DREAM WORLDS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 28, 9 July 1892, Page 694

DREAM WORLDS.

It is an undeniable fact that we all more or less lead dual existences. There is the existence patent to the whole world, in which our actions are known, criticised, perchance condemned by those with whom we are thrown in contact. It may or may not be an existence to our own liking ; its very pleasures may fill us with ennui, while its hollowness and baseness may make themselves felt through the thick epidermis of the world’s approbation. But nevertheless its paths must be trod ; the Moloch of civilization exempts and pities none, and so, as a refuge from the hard realities of life, we linger to a certain extent in perfect dream worlds of our own creating. These dream worlds form an existence to themselves ; our nearest and dearest may not enter them with us. They are an inner sanctuary, a Holy of Holies, where we wander unseen, save by the eye of God. Few of us, I fancy, have not revelled in them, these wonderful waking dreams, when for once, all that is purest and best in us, discarding its earthly mantle, soars toward the glittering prospect our imagination pictures. How marvellously varied are the pictures ! To some, cruel fame who has coldly passed them by, seems beckoning ready to crown them with tardy laurels ; to others, dear lost ones stand, with outstretched hands and murmured words of welcome —to all they yield a moral intoxication, in the fulfilmeut of the heart’s desire. The term, a dreamer, is more or less suggestive of contempt, but just watch one of these when lost in delicious reverie, and ask yourself could earth bring such a smile of perfect contentment to his lips ? Again, after all what is genius but the power of pinioning these Boating fancies, and placing them in tangible form before the eyes of others ? Authors, artists, musicians, are they not all dreamers? Have not their most brilliant successes an origin in the mysterious worlds of which 1 speak ? To all great imagination is not given—in fact, some seldom raise themselves above the sordid cares ‘ and petty wonies of their daily routine ; but even the most prosaic among us have thoughts and aspirations unshared, untold, which only need some soothing melody, or touch of nature to set in train. And then how independent do these fairy regions make us ! In them we reign supreme. We people them as our love and fancy dictate ; time hurries or retards his progress at our wish ; scenes pass before our view like a panorama of startling beauty. The very minds of others are open to us, whilst death and sorrow are but myths in our creation ! It may be wrong, unreasoning, foolish, thus to snatch brief glimpses of heaven in this material go-ahead age in which we live, but let moralists say what they will, 1 have an intense pity for the man of whom the quotation speaks : * A primrose by the river’s brim A yellow primrose was to him . And it was nothing more.’

M.L.F.