THE LANTERN-PEOPLE.
I HAD been thinking how strange a thing it was that I disliked so many people and liked so few. Only to look at some persons seemed enough to put me out of humor and make me feel like saying cross things. But there were others, though not near so many of them, whom I loved to meet and whom I could hardly be cross to if I tried. I had been thinking about this, when I fell asleep and had a dream.
I thought I was carried away to a strange country where it was always dark. No morning ever came there, the sun never shone, and there were no stars in the sky. Yet people were living there, and I could see them walking about. But they were very strange people, such as I had never seen before, nor heard of, nor even thought of. I called them the lantern-people because they looked like great lanterns with lights inside of them that shone through.
And they were of a very strange shape, for they had ever so many sides, and on every side was a picture. Some were pretty and some were ugly pictures. Every person I saw had both pretty and ugly sides.
Of course I was very much surprised and stood looking a long while, for the people could not see me though I could see them and was close to them. On some of their sides were pictures of snakes, wasps, and pigs; on other sides, of doves, lambs, flowers, and such beautiful things.
And now I want to tell you a very curious thing about the way the people acted when they met each other. I noticed, when a man met another in the street, he would quickly turn around one of his sides, so that the man he met could see it, and nothing else—that is, nothing but the picture that was on the side turned toward him.