A dream! Only a dream! It was more—it was a grand inspiration. I will write it all down.
The beautiful coach, with sail wings, the sea and ice tour. The city of Arc, city of Zion! The marvels of perpetual amusements, science and spiritism—of God(?).
Going down the earth’s center—the awed terror. Seeing into the planets—I did, too, I know I did.
I will write it all out.
I have spoken aloud my dream, to two very intent listeners, one of whom is convulsed anew. “A China-lantern”—will he never stop laughing. The other, “all right, auntie. You have got it right, and, if I mistake not, some other things. Though seen in a dream, it is not the less valuable tour, sought for ages. But the ancients did not have arc-light suns, to see their lanterns by, as do we. But why is the decoration set so far apart, unlike ours, that are close lantern-hung?”
“Oh, I can answer that,” says Charley. “The design is but in outline. We will some day catch a meteor, and go to inspect it closer.”
- Transcriber’s Notes:
- Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.
- Unbalanced quotation marks were left as the author intended.
- Typographical errors were silently corrected.
- Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book.