lost their +sweetness. + +The loss of smell for a few days gave me a clearer idea than I had ever +had what it is to be blinded suddenly, helplessly. With a little stretch +of the imagination I knew then what it must be when the great curtain +shuts out suddenly the light of day, the stars, and the firmament +itself. I see the blind man's eyes strain for the light, as he fearfully +tries to walk his old rounds, until the unchanging blank that +everywhere spreads before him stamps the reality of the dark upon his +consciousness. + +My temporary loss of smell proved to me, too, that the absence of a +sense need not dull the mental faculties and does not distort one's view +of the world, and so I reason that blindness and deafness need not +pervert the inner order of the intellect. I know that if there were no +odours for me I should still possess a considerable part of the world. +Novelties and surprises would abound, adventures would thicken in the +dark. + +In my classification of the senses, smell is a little the ear's +inferior, and touch is a great deal the eye's superior. I find that +great artists and philosophers agree with me in this. Diderot says: + + Je trouvais que de tous les sens, l'oeil etait le + plus superficiel; l'oreille, le plus orgueilleux; + l'odorat, le plus voluptueux; le gout, le plus + superstitieux et le plus inconstant; le toucher, + le plus profond et le plus philosophe.[C] + +A friend whom I have never seen sends me a quotation from Symonds's +"Renaissance in Italy": + + Lorenzo Ghiberti, after describing a piece of + antique sculpture he saw in Rome adds, "To express + the perfection of learning, mastery, and art + displayed in it is beyond the power of language. + Its more exquisite beauties could not be + discovered by the sight, but only by the touch of + the hand passed over it." Of another classic + marble at Padua he says, "This statue, when the + Christian faith triumphed, was hidden in that + place by some gentle soul, who, seeing it so + perfect, fashioned with art so wonderful, and with + such power of genius, and being moved to reverent + pity, caused a sepulchre of bricks to be built, + and there within buried the statue, and covered it + with a broad slab of stone, that it might not in + any way be injured. It has very many sweet + beauties which the eyes alone can comprehend not, + either by strong or tempered light; only the hand + by touching them finds them out." + +Hold out your hands to feel the luxury of the sunbeams. Press the soft +blossoms against your cheek, and finger their graces of form, their +delicate mutability of shape, their pliancy and freshness. Expose your +face to the aerial floods that sweep the heavens, "inhale great draughts +of space," wonder, wonder at the wind's unwearied activity. Pile note +on note the infinite music that flows increasingly to your soul from the +tactual sonorities of a thousand branches and tumbling waters. How can +the world be shrivelled when this most profound, emotional sense, touch, +is faithful to its service? I am sure that if a fairy bade me choose +between the sense of light and that of touch, I would not part with the +warm, endearing contact of human hands or the wealth of form, the +nobility and fullness that press into my palms. + +FOOTNOTE: + +[C] I found that of the senses, the eye is the most superficial, the ear +the most arrogant, smell the most voluptuous, taste the most +superstitious and fickle, touch the most profound and the most +philosophical. + + + + +THE FIVE-SENSED WORLD + + + + +VIII + +THE FIVE-SENSED WORLD + + +THE poets have taught us how full of wonders is the night; and the night +of blindness has its wonders, too. The only lightless dark is the night +of ignorance and insensibility. We differ, blind and seeing, one from +another, not in our senses, but in the use we make of them, in the +imagination and courage with which we seek wisdom beyond our senses. + +It is more difficult to teach ignorance to think than to teach an +intelligent blind man to see the grandeur of Niagara. I have walked with +people whose eyes are full of light, but who see nothing in wood, sea, +or sky, nothing in city streets, nothing in books. What a witless +masquerade is this seeing! It were better far to sail forever in the +night of blindness, with sense and feeling and mind, than to be thus +content with the mere act of seeing. They have the sunset, the morning +skies, the purple of distant hills, yet their souls voyage through this +enchanted world with a barren stare. + +The calamity of the blind is immense, irreparable. But it does not take +away our share of the things that count--service, friendship, humour, +imagination, wisdom. It is the secret inner will that controls one's +fate. We are capable of willing to be good, of loving and being loved, +of thinking to the end that we may be wiser. We possess these +spirit-born forces equally with all God's children. Therefore we, too, +see the lightnings and hear the thunders of Sinai. We, too, march +through the wilderness and the solitary place that shall be glad for us, +and as we pass, God maketh the desert to blossom like the rose. We, too, +go in unto the Promised Land to possess the treasures of the spirit, the +unseen permanence of life and nature. + +The blind man of spirit faces the unknown and grapples with it, and what +else does the world of seeing men do? He has imagination, sympathy, +humanity, and these ineradicable existences compel him to share by a +sort of proxy in a sense he has not. When he meets terms of colour, +light, physiognomy, he guesses, divines, puzzles out their meaning by +analogies drawn from the senses he has. I naturally tend to think, +reason, draw inferences as if I had five senses instead of three. This +tendency is beyond my control; it is involuntary, habitual, instinctive. +I cannot compel my mind to say "I feel" instead of "I see" or "I hear." +The word "feel" proves on examination to be no less a convention than +"see" and "hear" when I seek for words accurately to describe the +outward things that affect my three bodily senses. When a man loses a +leg, his brain persists in impelling him to use what he has not and yet +feels to be there. Can it be that the brain is so constituted that it +will continue the activity which animates the sight and the hearing, +after the eye and the ear have been destroyed? + +It might seem that the five senses would work intelligently together +only when resident in the same body. Yet when two or three are left +unaided, they reach out for their complements in another body, and find +that they yoke easily with the borrowed team. When my hand aches from +overtouching, I find relief in the sight of another. When my mind lags, +wearied with the strain of forcing out thoughts about dark, musicless, +colourless, detached substance, it recovers its elasticity as soon as I +resort to the powers of another mind which commands light, harmony, +colour. Now, if the five senses will not remain disassociated, the life +of the deaf-blind cannot be severed from the life of the seeing, hearing +race. + +The deaf-blind person may be plunged and replunged like Schiller's +diver into seas of the unknown. But, unlike the doomed hero, he returns +triumphant, grasping the priceless truth that his mind is not crippled, +not limited to the infirmity of his senses. The world of the eye and the +ear becomes to him a subject of fateful interest. He seizes every word +of sight and hearing because his sensations compel it. Light and colour, +of which he has no tactual evidence, he studies fearlessly, believing +that all humanly knowable truth is open to him. He is in a position +similar to that of the astronomer who, firm, patient, watches a star +night after night for many years and feels rewarded if he discovers a +single fact about it. The man deaf-blind to ordinary outward things, and +the man deaf-blind to the immeasurable universe, are both limited by +time and space; but they have made a compact to wring service from their +limitations. + +The bulk of the world's knowledge is an imaginary construction. History +is but a mode of imagining, of making us see civilizations that no +longer appear upon the earth. Some of the most significant discoveries +in modern science owe their origin to the imagination of men who had +neither accurate knowledge nor exact instruments to demonstrate their +beliefs. If astronomy had not kept always in advance of the telescope, +no one would ever have thought a telescope worth making. What great +invention has not existed in the inventor's mind long before he gave it +tangible shape? + +A more splendid example of imaginative knowledge is the unity with which +philosophers start their study of the world. They can never perceive the +world in its entire reality. Yet their imagination, with its magnificent +allowance for error, its power of treating uncertainty as negligible, +has pointed the way for empirical knowledge. + +In their highest creative moments the great poet, the great musician +cease to use the crude instruments of sight and hearing. They break away +from their sense-moorings, rise on strong, compelling wings of spirit +far above our misty hills and darkened valleys into the region of light, +music, intellect. + +What eye hath seen the glories of the New Jerusalem? What ear hath heard +the music of the spheres, the steps of time, the strokes of chance, the +blows of death? Men have not heard with their physical sense the tumult +of sweet voices above the hills of Judea nor seen the heavenly vision; +but millions have listened to that spiritual message through many ages. + +Our blindness changes not a whit the course of inner realities. Of us it +is as true as it is of the seeing that the most beautiful world is +always entered through the imagination. If you wish to be something that +you are not,--something fine, noble, good,--you shut your eyes, and for +one dreamy moment you are that which you long to be. + + + + +INWARD VISIONS + + + + +IX + +INWARD VISIONS + + +ACCORDING to all art, all nature, all coherent human thought, we know +that order, proportion, form, are essential elements of beauty. Now +order, proportion, and form, are palpable to the touch. But beauty and +rhythm are deeper than sense. They are like love and faith. They spring +out of a spiritual process only slightly dependent upon sensations. +Order, proportion, form, cannot generate in the mind the abstract idea +of beauty, unless there is already a soul intelligence to breathe life +into the elements. Many persons, having perfect eyes, are blind in +their perceptions. Many persons, having perfect ears, are emotionally +deaf. Yet these are the very ones who dare to set limits to the vision +of those who, lacking a sense or two, have will, soul, passion, +imagination. Faith is a mockery if it teaches us not that we may +construct a world unspeakably more complete and beautiful than the +material world. And I, too, may construct my better world, for I am a +child of God, an inheritor of a fragment of the Mind that created all +worlds. + +There is a consonance of all things, a blending of all that we know +about the material world and the spiritual. It consists for me of all +the impressions, vibrations, heat, cold, taste, smell, and the +sensations which these convey to the mind, infinitely combined, +interwoven with associated ideas and acquired knowledge. No thoughtful +person will believe that what I said about the meaning of footsteps is +strictly true of mere jolts and jars. It is an array of the spiritual in +certain natural elements, tactual beats, and an acquired knowledge of +physical habits and moral traits of highly organized human beings. What +would odours signify if they were not associated with the time of the +year, the place I live in, and the people I know? + +The result of such a blending is sometimes a discordant trying of +strings far removed from a melody, very far from a symphony. (For the +benefit of those who must be reassured, I will say that I have felt a +musician tuning his violin, that I have read about a symphony, and so +have a fair intellectual perception of my metaphor.) But with training +and experience the faculties gather up the stray notes and combine them +into a full, harmonious whole. If the person who accomplishes this task +is peculiarly gifted, we call him a poet. The blind and the deaf are not +great poets, it is true. Yet now and again you find one deaf and blind +who has attained to his royal kingdom of beauty. + +I have a little volume of poems by a deaf-blind lady, Madame Bertha +Galeron. Her poetry has versatility of thought. Now it is tender and +sweet, now full of tragic passion and the sternness of destiny. Victor +Hugo called her "La Grande Voyante." She has written several plays, two +of which have been acted in Paris. The French Academy has crowned her +work. + +The infinite wonders of the universe are revealed to us in exact measure +as we are capable of receiving them. The keenness of our vision depends +not on how much we can see, but on how much we feel. Nor yet does mere +knowledge create beauty. Nature sings her most exquisite songs to those +who love her. She does not unfold her secrets to those who come only to +gratify their desire of analysis, to gather facts, but to those who see +in her manifold phenomena suggestions of lofty, delicate sentiments. + +[Illustration: Copyright, 1907, by The Whitman Studio + +The Little Boy Next Door + +To face page 120] + +Am I to be denied the use of such adjectives as "freshness" and +"sparkle," "dark" and "gloomy"? I have walked in the fields at early +morning. I have felt a rose-bush laden with dew and fragrance. I have +felt the curves and graces of my kitten at play. I have known the +sweet, shy ways of little children. I have known the sad opposites of +all these, a ghastly touch picture. Remember, I have sometimes travelled +over a dusty road as far as my feet could go. At a sudden turn I have +stepped upon starved, ignoble weeds, and reaching out my hands, I have +touched a fair tree out of which a parasite had taken the life like a +vampire. I have touched a pretty bird whose soft wings hung limp, whose +little heart beat no more. I have wept over the feebleness and deformity +of a child, lame, or born blind, or, worse still, mindless. If I had the +genius of Thomson, I, too, could depict a "City of Dreadful Night" from +mere touch sensations. From contrasts so irreconcilable can we fail to +form an idea of beauty and know surely when we meet with loveliness? + +Here is a sonnet eloquent of a blind man's power of vision: + + + THE MOUNTAIN TO THE PINE + + Thou tall, majestic monarch of the wood, + That standest where no wild vines dare to creep, + Men call thee old, and say that thou hast stood + A century upon my rugged steep; + Yet unto me thy life is but a day, + When I recall the things that I have seen,-- + The forest monarchs that have passed away + Upon the spot where first I saw thy green; + For I am older than the age of man, + Or all the living things that crawl or creep, + Or birds of air, or creatures of the deep; + I was the first dim outline of God's plan: + Only the waters of the restless sea + And the infinite stars in heaven are old to me. + +I am glad my friend Mr. Stedman knew that poem while he was making his +Anthology, for knowing it, so fine a poet and critic could not fail to +give it a place in his treasure-house of American poetry. The poet, Mr. +Clarence Hawkes, has been blind since childhood; yet he finds in nature +hints of combinations for his mental pictures. Out of the knowledge and +impressions that come to him he constructs a masterpiece which hangs +upon the walls of his thought. And into the poet's house come all the +true spirits of the world. + +It was a rare poet who thought of the mountain as "the first dim outline +of God's plan." That is the real wonder of the poem, and not that a +blind man should speak so confidently of sky and sea. Our ideas of the +sky are an accumulation of touch-glimpses, literary allusions, and the +observations of others, with an emotional blending of all. My face feels +only a tiny portion of the atmosphere; but I go through continuous space +and feel the air at every point, every instant. I have been told about +the distances from our earth to the sun, to the other planets, and to +the fixed stars. I multiply a thousand times the utmost height and width +that my touch compasses, and thus I gain a deep sense of the sky's +immensity. + +Move me along constantly over water, water, nothing but water, and you +give me the solitude, the vastness of ocean which fills the eye. I have +been in a little sail-boat on the sea, when the rising tide swept it +toward the shore. May I not understand the poet's figure: "The green of +spring overflows the earth like a tide"? I have felt the flame of a +candle blow and flutter in the breeze. May I not, then, say: "Myriads of +fireflies flit hither and thither in the dew-wet grass like little +fluttering tapers"? + +Combine the endless space of air, the sun's warmth, the clouds that are +described to my understanding spirit, the frequent breaking through the +soil of a brook or the expanse of the wind-ruffled lake, the tactual +undulation of the hills, which I recall when I am far away from them, +the towering trees upon trees as I walk by them, the bearings that I try +to keep while others tell me the directions of the various points of the +scenery, and you will begin to feel surer of my mental landscape. The +utmost bound to which my thought will go with clearness is the horizon +of my mind. From this horizon I imagine the one which the eye marks. + +Touch cannot bridge distance,--it is fit only for the contact of +surfaces,--but thought leaps the chasm. For this reason I am able to use +words descriptive of objects distant from my senses. I have felt the +rondure of the infant's tender form. I can apply this perception to the +landscape and to the far-off hills. + + + + +ANALOGIES IN SENSE PERCEPTION + + + + +X + +ANALOGIES IN SENSE PERCEPTION + + +I HAVE not touched the outline of a star nor the glory of the moon, but +I believe that God has set two lights in mind, the greater to rule by +day and the lesser by night, and by them I know that I am able to +navigate my life-bark, as certain of reaching the haven as he who steers +by the North Star. Perhaps my sun shines not as yours. The colours that +glorify my world, the blue of the sky, the green of the fields, may not +correspond exactly with those you delight in; but they are none the less +colour to me. The sun does not shine for my physical eyes, nor does the +lightning flash, nor do the trees turn green in the spring; but they +have not therefore ceased to exist, any more than the landscape is +annihilated when you turn your back on it. + +I understand how scarlet can differ from crimson because I know that the +smell of an orange is not the smell of a grape-fruit. I can also +conceive that colours have shades, and guess what shades are. In smell +and taste there are varieties not broad enough to be fundamental; so I +call them shades. There are half a dozen roses near me. They all have +the unmistakable rose scent; yet my nose tells me that they are not the +same. The American Beauty is distinct from the Jacqueminot and La +France. Odours in certain grasses fade as really to my sense as certain +colours do to yours in the sun. The freshness of a flower in my hand is +analogous to the freshness I taste in an apple newly picked. I make use +of analogies like these to enlarge my conceptions of colours. Some +analogies which I draw between qualities in surface and vibration, taste +and smell, are drawn by others between sight, hearing, and touch. This +fact encourages me to persevere, to try and bridge the gap between the +eye and the hand. + +Certainly I get far enough to sympathize with the delight that my kind +feel in beauty they see and harmony they hear. This bond between +humanity and me is worth keeping, even if the idea on which I base it +prove erroneous. + +Sweet, beautiful vibrations exist for my touch, even though they travel +through other substances than air to reach me. So I imagine sweet, +delightful sounds, and the artistic arrangement of them which is called +music, and I remember that they travel through the air to the ear, +conveying impressions somewhat like mine. I also know what tones are, +since they are perceptible tactually in a voice. Now, heat varies +greatly in the sun, in the fire, in hands, and in the fur of animals; +indeed, there is such a thing for me as a cold sun. So I think of the +varieties of light that touch the eye, cold and warm, vivid and dim, +soft and glaring, but always light, and I imagine their passage through +the air to an extensive sense, instead of to a narrow one like touch. +From the experience I have had with voices I guess how the eye +distinguishes shades in the midst of light. While I read the lips of a +woman whose voice is soprano, I note a low tone or a glad tone in the +midst of a high, flowing voice. When I feel my cheeks hot, I know that I +am red. I have talked so much and read so much about colours that +through no will of my own I attach meanings to them, just as all people +attach certain meanings to abstract terms like hope, idealism, +monotheism, intellect, which cannot be represented truly by visible +objects, but which are understood from analogies between immaterial +concepts and the ideas they awaken of external things. The force of +association drives me to say that white is exalted and pure, green is +exuberant, red suggests love or shame or strength. Without the colour or +its equivalent, life to me would be dark, barren, a vast blackness. + +Thus through an inner law of completeness my thoughts are not permitted +to remain colourless. It strains my mind to separate colour and sound +from objects. Since my education began I have always had things +described to me with their colours and sounds by one with keen senses +and a fine feeling for the significant. Therefore I habitually think of +things as coloured and resonant. Habit accounts for part. The soul sense +accounts for another part. The brain with its five-sensed construction +asserts its right and accounts for the rest. Inclusive of all, the unity +of the world demands that colour be kept in it, whether I have +cognizance of it or not. Rather than be shut out, I take part in it by +discussing it, imagining it, happy in the happiness of those near me +who gaze at the lovely hues of the sunset or the rainbow. + +My hand has its share in this multiple knowledge, but it must never be +forgotten that with the fingers I see only a very small portion of a +surface, and that I must pass my hand continually over it before my +touch grasps the whole. It is still more important, however, to remember +that my imagination is not tethered to certain points, locations, and +distances. It puts all the parts together simultaneously as if it saw or +knew instead of feeling them. Though I feel only a small part of my +horse at a time,--my horse is nervous and does not submit to manual +explorations,--yet, because I have many times felt hock, nose, hoof and +mane, I can see the steeds of Phoebus Apollo coursing the heavens. + +With such a power active it is impossible that my thought should be +vague, indistinct. It must needs be potent, definite. This is really a +corollary of the philosophical truth that the real world exists only for +the mind. That is to say, I can never touch the world in its entirety; +indeed, I touch less of it than the portion that others see or hear. But +all creatures, all objects, pass into my brain entire, and occupy the +same extent there that they do in material space. I declare that for me +branched thoughts, instead of pines, wave, sway, rustle, make musical +the ridges of mountains rising summit upon summit. Mention a rose too +far away for me to smell it. Straightway a scent steals into my +nostril, a form presses against my palm in all its dilating softness, +with rounded petals, slightly curled edges, curving stem, leaves +drooping. When I would fain view the world as a whole, it rushes into +vision--man, beast, bird, reptile, fly, sky, ocean, mountains, plain, +rock, pebble. The warmth of life, the reality of creation is over +all--the throb of human hands, glossiness of fur, lithe windings of long +bodies, poignant buzzing of insects, the ruggedness of the steeps as I +climb them, the liquid mobility and boom of waves upon the rocks. +Strange to say, try as I may, I cannot force my touch to pervade this +universe in all directions. The moment I try, the whole vanishes; only +small objects or narrow portions of a surface, mere touch-signs, a chaos +of things scattered at random, remain. No thrill, no delight is excited +thereby. Restore to the artistic, comprehensive internal sense its +rightful domain, and you give me joy which best proves the reality. + + + + +BEFORE THE SOUL DAWN + + + + +XI + +BEFORE THE SOUL DAWN + + +BEFORE my teacher came to me, I did not know that I am. I lived in a +world that was a no-world. I cannot hope to describe adequately that +unconscious, yet conscious time of nothingness. I did not know that I +knew aught, or that I lived or acted or desired. I had neither will nor +intellect. I was carried along to objects and acts by a certain blind +natural impetus. I had a mind which caused me to feel anger, +satisfaction, desire. These two facts led those about me to suppose +that I willed and thought. I can remember all this, not because I knew +that it was so, but because I have tactual memory. It enables me to +remember that I never contracted my forehead in the act of thinking. I +never viewed anything beforehand or chose it. I also recall tactually +the fact that never in a start of the body or a heart-beat did I feel +that I loved or cared for anything. My inner life, then, was a blank +without past, present, or future, without hope or anticipation, without +wonder or joy or faith. + + It was not night--it was not day. + + . . . . . + + But vacancy absorbing space, + And fixedness, without a place; + There were no stars--no earth--no time-- + No check--no change--no good--no crime. + +My dormant being had no idea of God or immortality, no fear of death. + +I remember, also through touch, that I had a power of association. I +felt tactual jars like the stamp of a foot, the opening of a window or +its closing, the slam of a door. After repeatedly smelling rain and +feeling the discomfort of wetness, I acted like those about me: I ran to +shut the window. But that was not thought in any sense. It was the same +kind of association that makes animals take shelter from the rain. From +the same instinct of aping others, I folded the clothes that came from +the laundry, and put mine away, fed the turkeys, sewed bead-eyes on my +doll's face, and did many other things of which I have the tactual +remembrance. When I wanted anything I liked,--ice-cream, for instance, +of which I was very fond,--I had a delicious taste on my tongue (which, +by the way, I never have now), and in my hand I felt the turning of the +freezer. I made the sign, and my mother knew I wanted ice-cream. I +"thought" and desired in my fingers. If I had made a man, I should +certainly have put the brain and soul in his finger-tips. From +reminiscences like these I conclude that it is the opening of the two +faculties, freedom of will, or choice, and rationality, or the power of +thinking from one thing to another, which makes it possible to come into +being first as a child, afterwards as a man. + +Since I had no power of thought, I did not compare one mental state with +another. So I was not conscious of any change or process going on in my +brain when my teacher began to instruct me. I merely felt keen delight +in obtaining more easily what I wanted by means of the finger motions +she taught me. I thought only of objects, and only objects I wanted. It +was the turning of the freezer on a larger scale. When I learned the +meaning of "I" and "me" and found that I was something, I began to +think. Then consciousness first existed for me. Thus it was not the +sense of touch that brought me knowledge. It was the awakening of my +soul that first rendered my senses their value, their cognizance of +objects, names, qualities, and properties. Thought made me conscious of +love, joy, and all the emotions. I was eager to know, then to +understand, afterward to reflect on what I knew and understood, and the +blind impetus, which had before driven me hither and thither at the +dictates of my sensations, vanished forever. + +I cannot represent more clearly than any one else the gradual and subtle +changes from first impressions to abstract ideas. But I know that my +physical ideas, that is, ideas derived from material objects, appear to +me first an idea similar to those of touch. Instantly they pass into +intellectual meanings. Afterward the meaning finds expression in what is +called "inner speech." When I was a child, my inner speech was inner +spelling. Although I am even now frequently caught spelling to myself on +my fingers, yet I talk to myself, too, with my lips, and it is true that +when I first learned to speak, my mind discarded the finger-symbols and +began to articulate. However, when I try to recall what some one has +said to me, I am conscious of a hand spelling into mine. + +It has often been asked what were my earliest impressions of the world +in which I found myself. But one who thinks at all of his first +impressions knows what a riddle this is. Our impressions grow and change +unnoticed, so that what we suppose we thought as children may be quite +different from what we actually experienced in our childhood. I only +know that after my education began the world which came within my reach +was all alive. I spelled to my blocks and my dogs. I sympathized with +plants when the flowers were picked, because I thought it hurt them, +and that they grieved for their lost blossoms. It was two years before I +could be made to believe that my dogs did not understand what I said, +and I always apologized to them when I ran into or stepped on them. + +As my experiences broadened and deepened, the indeterminate, poetic +feelings of childhood began to fix themselves in definite thoughts. +Nature--the world I could touch--was folded and filled with myself. I am +inclined to believe those philosophers who declare that we know nothing +but our own feelings and ideas. With a little ingenious reasoning one +may see in the material world simply a mirror, an image of permanent +mental sensations. In either sphere self-knowledge is the condition and +the limit of our consciousness. That is why, perhaps, many people know +so little about what is beyond their short range of experience. They +look within themselves--and find nothing! Therefore they conclude that +there is nothing outside themselves, either. + +However that may be, I came later to look for an image of my emotions +and sensations in others. I had to learn the outward signs of inward +feelings. The start of fear, the suppressed, controlled tensity of pain, +the beat of happy muscles in others, had to be perceived and compared +with my own experiences before I could trace them back to the intangible +soul of another. Groping, uncertain, I at last found my identity, and +after seeing my thoughts and feelings repeated in others, I gradually +constructed my world of men and of God. As I read and study, I find +that this is what the rest of the race has done. Man looks within +himself and in time finds the measure and the meaning of the universe. + + + + +THE LARGER SANCTIONS + + + + +XII + +THE LARGER SANCTIONS + + +SO, in the midst of life, eager, imperious life, the deaf-blind child, +fettered to the bare rock of circumstance, spider-like, sends out +gossamer threads of thought into the measureless void that surrounds +him. Patiently he explores the dark, until he builds up a knowledge of +the world he lives in, and his soul meets the beauty of the world, where +the sun shines always, and the birds sing. To the blind child the dark +is kindly. In it he finds nothing extraordinary or terrible. It is his +familiar world; even the groping from place to place, the halting +steps, the dependence upon others, do not seem strange to him. He does +not know how many countless pleasures the dark shuts out from him. Not +until he weighs his life in the scale of others' experience does he +realize what it is to live forever in the dark. But the knowledge that +teaches him this bitterness also brings its consolation--spiritual +light, the promise of the day that shall be. + +The blind child--the deaf-blind child--has inherited the mind of seeing +and hearing ancestors--a mind measured to five senses. Therefore he must +be influenced, even if it be unknown to himself, by the light, colour, +song which have been transmitted through the language he is taught, for +the chambers of the mind are ready to receive that language. The brain +of the race is so permeated with colour that it dyes even the speech of +the blind. Every object I think of is stained with the hue that belongs +to it by association and memory. The experience of the deaf-blind +person, in a world of seeing, hearing people, is like that of a sailor +on an island where the inhabitants speak a language unknown to him, +whose life is unlike that he has lived. He is one, they are many; there +is no chance of compromise. He must learn to see with their eyes, to +hear with their ears, to think their thoughts, to follow their ideals. + +If the dark, silent world which surrounds him were essentially different +from the sunlit, resonant world, it would be incomprehensible to his +kind, and could never be discussed. If his feelings and sensations were +fundamentally different from those of others, they would be +inconceivable except to those who had similar sensations and feelings. +If the mental consciousness of the deaf-blind person were absolutely +dissimilar to that of his fellows, he would have no means of imagining +what they think. Since the mind of the sightless is essentially the same +as that of the seeing in that it admits of no lack, it must supply some +sort of equivalent for missing physical sensations. It must perceive a +likeness between things outward and things inward, a correspondence +between the seen and the unseen. I make use of such a correspondence in +many relations, and no matter how far I pursue it to things I cannot +see, it does not break under the test. + +As a working hypothesis, correspondence is adequate to all life, through +the whole range of phenomena. The flash of thought and its swiftness +explain the lightning flash and the sweep of a comet through the +heavens. My mental sky opens to me the vast celestial spaces, and I +proceed to fill them with the images of my spiritual stars. I recognize +truth by the clearness and guidance that it gives my thought, and, +knowing what that clearness is, I can imagine what light is to the eye. +It is not a convention of language, but a forcible feeling of the +reality, that at times makes me start when I say, "Oh, I see my +mistake!" or "How dark, cheerless is his life!" I know these are +metaphors. Still, I must prove with them, since there is nothing in our +language to replace them. Deaf-blind metaphors to correspond do not +exist and are not necessary. Because I can understand the word "reflect" +figuratively, a mirror has never perplexed me. The manner in which my +imagination perceives absent things enables me to see how glasses can +magnify things, bring them nearer, or remove them farther. + +Deny me this correspondence, this internal sense, confine me to the +fragmentary, incoherent touch-world, and lo, I become as a bat which +wanders about on the wing. Suppose I omitted all words of seeing, +hearing, colour, light, landscape, the thousand phenomena, instruments +and beauties connected with them. I should suffer a great diminution of +the wonder and delight in attaining knowledge; also--more dreadful +loss--my emotions would be blunted, so that I could not be touched by +things unseen. + +Has anything arisen to disprove the adequacy of correspondence? Has any +chamber of the blind man's brain been opened and found empty? Has any +psychologist explored the mind of the sightless and been able to say, +"There is no sensation here"? + +I tread the solid earth; I breathe the scented air. Out of these two +experiences I form numberless associations and correspondences. I +observe, I feel, I think, I imagine. I associate the countless varied +impressions, experiences, concepts. Out of these materials Fancy, the +cunning artisan of the brain, welds an image which the sceptic would +deny me, because I cannot see with my physical eyes the changeful, +lovely face of my thought-child. He would break the mind's mirror. This +spirit-vandal would humble my soul and force me to bite the dust of +material things. While I champ the bit of circumstance, he scourges and +goads me with the spur of fact. If I heeded him, the sweet-visaged earth +would vanish into nothing, and I should hold in my hand nought but an +aimless, soulless lump of dead matter. But although the body physical is +rooted alive to the Promethean rock, the spirit-proud huntress of the +air will still pursue the shining, open highways of the universe. + +Blindness has no limiting effect upon mental vision. My intellectual +horizon is infinitely wide. The universe it encircles is immeasurable. +Would they who bid me keep within the narrow bound of my meagre senses +demand of Herschel that he roof his stellar universe and give us back +Plato's solid firmament of glassy spheres? Would they command Darwin +from the grave and bid him blot out his geological time, give us back a +paltry few thousand years? Oh, the supercilious doubters! They ever +strive to clip the upward daring wings of the spirit. + +A person deprived of one or more senses is not, as many seem to think, +turned out into a trackless wilderness without landmark or guide. The +blind man carries with him into his dark environment all the faculties +essential to the apprehension of the visible world whose door is closed +behind him. He finds his surroundings everywhere homogeneous with those +of the sunlit world; for there is an inexhaustible ocean of likenesses +between the world within, and the world without, and these likenesses, +these correspondences, he finds equal to every exigency his life offers. + +The necessity of some such thing as correspondence or symbolism appears +more and more urgent as we consider the duties that religion and +philosophy enjoin upon us. + +The blind are expected to read the Bible as a means of attaining +spiritual happiness. Now, the Bible is filled throughout with references +to clouds, stars, colours, and beauty, and often the mention of these is +essential to the meaning of the parable or the message in which they +occur. Here one must needs see the inconsistency of people who believe +in the Bible, and yet deny us a right to talk about what we do not see, +and for that matter what _they_ do not see, either. Who shall forbid my +heart to sing: "Yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind. He made +darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters +and thick clouds of the skies"? + +Philosophy constantly points out the untrustworthiness of the five +senses and the important work of reason which corrects the errors of +sight and reveals its illusions. If we cannot depend on five senses, how +much less may we rely on three! What ground have we for discarding +light, sound, and colour as an integral part of our world? How are we to +know that they have ceased to exist for us? We must take their reality +for granted, even as the philosopher assumes the reality of the world +without being able to see it physically as a whole. + +Ancient philosophy offers an argument which seems still valid. There is +in the blind as in the seeing an Absolute which gives truth to what we +know to be true, order to what is orderly, beauty to the beautiful, +touchableness to what is tangible. If this is granted, it follows that +this Absolute is not imperfect, incomplete, partial. It must needs go +beyond the limited evidence of our sensations, and also give light to +what is invisible, music to the musical that silence dulls. Thus mind +itself compels us to acknowledge that we are in a world of intellectual +order, beauty, and harmony. The essences, or absolutes of these ideas, +necessarily dispel their opposites which belong with evil, disorder and +discord. Thus deafness and blindness do not exist in the immaterial +mind, which is philosophically the real world, but are banished with the +perishable material senses. Reality, of which visible things are the +symbol, shines before my mind. While I walk about my chamber with +unsteady steps, my spirit sweeps skyward on eagle wings and looks out +with unquenchable vision upon the world of eternal beauty. + + + + +THE DREAM WORLD + + + + +XIII + +THE DREAM WORLD + + +EVERYBODY takes his own dreams seriously, but yawns at the +breakfast-table when somebody else begins to tell the adventures of the +night before. I hesitate, therefore, to enter upon an account of my +dreams; for it is a literary sin to bore the reader, and a scientific +sin to report the facts of a far country with more regard to point and +brevity than to complete and literal truth. The psychologists have +trained a pack of theories and facts which they keep in leash, like so +many bulldogs, and which they let loose upon us whenever we depart from +the straight and narrow path of dream probability. One may not even tell +an entertaining dream without being suspected of having liberally edited +it,--as if editing were one of the seven deadly sins, instead of a +useful and honourable occupation! Be it understood, then, that I am +discoursing at my own breakfast-table, and that no scientific man is +present to trip the autocrat. + +I used to wonder why scientific men and others were always asking me +about my dreams. But I am not surprised now, since I have discovered +what some of them believe to be the ordinary waking experience of one +who is both deaf and blind. They think that I can know very little about +objects even a few feet beyond the reach of my arms. Everything outside +of myself, according to them, is a hazy blur. Trees, mountains, cities, +the ocean, even the house I live in are but fairy fabrications, misty +unrealities. Therefore it is assumed that my dreams should have peculiar +interest for the man of science. In some undefined way it is expected +that they should reveal the world I dwell in to be flat, formless, +colourless, without perspective, with little thickness and less +solidity--a vast solitude of soundless space. But who shall put into +words limitless, visionless, silent void? One should be a disembodied +spirit indeed to make anything out of such insubstantial experiences. A +world, or a dream for that matter, to be comprehensible to us, must, I +should think, have a warp of substance woven into the woof of fantasy. +We cannot imagine even in dreams an object which has no counterpart in +reality. Ghosts always resemble somebody, and if they do not appear +themselves, their presence is indicated by circumstances with which we +are perfectly familiar. + +During sleep we enter a strange, mysterious realm which science has thus +far not explored. Beyond the border-line of slumber the investigator may +not pass with his common-sense rule and test. Sleep with softest touch +locks all the gates of our physical senses and lulls to rest the +conscious will--the disciplinarian of our waking thoughts. Then the +spirit wrenches itself free from the sinewy arms of reason and like a +winged courser spurns the firm green earth and speeds away upon wind +and cloud, leaving neither trace nor footprint by which science may +track its flight and bring us knowledge of the distant, shadowy country +that we nightly visit. When we come back from the dream-realm, we can +give no reasonable report of what we met there. But once across the +border, we feel at home as if we had always lived there and had never +made any excursions into this rational daylight world. + +My dreams do not seem to differ very much from the dreams of other +people. Some of them are coherent and safely hitched to an event or a +conclusion. Others are inconsequent and fantastic. All attest that in +Dreamland there is no such thing as repose. We are always up and doing +with a mind for any adventure. We act, strive, think, suffer and are +glad to no purpose. We leave outside the portals of Sleep all +troublesome incredulities and vexatious speculations as to probability. +I float wraith-like upon clouds in and out among the winds, without the +faintest notion that I am doing anything unusual. In Dreamland I find +little that is altogether strange or wholly new to my experience. No +matter what happens, I am not astonished, however extraordinary the +circumstances may be. I visit a foreign land where I have not been in +reality, and I converse with peoples whose language I have never heard. +Yet we manage to understand each other perfectly. Into whatsoever +situation or society my wanderings bring me, there is the same +homogeneity. If I happen into Vagabondia, I make merry with the jolly +folk of the road or the tavern. + +I do not remember ever to have met persons with whom I could not at once +communicate, or to have been shocked or surprised at the doings of my +dream-companions. In its strange wanderings in those dusky groves of +Slumberland my soul takes everything for granted and adapts itself to +the wildest phantoms. I am seldom confused. Everything is as clear as +day. I know events the instant they take place, and wherever I turn my +steps, Mind is my faithful guide and interpreter. + +I suppose every one has had in a dream the exasperating, profitless +experience of seeking something urgently desired at the moment, and the +aching, weary sensation that follows each failure to track the thing to +its hiding-place. Sometimes with a singing dizziness in my head I climb +and climb, I know not where or why. Yet I cannot quit the torturing, +passionate endeavour, though again and again I reach out blindly for an +object to hold to. Of course according to the perversity of dreams there +is no object near. I clutch empty air, and then I fall downward, and +still downward, and in the midst of the fall I dissolve into the +atmosphere upon which I have been floating so precariously. + +Some of my dreams seem to be traced one within another like a series of +concentric circles. In sleep I think I cannot sleep. I toss about in the +toils of tasks unfinished. I decide to get up and read for a while. I +know the shelf in my library where I keep the book I want. The book has +no name, but I find it without difficulty. I settle myself comfortably +in the morris-chair, the great book open on my knee. Not a word can I +make out, the pages are utterly blank. I am not surprised, but keenly +disappointed. I finger the pages, I bend over them lovingly, the tears +fall on my hands. I shut the book quickly as the thought passes through +my mind, "The print will be all rubbed out if I get it wet." Yet there +is no print tangible on the page! + +This morning I thought that I awoke. I was certain that I had overslept. +I seized my watch, and sure enough, it pointed to an hour after my +rising time. I sprang up in the greatest hurry, knowing that breakfast +was ready. I called my mother, who declared that my watch must be +wrong. She was positive it could not be so late. I looked at my watch +again, and lo! the hands wiggled, whirled, buzzed and disappeared. I +awoke more fully as my dismay grew, until I was at the antipodes of +sleep. Finally my eyes opened actually, and I knew that I had been +dreaming. I had only waked into sleep. What is still more bewildering, +there is no difference between the consciousness of the sham waking and +that of the real one. + +It is fearful to think that all that we have ever seen, felt, read, and +done may suddenly rise to our dream-vision, as the sea casts up objects +it has swallowed. I have held a little child in my arms in the midst of +a riot and spoken vehemently, imploring the Russian soldiers not to +massacre the Jews. I have re-lived the agonizing scenes of the Sepoy +Rebellion and the French Revolution. Cities have burned before my eyes, +and I have fought the flames until I fell exhausted. Holocausts overtake +the world, and I struggle in vain to save my friends. + +Once in a dream a message came speeding over land and sea that winter +was descending upon the world from the North Pole, that the Arctic zone +was shifting to our mild climate. Far and wide the message flew. The +ocean was congealed in midsummer. Ships were held fast in the ice by +thousands, the ships with large, white sails were held fast. Riches of +the Orient and the plenteous harvests of the Golden West might no more +pass between nation and nation. For some time the trees and flowers +grew on, despite the intense cold. Birds flew into the houses for +safety, and those which winter had overtaken lay on the snow with wings +spread in vain flight. At last the foliage and blossoms fell at the feet +of Winter. The petals of the flowers were turned to rubies and +sapphires. The leaves froze into emeralds. The trees moaned and tossed +their branches as the frost pierced them through bark and sap, pierced +into their very roots. I shivered myself awake, and with a tumult of joy +I breathed the many sweet morning odours wakened by the summer sun. + +One need not visit an African jungle or an Indian forest to hunt the +tiger. One can lie in bed amid downy pillows and dream tigers as +terrible as any in the pathless wild. I was a little girl when one night +I tried to cross the garden in front of my aunt's house in Alabama. I +was in pursuit of a large cat with a great bushy tail. A few hours +before he had clawed my little canary out of its cage and crunched it +between his cruel teeth. I could not see the cat. But the thought in my +mind was distinct: "He is making for the high grass at the end of the +garden. I'll get there first!" I put my hand on the box border and ran +swiftly along the path. When I reached the high grass, there was the cat +gliding into the wavy tangle. I rushed forward and tried to seize him +and take the bird from between his teeth. To my horror a huge beast, not +the cat at all, sprang out from the grass, and his sinewy shoulder +rubbed against me with palpitating strength! His ears stood up and +quivered with anger. His eyes were hot. His nostrils were large and wet. +His lips moved horribly. I knew it was a tiger, a real live tiger, and +that I should be devoured--my little bird and I. I do not know what +happened after that. The next important thing seldom happens in dreams. + +Some time earlier I had a dream which made a vivid impression upon me. +My aunt was weeping because she could not find me. But I took an impish +pleasure in the thought that she and others were searching for me, and +making great noise which I felt through my feet. Suddenly the spirit of +mischief gave way to uncertainty and fear. I felt cold. The air smelt +like ice and salt. I tried to run; but the long grass tripped me, and I +fell forward on my face. I lay very still, feeling with all my body. +After a while my sensations seemed to be concentrated in my fingers, and +I perceived that the grass blades were sharp as knives, and hurt my +hands cruelly. I tried to get up cautiously, so as not to cut myself on +the sharp grass. I put down a tentative foot, much as my kitten treads +for the first time the primeval forest in the backyard. All at once I +felt the stealthy patter of something creeping, creeping, creeping +purposefully toward me. I do not know how at that time the idea was in +my mind; I had no words for intention or purpose. Yet it was precisely +the evil intent, and not the creeping animal that terrified me. I had +no fear of living creatures. I loved my father's dogs, the frisky little +calf, the gentle cows, the horses and mules that ate apples from my +hand, and none of them had ever harmed me. I lay low, waiting in +breathless terror for the creature to spring and bury its long claws in +my flesh. I thought, "They will feel like turkey-claws." Something warm +and wet touched my face. I shrieked, struck out frantically, and awoke. +Something was still struggling in my arms. I held on with might and main +until I was exhausted, then I loosed my hold. I found dear old Belle, +the setter, shaking herself and looking at me reproachfully. She and I +had gone to sleep together on the rug, and had naturally wandered to the +dream-forest where dogs and little girls hunt wild game and have +strange adventures. We encountered hosts of elfin foes, and it required +all the dog tactics at Belle's command to acquit herself like the lady +and huntress that she was. Belle had her dreams too. We used to lie +under the trees and flowers in the old garden, and I used to laugh with +delight when the magnolia leaves fell with little thuds, and Belle +jumped up, thinking she had heard a partridge. She would pursue the +leaf, point it, bring it back to me and lay it at my feet with a +humorous wag of her tail as much as to say, "This is the kind of bird +that waked me." I made a chain for her neck out of the lovely blue +Paulownia flowers and covered her with great heart-shaped leaves. + +Dear old Belle, she has long been dreaming among the lotus-flowers and +poppies of the dogs' paradise. + +Certain dreams have haunted me since my childhood. One which recurs +often proceeds after this wise: A spirit seems to pass before my face. I +feel an extreme heat like the blast from an engine. It is the embodiment +of evil. I must have had it first after the day that I nearly got burnt. + +Another spirit which visits me often brings a sensation of cool +dampness, such as one feels on a chill November night when the window is +open. The spirit stops just beyond my reach, sways back and forth like a +creature in grief. My blood is chilled, and seems to freeze in my veins. +I try to move, but my body is still, and I cannot even cry out. After a +while the spirit passes on, and I say to myself shudderingly, "That was +Death. I wonder if he has taken her." The pronoun stands for my Teacher. + +In my dreams I have sensations, odours, tastes and ideas which I do not +remember to have had in reality. Perhaps they are the glimpses which my +mind catches through the veil of sleep of my earliest babyhood. I have +heard "the trampling of many waters." Sometimes a wonderful light visits +me in sleep. Such a flash and glory as it is! I gaze and gaze until it +vanishes. I smell and taste much as in my waking hours; but the sense of +touch plays a less important part. In sleep I almost never grope. No one +guides me. Even in a crowded street I am self-sufficient, and I enjoy +an independence quite foreign to my physical life. Now I seldom spell on +my fingers, and it is still rarer for others to spell into my hand. My +mind acts independent of my physical organs. I am delighted to be thus +endowed, if only in sleep; for then my soul dons its winged sandals and +joyfully joins the throng of happy beings who dwell beyond the reaches +of bodily sense. + +The moral inconsistency of dreams is glaring. Mine grow less and less +accordant with my proper principles. I am nightly hurled into an +unethical medley of extremes. I must either defend another to the last +drop of my blood or condemn him past all repenting. I commit murder, +sleeping, to save the lives of others. I ascribe to those I love best +acts and words which it mortifies me to remember, and I cast reproach +after reproach upon them. It is fortunate for our peace of mind that +most wicked dreams are soon forgotten. Death, sudden and awful, strange +loves and hates remorselessly pursued, cunningly plotted revenge, are +seldom more than dim haunting recollections in the morning, and during +the day they are erased by the normal activities of the mind. Sometimes +immediately on waking, I am so vexed at the memory of a dream-fracas, I +wish I may dream no more. With this wish distinctly before me I drop off +again into a new turmoil of dreams. + +Oh, dreams, what opprobrium I heap upon you--you, the most pointless +things imaginable, saucy apes, brewers of odious contrasts, haunting +birds of ill omen, mocking echoes, unseasonable reminders, +oft-returning vexations, skeletons in my morris-chair, jesters in the +tomb, death's-heads at the wedding feast, outlaws of the brain that +every night defy the mind's police service, thieves of my Hesperidean +apples, breakers of my domestic peace, murderers of sleep. "Oh, dreadful +dreams that do fright my spirit from her propriety!" No wonder that +Hamlet preferred the ills he knew rather than run the risk of one +dream-vision. + +Yet remove the dream-world, and the loss is inconceivable. The magic +spell which binds poetry together is broken. The splendour of art and +the soaring might of imagination are lessened because no phantom of +fadeless sunsets and flowers urges onward to a goal. Gone is the mute +permission or connivance which emboldens the soul to mock the limits of +time and space, forecast and gather in harvests of achievement for ages +yet unborn. Blot out dreams, and the blind lose one of their chief +comforts; for in the visions of sleep they behold their belief in the +seeing mind and their expectation of light beyond the blank, narrow +night justified. Nay, our conception of immortality is shaken. Faith, +the motive-power of human life, flickers out. Before such vacancy and +bareness the shocks of wrecked worlds were indeed welcome. In truth, +dreams bring us the thought independently of us and in spite of us that +the soul + + "may right + Her nature, shoot large sail on lengthening cord, + And rush exultant on the Infinite." + + + + +DREAMS AND REALITY + + + + +XIV + +DREAMS AND REALITY + + +IT is astonishing to think how our real wide-awake world revolves around +the shadowy unrealities of Dreamland. Despite all that we say about the +inconsequence of dreams, we often reason by them. We stake our greatest +hopes upon them. Nay, we build upon them the fabric of an ideal world. I +can recall few fine, thoughtful poems, few noble works of art or any +system of philosophy in which there is not evidence that dream-fantasies +symbolize truths concealed by phenomena. + +The fact that in dreams confusion reigns, and illogical connections +occur gives plausibility to the theory which Sir Arthur Mitchell and +other scientific men hold, that our dream-thinking is uncontrolled and +undirected by the will. The will--the inhibiting and guiding +power--finds rest and refreshment in sleep, while the mind, like a +barque without rudder or compass, drifts aimlessly upon an uncharted +sea. But curiously enough, these fantasies and inter-twistings of +thought are to be found in great imaginative poems like Spenser's "Faerie +Queene." Lamb was impressed by the analogy between our dream-thinking +and the work of the imagination. Speaking of the episode in the cave of +Mammon, Lamb wrote: + +"It is not enough to say that the whole episode is a copy of the mind's +conceptions in sleep; it is--in some sort, but what a copy! Let the most +romantic of us that has been entertained all night with the spectacle of +some wild and magnificent vision, re-combine it in the morning and try +it by his waking judgment. That which appeared so shifting and yet so +coherent, when it came under cool examination, shall appear so +reasonless and so unlinked, that we are ashamed to have been so deluded, +and to have taken, though but in sleep, a monster for a god. The +transitions in this episode are every whit as violent as in the most +extravagant dream, and yet the waking judgment ratifies them." + +Perhaps I feel more than others the analogy between the world of our +waking life and the world of dreams because before I was taught, I lived +in a sort of perpetual dream. The testimony of parents and friends who +watched me day after day is the only means that I have of knowing the +actuality of those early, obscure years of my childhood. The physical +acts of going to bed and waking in the morning alone mark the transition +from reality to Dreamland. As near as I can tell, asleep or awake I only +felt with my body. I can recollect no process which I should now dignify +with the term of thought. It is true that my bodily sensations were +extremely acute; but beyond a crude connection with physical wants they +are not associated or directed. They had little relation to each other, +to me or the experience of others. Idea--that which gives identity and +continuity to experience--came into my sleeping and waking existence at +the same moment with the awakening of self-consciousness. Before that +moment my mind was in a state of anarchy in which meaningless sensations +rioted, and if thought existed, it was so vague and inconsequent, it +cannot be made a part of discourse. Yet before my education began, I +dreamed. I know that I must have dreamed because I recall no break in my +tactual experiences. Things fell suddenly, heavily. I felt my clothing +afire, or I fell into a tub of cold water. Once I smelt bananas, and the +odour in my nostrils was so vivid that in the morning, before I was +dressed, I went to the sideboard to look for the bananas. There were no +bananas, and no odour of bananas anywhere! My life was in fact a dream +throughout. + +The likeness between my waking state and the sleeping one is still +marked. In both states I see, but not with my eyes. I hear, but not with +my ears. I speak, and am spoken to, without the sound of a voice. I am +moved to pleasure by visions of ineffable beauty which I have never +beheld in the physical world. Once in a dream I held in my hand a pearl. +The one I saw in my dreams must, therefore, have been a creation of my +imagination. It was a smooth, exquisitely moulded crystal. As I gazed +into its shimmering deeps, my soul was flooded with an ecstasy of +tenderness, and I was filled with wonder as one who should for the +first time look into the cool, sweet heart of a rose. My pearl was dew +and fire, the velvety green of moss, the soft whiteness of lilies, and +the distilled hues and sweetness of a thousand roses. It seemed to me, +the soul of beauty was dissolved in its crystal bosom. This beauteous +vision strengthens my conviction that the world which the mind builds up +out of countless subtle experiences and suggestions is fairer than the +world of the senses. The splendour of the sunset my friends gaze at +across the purpling hills is wonderful. But the sunset of the inner +vision brings purer delight because it is the worshipful blending of all +the beauty that we have known and desired. + +I believe that I am more fortunate in my dreams than most people; for +as I think back over my dreams, the pleasant ones seem to predominate, +although we naturally recall most vividly and tell most eagerly the +grotesque and fantastic adventures in Slumberland. I have friends, +however, whose dreams are always troubled and disturbed. They wake +fatigued and bruised, and they tell me that they would give a kingdom +for one dreamless night. There is one friend who declares that she has +never had a felicitous dream in her life. The grind and worry of the day +invade the sweet domain of sleep and weary her with incessant, +profitless effort. I feel very sorry for this friend, and perhaps it is +hardly fair to insist upon the pleasure of dreaming in the presence of +one whose dream-experience is so unhappy. Still, it is true that my +dreams have uses as many and sweet as those of adversity. All my +yearning for the strange, the weird, the ghostlike is gratified in +dreams. They carry me out of the accustomed and commonplace. In a flash, +in the winking of an eye they snatch the burden from my shoulder, the +trivial task from my hand and the pain and disappointment from my heart, +and I behold the lovely face of my dream. It dances round me with merry +measure and darts hither and thither in happy abandon. Sudden, sweet +fancies spring forth from every nook and corner, and delightful +surprises meet me at every turn. A happy dream is more precious than +gold and rubies. + +I like to think that in dreams we catch glimpses of a life larger than +our own. We see it as a little child, or as a savage who visits a +civilized nation. Thoughts are imparted to us far above our ordinary +thinking. Feelings nobler and wiser than any we have known thrill us +between heart-beats. For one fleeting night a princelier nature captures +us, and we become as great as our aspirations. I daresay we return to +the little world of our daily activities with as distorted a half-memory +of what we have seen as that of the African who visited England, and +afterwards said he had been in a huge hill which carried him over great +waters. The comprehensiveness of our thought, whether we are asleep or +awake, no doubt depends largely upon our idiosyncrasies, constitution, +habits, and mental capacity. But whatever may be the nature of our +dreams, the mental processes that characterize them are analogous to +those which go on when the mind is not held to attention by the will. + + + + +A WAKING DREAM + + + + +XV + +A WAKING DREAM + + +I HAVE sat for hours in a sort of reverie, letting my mind have its way +without inhibition and direction, and idly noted down the incessant beat +of thought upon thought, image upon image. I have observed that my +thoughts make all kinds of connections, wind in and out, trace +concentric circles, and break up in eddies of fantasy, just as in +dreams. One day I had a literary frolic with a certain set of thoughts +which dropped in for an afternoon call. I wrote for three or four hours +as they arrived, and the resulting record is much like a dream. I found +that the most disconnected, dissimilar thoughts came in arm-in-arm--I +dreamed a wide-awake dream. The difference is that in waking dreams I +can look back upon the endless succession of thoughts, while in the +dreams of sleep I can recall but few ideas and images. I catch broken +threads from the warp and woof of a pattern I cannot see, or glowing +leaves which have floated on a slumber-wind from a tree that I cannot +identify. In this reverie I held the key to the company of ideas. I give +my record of them to show what analogies exist between thoughts when +they are not directed and the behaviour of real dream-thinking. + +I had an essay to write. I wanted my mind fresh and obedient, and all +its handmaidens ready to hold up my hands in the task. I intended to +discourse learnedly upon my educational experiences, and I was unusually +anxious to do my best. I had a working plan in my head for the essay, +which was to be grave, wise, and abounding in ideas. Moreover, it was to +have an academic flavour suggestive of sheepskin, and the reader was to +be duly impressed with the austere dignity of cap and gown. I shut +myself up in the study, resolved to beat out on the keys of my +typewriter this immortal chapter of my life-history. Alexander was no +more confident of conquering Asia with the splendid army which his +father Philip had disciplined than I was of finding my mental house in +order and my thoughts obedient. My mind had had a long vacation, and I +was now coming back to it in an hour that it looked not for me. My +situation was similar to that of the master who went into a far country +and expected on his home coming to find everything as he left it. But +returning he found his servants giving a party. Confusion was rampant. +There was fiddling and dancing and the babble of many tongues, so that +the voice of the master could not be heard. Though he shouted and beat +upon the gate, it remained closed. + +So it was with me. I sounded the trumpet loud and long; but the vassals +of thought would not rally to my standard. Each had his arm round the +waist of a fair partner, and I know not what wild tunes "put life and +mettle into their heels." There was nothing to do. I looked about +helplessly upon my great retinue, and realized that it is not the +possession of a thing but the ability to use it which is of value. I +settled back in my chair to watch the pageant. It was rather pleasant +sitting there, "idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean," watching +my own thoughts at play. It was like thinking fine things to say without +taking the trouble to write them. I felt like Alice in Wonderland when +she ran at full speed with the red queen and never passed anything or +got anywhere. + +The merry frolic went on madly. The dancers were all manner of thoughts. +There were sad thoughts and happy thoughts, thoughts suited to every +clime and weather, thoughts bearing the mark of every age and nation, +silly thoughts and wise thoughts, thoughts of people, of things, and of +nothing, good thoughts, impish thoughts, and large, gracious thoughts. +There they went swinging hand-in-hand in corkscrew fashion. An antic +jester in green and gold led the dance. The guests followed no order or +precedent. No two thoughts were related to each other even by the +fortieth cousinship. There was not so much as an international alliance +between them. Each thought behaved like a newly created poet. + + "His mouth he could not ope, + But there flew out a trope." + +Magical lyrics--oh, if I only had written them down! Pell-mell they came +down the sequestered avenues of my mind, this merry throng. With +bacchanal song and shout they came, and eye hath not since beheld +confusion worse confounded. + +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 Moliere +joined for a measure, both talking at once, Moliere 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." + + + + +A CHANT OF DARKNESS + + + + +A CHANT OF DARKNESS + + "_My wings are folded o'er mine ears, + My wings are crossed o'er mine eyes, + Yet through their silver shade appears, + And through their lulling plumes arise, + A Shape, a throng of sounds._" + + _Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound."_ + + + I DARE not ask why we are reft of light, + Banished to our solitary isles amid the unmeasured seas, + Or how our sight was nurtured to glorious vision, + To fade and vanish and leave us in the dark alone. + The secret of God is upon our tabernacle; + Into His mystery I dare not pry. Only this I know: + With Him is strength, with Him is wisdom, + And His wisdom hath set darkness in our paths. + _Out of the uncharted, unthinkable dark we came, + And in a little time we shall return again + Into the vast, unanswering dark._ + + O Dark! thou awful, sweet, and holy Dark! + In thy solemn spaces, beyond the human eye, + God fashioned His universe; laid the foundations of the earth, + Laid the measure thereof, and stretched the line upon it; + Shut up the sea with doors, and made the glory + Of the clouds a covering for it; + Commanded His morning, and, behold! chaos fled + Before the uplifted face of the sun; + Divided a water-course for the overflowing of waters; + Sent rain upon the earth-- + Upon the wilderness wherein there was no man, + Upon the desert where grew no tender herb, + And, lo! there was greenness upon the plains, + And the hills were clothed with beauty! + _Out of the uncharted, unthinkable dark we came, + And in a little time we shall return again + Into the vast, unanswering dark._ + + O Dark! thou secret and inscrutable Dark! + In thy silent depths, the springs whereof man hath not fathomed, + God wrought the soul of man. + O Dark! compassionate, all-knowing Dark! + Tenderly, as shadows to the evening, comes thy message to man. + Softly thou layest thy hand on his tired eyelids, + And his soul, weary and homesick, returns + Unto thy soothing embrace. + _Out of the uncharted, unthinkable dark we came, + And in a little time we shall return again + Into the vast, unanswering dark._ + + O Dark! wise, vital, thought-quickening Dark! + In thy mystery thou hidest the light + That is the soul's life. + Upon thy solitary shores I walk unafraid; + I dread no evil; though I walk in the valley of the shadow, + I shall not know the ecstasy of fear + When gentle Death leads me through life's open door, + When the bands of night are sundered, + And the day outpours its light. + _Out of the uncharted, unthinkable dark we came, + And in a little time we shall return again + Into the vast, unanswering dark._ + + The timid soul, fear-driven, shuns the dark; + But upon the cheeks of him who must abide in shadow + Breathes the wind of rushing angel-wings, + And round him falls a light from unseen fires. + Magical beams glow athwart the darkness; + Paths of beauty wind through his black world + To another world of light, + Where no veil of sense shuts him out from Paradise. + _Out of the uncharted, unthinkable dark we came, + And in a little time we shall return again + Into the vast, unanswering dark._ + + O Dark! thou blessed, quiet Dark! + To the lone exile who must dwell with thee + Thou art benign and friendly; + From the harsh world thou dost shut him in; + To him thou whisperest the secrets of the wondrous night; + Upon him thou bestowest regions wide and boundless as his spirit; + Thou givest a glory to all humble things; + With thy hovering pinions thou coverest all unlovely objects; + Under thy brooding wings there is peace. + _Out of the uncharted, unthinkable dark we came, + And in a little time we shall return again + Into the vast, unanswering dark._ + + +II + + Once in regions void of light I wandered; + In blank darkness I stumbled, + And fear led me by the hand; + My feet pressed earthward, + Afraid of pitfalls. + By many shapeless terrors of the night affrighted, + To the wakeful day + I held out beseeching arms. + + Then came Love, bearing in her hand + The torch that is the light unto my feet, + And softly spoke Love: "Hast thou + Entered into the treasures of darkness? + Hast thou entered into the treasures of the night? + Search out thy blindness. It holdeth + Riches past computing." + + The words of Love set my spirit aflame. + My eager fingers searched out the mysteries, + The splendours, the inmost sacredness, of things, + And in the vacancies discerned + With spiritual sense the fullness of life; + And the gates of Day stood wide. + + I am shaken with gladness; + My limbs tremble with joy; + My heart and the earth + Tremble with happiness; + The ecstasy of life + Is abroad in the world. + + Knowledge hath uncurtained heaven; + On the uttermost shores of darkness there is light; + Midnight hath sent forth a beam! + The blind that stumbled in darkness without light + Behold a new day! + In the obscurity gleams the star of Thought; + Imagination hath a luminous eye, + And the mind hath a glorious vision. + + +III + + "The man is blind. What is life to him? + A closed book held up against a sightless face. + Would that he could see + Yon beauteous star, and know + For one transcendent moment + The palpitating joy of sight!" + + All sight is of the soul. + Behold it in the upward flight + Of the unfettered spirit! Hast thou seen + Thought bloom in the blind child's face? + Hast thou seen his mind grow, + Like the running dawn, to grasp + The vision of the Master? + It was the miracle of inward sight. + + In the realms of wonderment where I dwell + I explore life with my hands; + I recognize, and am happy; + My fingers are ever athirst for the earth, + And drink up its wonders with delight, + Draw out earth's dear delights; + My feet are charged with the murmur, + The throb, of all things that grow. + + This is touch, this quivering, + This flame, this ether, + This glad rush of blood, + This daylight in my heart, + This glow of sympathy in my palms! + Thou blind, loving, all-prying touch, + Thou openest the book of life to me. + + The noiseless little noises of the earth + Come with softest rustle; + The shy, sweet feet of life; + The silky mutter of moth-wings + Against my restraining palm; + The strident beat of insect-wings, + The silvery trickle of water; + Little breezes busy in the summer grass; + The music of crisp, whisking, scurrying leaves, + The swirling, wind-swept, frost-tinted leaves; + The crystal splash of summer rain, + Saturate with the odours of the sod. + + With alert fingers I listen + To the showers of sound + That the wind shakes from the forest. + I bathe in the liquid shade + Under the pines, where the air hangs cool + After the shower is done. + My saucy little friend the squirrel + Flips my shoulder with his tail, + Leaps from leafy billow to leafy billow, + Returns to eat his breakfast from my hand. + Between us there is glad sympathy; + He gambols; my pulses dance; + I am exultingly full of the joy of life! + + Have not my fingers split the sand + On the sun-flooded beach? + Hath not my naked body felt the water sing + When the sea hath enveloped it + With rippling music? + Have I not felt + The lilt of waves beneath my boat, + The flap of sail, + The strain of mast, + The wild rush + Of the lightning-charged winds? + Have I not smelt the swift, keen flight + Of winged odours before the tempest? + Here is joy awake, aglow; + Here is the tumult of the heart. + + My hands evoke sight and sound out of feeling, + Intershifting the senses endlessly; + Linking motion with sight, odour with sound + They give colour to the honeyed breeze, + The measure and passion of a symphony + To the beat and quiver of unseen wings. + In the secrets of earth and sun and air + My fingers are wise; + They snatch light out of darkness, + They thrill to harmonies breathed in silence. + + I walked in the stillness of the night, + And my soul uttered her gladness. + O Night, still, odorous Night, I love thee! + O wide, spacious Night, I love thee! + O steadfast, glorious Night! + I touch thee with my hands; + I lean against thy strength; + I am comforted. + + O fathomless, soothing Night! + Thou art a balm to my restless spirit, + I nestle gratefully in thy bosom, + Dark, gracious mother! + Like a dove, I rest in thy bosom. + _Out of the uncharted, unthinkable dark we came, + And in a little time we shall return again + Into the vast, unanswering dark._ + + + + + PRINTED BY + WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD. + PLYMOUTH + + + + + * * * * * + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + +Page 223, "similies" changed to "similes" (Other similes seemed) + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORLD I LIVE IN*** + + +******* This file should be named 27683.txt or 27683.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/6/8/27683 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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