Two years after in the Court of Queen’s Bench we met again, when I arose, the one essential witness to his misdoings, and made him feel as if my turn had come at last.
AMONG THE ENCHANTED ISLES
Enchained by the innumerable complexities of modern city existence, how strangely, how sweetly, do the dreams of roaming amid isles of perpetual summer come to the pale slave of civilisation. Leaning back in his office chair, the pen drops idly from his relaxed fingers, while the remorseless hum from the human hive without loses its distinctive note and becomes by some strange transmutation the slumberous murmur of snowy surf upon far-off coral shores. The dim ceiling, that so often has seemed to press upon his brain like the load of Atlas, melts upward into a celestial canopy of a blue so deep and pure that it is the last expression of the Infinite.
On the wings of fancy, swifter and more easeful than those of the albatross, he is wafted to those fairy shores where Nature smiles in changeless youth and winterless glow. Through every weary sinew thrills the bright message of life, the unconscious outcome of perfect health absorbed from perfect surroundings. He is back again in the days of the world’s infancy, feeling his mid-millennial vigour bounding in every pulse, flooding every artery. In cunningly-fashioned canoe, with grass-woven sails, he floats upon the radiant sea, so like to the heaven above that his gliding shallop seems to swing through the boundless ether, a sprite, a fay of the fruitful brain.
Then as the flood-tide of living bubbles over the brim of restraint he lifts a mighty voice, a full-throated cry of joy wherein is no speech nor language, only exultant music welling up from deeps of fathomless satisfaction. He springs erect, with flashing eyes, and rolling muscles heaving under his shining skin, such a figure as, made in His own glorious image, the Master gazed upon—and, behold, it was very good. Far below him swim the gorgeous sea-folk, each ablaze with colour, living jewels enhanced by their setting. In mazy evolutions full of grace they woo him to join in their play, to explore with them the splendours of the coral groves, to wreath about his majestic form the tender festoons of sea-flowers and deck himself with glowing shells.
Like a dolphin he dives, deeper and deeper as with grasping hands he overcomes the resisting waters. Deeper and deeper yet until the fervent sunshine is suffused into a milder, tenderer light, and everything around is enwrapped in a beauty-mist, a glamorous illusion that melts all angles into curves of loveliness. He enters into the palaces of the deep, and all the skill of Titanic builders on earth becomes to his mind a thing of naught. Interminable rows of columns, all symmetrical, each perfect in beauty, yet none alike, are arrayed before him; massy architraves, domes light-springing from their piers as bubbles, yet in circumference so vast that their limits are lost in shadow, slender spires of pearl, soaring upward like vapour-wreaths: and all interwoven with the wondrous design a fairy tracery of stone, appearing light and luminous as sea foam. The happy living things troop forth to meet him and sweep in many a delicate whirl around until, recalled by the need of upper air, he waves them farewell and ascends.
Oh! the fierce delight of that swift upward rush, the culminating ecstasy as he bounds into the palpitating air above and lies, so softly cradled, upon the limpid wave! There for a season he floats, drinking deep of the brine-laden air, every touch of the sea a caress, every heart-beat a well-spring of pleasure. Then with a shout he hurls himself forward as if he too were a free citizen of the ocean, emulating with almost equal grace the sinuous spring of the porpoise and the marvellous succession of curves presented by the overwhelming whale. He claims kindred with them all, embraces them; clinging lovingly to their smooth sides he frolics with them, rejoicing in the plenitude of their untainted strength.