Cupid's Cyclopedia

by Oliver Herford; John Cecil Clay

Far up in the corner of the map we find Mount Curiosity—its snow-capped peaks lost in the soft gray veil of mist that has prevented the scientists from determining its greatest heights. The ascent of the mountain is usually made on the side where it comes nearest to the State of Indifference ([see note Y]); here a well-worn path, known as the Path of Least Resistance, takes one by such a gradual and agreeable route that little or no effort is realized in the climb, and it is usually a surprise when, just a little below the frost line, one comes suddenly upon a little plateau high, high, in the heavens. Here the air is salubrious and the temperature even. The view is so wonderful in the early Dawn that the most phlegmatic will become enthusiastic. This little plateau is known as the Plateau Platonic and is quite flat. In spite of its beauty and charm few travellers are satisfied to rest here long.

In leaving the plateau one must have a care, for there are two paths quite similar in appearance—one leading up the mountain to nowhere and loneliness, and the other the commencement of the Path of True Love. The careful traveller need not mistake the path, for beside the entrance, at about the height of a man’s heart and nailed to a great Oak, is a crudely fashioned hand with finger pointing the way. This is called the Hand of Fate. Alas, too few take the trouble to look for this guide, and many take the wrong path; while those who, by sheer luck, take the right one are easily discouraged because of the very uncertain condition of mind they soon find themselves in. These usually lose heart before going a great way, or in their careless method of progress take some wrong turning and come to a swift and bad end.

But we will follow the progress of the traveller who believes in signs.

It is hard to describe those first impressions as one comes swinging down the mountainside and sees winding far out and across the verdant Valley of Dreams, dotted here and there with its picturesque castles, the Path of True Love like a silver thread. It seems so bright and pure, and off to the right there is such a happy pink glow in the sky, that one usually finds himself humming some old love song.

Lucky the traveller who puts a clover in his buttonhole, while crossing the Valley of Dreams, for all too soon the cold winds that sweep across Lake Indifference, and make the trip around it a perilous and discouraging one, will be chilling his marrow. He will need both courage and luck when, rounding the upper end of the lake, he comes upon the rough and rocky stretch of road running along the edge of a fearful precipice which overhangs the lake, and is known as the Height of Indifference; here one false step and all is lost. Past this danger the road turns from the lake, but the traveller has hardly time to congratulate himself upon the warmer conditions when he is confronted by a most disconcerting range of mountains known as the Mountains of Opposition. If you do not cross the mountains the mountains will double cross you, so push on and with tact and determination they will be overcome.

The mountains passed, a smooth bit of road is reached and brighter weather, that, after the lowering clouds, the storms and many obstacles met with in the mountains, will likely mislead the traveller into thinking his troubles over. Light-hearted he will push forward hurriedly, taking little heed of the fast increasing cold. Fortunately, just at the edge of the map and just upon the longitude of Respect, the road takes a sudden sharp turn, but it is almost from bad to worse, for it plunges the traveller into the Forest of Misunderstanding, a dark and dismal place that will fill the strongest with misgivings. The only way is to stick close to the road. This is sometimes hard in the darkness as there are many by-paths. Travellers once off the correct road have been known to wander for years without once seeing the sunlight. About half way through the forest there is a road turning to the right; it seems the easier way, dipping down, as it does, into a little valley and across a turbulent little stream, beyond which it disappears from sight in the tangle of brilliant foliage covering Mount Folly. Unhappy he who takes this turn, for there is many a slippery stone in the bed of this stream and the crossing is not a happy one. If one would turn back at the first slip, but human nature is stubborn and few do; besides there seems little choice between the dismal forest behind and the lure of Mt. Folly ahead. Folly lasts but a day, however, and the foliage soon loses its attractive coloring. The foolish wayfarer then pushing on finds himself again confronted by the turbulent stream, but easier to cross this time. A little way further the path ends at what appears to be a refreshing spring; it is the Spring of Untruth, and he who lies to drink of its waters will ever be a slave of the drug.

Again as one is nearing the edges of the Black Forest is another road leading off to the left and to the Spring of Mistrust. Turn not aside nor drink of this spring; its waters are bitter and this turning but takes one back into the depths of the dismal forest.

Emerging from the Black Forest of Misunderstanding the road winds across a fertile and easy-going prairie land, twice crossing the acid waters of Bicker Brook ([see note 23]), and crossing the Quarrel River takes its course along the foot of what, by many, is considered the most beautiful mountain in Amoria, Mount Unselfishness. The going is easy here, and when one comes to a little road branching off and running right up the mountain side he is apt to feel very little inclination to take it. Nearly every traveller knows by hearsay that this is a short-cut one should take, but standing at the foot of the mountain, with a broad smooth road on one hand and this little used difficult mountain path (it is hardly more than a blazed trail) on the other, it is much to the traveller’s credit who attempts it at all. Quite a few do, however, begin the ascent, but almost without exception have not the strength to continue and turn back to the main highway, only to be shortly plunged again and again in the cold and caustic waters of the Quarrel River as the road crosses and recrosses it. There are no bridges here, and many a poor traveller becoming exhausted in the mad battle with the current hopelessly loses all self-control and is carried away to be lost in the Sea of Oblivion. At the river’s mouth is Lost Hope Island; this is really nothing more than a bar, and superstition has it that there, on stormy nights when the tide is coming in, congregate those poor lost souls, and it is claimed, on good authority, that the discords of their mournful songs can be heard even as far as to the edges of the Desert of Absence.

After these several crossings of the Quarrel River the road again becomes easy and travel should be a pleasure, but the traveller is weary from the recent struggle with the river, and is almost thankful for the flat stretch of road where it first crosses the Desert of Absence. It were often better if this bit of road were longer, for before the traveller entirely regains his former vim he is deep in the unhealthy mists and quicksands of the Slough of Despond, and it is in a very weakened condition that he commences the second crossing of the Desert of Absence. In this condition is it strange that one loiter in the Oasis of Flirtation—the one bright spot in an otherwise dull desert? But an oasis and a flirtation have their limits, and when one’s thirst is satisfied one wants to move on. And well this is for the traveller on the Path of True Love, for only a little and the desert is passed, and the road leads for many happy miles through the sweetest and most beautiful meadow land where the warm sunlight, the songs of the birds, and the sweet odor of new-mown hay repay one for all the hardships of the past, and so stimulate the traveller that he strikes out upon the third crossing of the Desert of Absence with a light step and a song in his heart, and though the trip is longer it seems far shorter than either of the previous crossings. So happy indeed has he been and, with the soft airs of the desert making his heart grow fonder, the way seems so easy that the sudden obstruction of two of the lesser spurs of the Mountains of Opposition fill him with misgiving, and the valley between them is well named Blue Valley. ([See note 13.])

In such a condition of mind the traveller plunges down the mountain side and is soon deep in a great gloomy forest, not likely to raise his spirits, but rather calculated to depress them still more.