 Desire by James Stevens, published 1920, recorded for Dreams Collection 1 Stories and Poems by Michelle Fry, Baton Rouge, Louisiana in January 2020. This is a LibriVox recording. Our LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Desire by James Stevens. He was quite excited as he told a story to his wife and in the telling he revealed to her a depth of credulity of which she would not have believed him capable. He was a hard-headed man and conducted his business on hard-headed principles. Indeed he had conducted his courtship and matrimonial affairs in a manner which she would not have termed reckless or romantic. When therefore she found him excited and over such a story she did not know what to think. She ended by agreeing with him not because her reason was satisfied or even touched but simply because he was excited and women generally welcome anything which disturbs or varies the dull round of use and want and will bathe in excitement whenever they get the chance. This was the story he told. As he was walking down Grafton Street to lunch a motor car came spinning down the road at a speed much too dangerous for that narrow and always congested thoroughfare. A man was walking in front of him and just as the car came behind this man stepped off the path with a view to crossing the road. He did not even look behind as he stepped off. Her husband on that moment stretched forth a long muscular arm that swept the man back to the pavement one second before the car went blaring and buzzing by. If I had not been there, said her husband. The two men grinned at each other. Her husband smiling with good fellowship, the other crinkling with amusement and gratitude. They walked together down the street and they had lunch together. They sat for a long time after lunch smoking innumerable cigarettes and engaged in a conversation which she could never have believed her husband would have stood for ten minutes and they parted with an expressed wish from her husband that they should meet again on the following day and a wordless smile from the man. He had neither ratified nor negative the arrangement. I hope he'll turn up, said her husband. It was this conversation had excited her man for it had drawn him into a mental atmosphere to which he was a stranger and he had found himself moving there with such ease and pleasure that he wished to get back to it as often and with as little delay as possible. Briefly as he explained it to her the atmosphere was religious and while it was entirely intellectual it was more heady and exhilarating than the emotional religion to which he had been accustomed and from which he had long since passed. He tried to describe his companion but had such ill success that she could not remember afterwards whether he was tall or short, fat or thin, fair or dark. It was the man's eyes only he succeeded in emphasizing and these it appeared were eyes such as he had never before seen in a human face. That also he said was a wrong way of putting it for his eyes were exactly like everybody else's. It was the way he looked through them that was different something very steady very ardent immensely quiet and powerful was using those eyes for purposes of vision. He had never met anyone who looked at him so directly so comprehendingly so agreeably. You are in love said she with a laugh. After this her husband's explanations became more explanatory but not less confused until she found that they were both with curious unconsciousness in the middle of a fairy tale. He asked me said her husband. What was the thing I wished for beyond all things? That is the most difficult question I have ever been invited to answer. He went on and for nearly half an hour we sat quietly thinking it out and discussing various magnificences and chances in life. I had all the usual thoughts and of course the first of them was wealth. I mentioned it too tentatively as a possibility and he agreed that it was worth considering but after a while I knew that I did not want money. When always has need of money said his wife. In a way that is true said he but not in this way for as I thought it over I remembered that we have no children and that we have few desires which the money we have already gathered cannot buy. Also we are fairly well off we have enough in the stocking to last our time even if I ceased from business which I am not going to do and in short I discovered that money or its purchasing power had not any particular advantages to offer. All the same said she and halted with her eyes fixed on bonnets far away in time and space. All the same he agreed with a smile. I could not think of anything worth wishing for he continued. I mentioned health and wisdom and we spoke of these but judging myself by the standard of the world in which we move I concluded that both my health and knowledge were as good as the next man's and I thought if I elected to become wiser than my contemporaries I might be a very lonely person for the rest of my days. Yes she said thoughtfully I am glad you did not ask to be made wise unless you could have asked it for the both of us. I asked him in the end what he would advise me to demand but he replied that he could not advise me at all. Behind everything stands desire said he and you must find out your desire. I asked him then if the opportunity came to him what he would ask for not in order that I might copy his wish but from sheer curiosity and he replied that he would not ask for anything and I was about to adopt that attitude. Oh said his wife when an idea came to me. Here I am. I said to myself 48 years of age rich enough sound enough in wind and limb and as wise as I can afford to be. What is there now belonging to me? Absolutely mine but from which I must part and which I would like to keep and I saw that the thing which was leaving me day by day second by second irretrievably and inevitably was my 48 years and I thought I would like to continue at the age of 48 until my time was up. I did not ask to live forever or any of that nonsense but I asked to be allowed to stay at the age of 48 years with all the equipment of my present state unimpaired. You should not have asked for such a thing said his wife a little angrily. It is not fair to me. You are older than I am now but in a few years this will mean that I shall be needlessly older than you. I think it was not a loyal wish. I thought of that objection said he and I also thought that I was past the age at which certain things matter and that both temperamentally and in the matter of years I was proof against well say feminine attractions or femininity of any kind. It seemed to me to be right so I just registered my wish with him. What did he say? She queried. He did not say anything. He just nodded and began to talk again of other matters religion life death mind a host of things which for all the diversity they seem to have when I enumerate them were yet one single thing. I feel a more contented man tonight than I have ever felt he continued and I feel in some curious way a different person from the man I was yesterday. Here his wife woke up as it were from the conversation and began to laugh. You are a foolish man said she and I am just as bad. If anyone were to hear us talking this solemn silliness he would have a right to mock at us. He laughed heartily with her and after a supper they went to bed. During the night his wife had a dream. She dreamt that a ship set off for the polar seas on an expedition in which she was not sufficiently interested to find out its reason. The ship departed with her on board for a time she was concerned with baggage and with counting and going over various articles she had brought against the Arctic weather. She had thick woollen stockings. She had skin boots all hairy inside all pliable and wrinkled without. She had a great skin cap shaped like a helmet and fitting down in a cape over the shoulders. She had even and it did not astonish her a pair of very baggy fur trousers. She had a sleeping sack. She had an enormous quantity of things and everybody in the expedition was equipped if not with the same things at least similarly. These traps were an unending subject of conversation aboard and although days and weeks past the talk of the ship hovered about and fell continually into the subject of warm clothing. There came a day when the weather began to be perceptibly colder so cold indeed that she was tempted to draw on these wonderful breeches and fit her head into that most cozy hat but she did not do so for her and everybody on the ship explained it to her. It was necessary that she should accustom herself to the feeling of cold and she was further informed the chill which she was now feeling was nothing to the chill she would presently have to bear. It seemed good advice and she decided that as long as she could bear the cold she would do so and would not put on any protective covering. Thus when the cold became really intense she would be to some degree ready for it and would not suffer so much. But steadily and day by day it became colder and now they were in wild and whirling seas wherein great green and white icebergs went sailing by and all about the ship little hummocks of ice bobbed and surged and went under and came up and the gray water slashed and hissed against and on top of these small hillocks. Her hands were so chilly that she had to put them under her armpits to keep any warmth in them and her feet were in a worse condition. They had begun to pain her so she decided that on the next day she would put on her winter equipment and would not mind what anybody said to the contrary. It is cold enough said she for my Arctic trousers and my warm soft boots and my great furry gloves I will put them on in the morning for it was then almost night and she meant to go to bed at once. She did go to bed and she lay there quite cold and miserable. In the morning she was yet colder and immediately on rising she looked about for the winter clothing which she had laid ready by the side of her bunk the night before but she could not find them. She was forced to dress in her usual rather thin clothes and having done so she went on deck. When she got to the side of the vessel she found that the world about her was changed. The sea had disappeared. Far as the eye could go was a level plain of ice not white but gray and over it there lowered a sky gray as itself and of almost the same shade. Across this waste there blew a bitter and piercing wind so that her ears tingled and stung. No one was moving on the ship and the dead silence which brooded on the snow lay heavy and almost solid on the vessel. She ran to the other side and found that the whole ship's company had landed and were staring at her from a little distance of the land and these people were as silent as the frozen air as the frozen ship. They stared at her and made no move and made no sound. She noticed that they were all dressed in air winter furs and while she stood ice began to creep into her veins. One of the ship's company suddenly strode forward a few paces and held up a bundle in his mittened hand. She saw the bundle contained her clothes, her broad furry trousers, her great cozy helmet and gloves. To get from the ship to the ice was painful but not difficult for a rope ladder was hanging against the side and down this she went. The rungs felt hard as iron for they were frozen stiff and the touch of those glassy surfaces bit into her tender hand like fire but she got to the ice and went across it towards her companions. Then to her dismay, to her terror all these suddenly with one unexpressed accord turned and began to run swiftly away from her and she with a heart that could scarcely beat took after them. Every few paces she fell for her shoes could not grip on the ice and each time she fell those monsters stood and turned and watched her and the man who had her clothes waved the bundle at her and danced grotesquely, silently. She continued running, sliding, falling, picking herself up until her breath went and she came to a halt unable to move a limb further and scarcely able to breathe and this time they did not stay to look at her. They continued running but now with greater and greater speed and she saw them become black specks away on the white distance and she saw them disappear and there was nothing left where she stared but the long white miles and the terrible silence and the cold. How cold it was and with that there rose again a little wind keen as a razor which whipped into her face swirled about her ankles like a whip and stabbed under her armpits like a dagger. I am cold she buttered. She looked backwards when she had come but the ship was no longer in sight and she could not remember in what direction it lay. Then she began to run in any direction. Indeed she ran in every direction to find the ship for when she had taken a hundred steps in one way she thought frantically this is not the way and at once she began to run on the opposite road but run as she might she could not get warm. It was colder she got and then she slipped again and when sliding down a hollow faster and faster she came to the brink of a cleft and swished over this and down into a hole of ice and there she lay. I shall die she said. I shall fall asleep here and die. Then she awoke. She opened her eyes directly on the window and saw the dawn struggling with the darkness a film of grayish light which framed the window but did not lift the obscurity of the room and she lay for a second smiling to herself at the grotesque dream and thanking God it had only been a dream. The next second she felt that she was cold. She pulled the clothes more tightly about her and she spoke to her husband. How miserably cold it is she said. She turned over in the bed and lay against him for warmth and then she found that the atrocious cold came from him that it was he. She leaped out of the bed with a scream switched on the light and bent over him. He was stone dead. He was stone cold and she stood by him shivering and whimpering. End of Desire by James Stevens. A Dream by Helen Hunt Jackson Read for Dreams Collection 1 Stories and Poems by Nemo This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org A Dream by Helen Hunt Jackson I dreamed that I was dead and crossed the heavens. Heavens after heavens, with burning feet and swift, and cried, Oh God, where art thou? I left one on earth whose burden I would pray thee lift. I was so dead I wondered at no thing, not even that the angels slowly turned their faces speechless as I hurried by. Beneath my feet the golden pavements burned. Nor at the first that I could not find God, because the heavens stretched endlessly like space. At last a terror seized my very soul. I seemed alone in all the crowded place. Then, sudden, one compassionate cried out, Though like the rest his face from me he turned, As I were one no angel might regard. Beneath my feet the golden pavements burned. No more in heaven than earth will he find God, Who does not know his loving mercy swift. But waits the moment consummate and ripe, Each burden from each human soul to lift. Though I was dead I died again for shame, Lonely to flee from heaven again I turned. The ranks of angels looked away from me. Beneath my feet the golden pavements burned. End of A Dream by Helen Hunt Jackson What the Moon Brings by H.P. Lovecraft Read and Recorded for Dreams Collection 1 Stories and Poems by Dan Grzinski This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org What the Moon Brings by H.P. Lovecraft I hate the Moon. I am afraid of it. For when it shines on certain scenes familiar and loved it sometimes makes them unfamiliar and hideous. It was in the spectral summer when the Moon shone down on the old garden, where I wandered. The spectral summer of narcotic flowers and humid seas of foliage that bring wild and many-colored dreams. And as I walked by the shallow crystal stream I saw unwanted ripples tipped with yellow light as if those placid waters were drawn on in restless currents to strange oceans that are not in the world. Silent and sparkling, bright and baleful, those moon-cursed waters hurried I knew not wither, whist from the embowered bank's white lotus blossoms fluttered one by one in the opiate night wind and dropped despairingly into the stream, swirling away horribly under the arched carven bridge and staring back with the sinister resignation of calm dead faces. And as I ran along the shore crushing sleeping flowers with heedless feet and maddened ever by the fear of unknown things and the lure of the dead faces I saw that the garden had no end under that moon. For where by day the walls were, there stretched now only new vistas of trees and paths, flowers and shrubs, stone idols and pagodas, and bendings of the yellow lit and stream past grassy banks and under grotesque bridges of marble. And the lips of the dead lotus faces whispered sadly and bade me follow, nor did I cease my steps till the stream became a river and joined amidst marshes of swaying reeds and beaches of gleaming sand, the shore of a vast and nameless sea. Upon that sea the hateful moonshine and over its unvocal waves weird perfumes brooded, and as I saw there in the lotus faces vanish I longed for nets that I might capture them and learn from them the secrets which the moon had brought upon the night. But when the moon went over to the west and the still tide ebbed from the sullen shore I saw in that light old spires that the waves almost uncovered, and white columns, gay with fastoons of green seaweed, and knowing that to this sunken place all the dead had come I trembled and did not wish again to speak with the lotus faces. Yet when I saw far out in the sea a black condor descend from the sky to seek rest on a vast reef I would feign of questioned him, and asked him of those whom I had known when they were alive. This I would have asked him had he not been so far away. But he was very far, and could not be seen at all when he drew nigh that gigantic reef. So I watched the tide go out under that sinking moon, and saw gleaming the spires, the towers, and the roofs of that dead dripping city. And as I watched my nostrils tried to close against the perfume-conquering stench of the world's dead, for truly in this unplaced and forgotten spot had all the flesh of the churchyards gathered for puffy sea-worms to gnaw and glut upon. Over those horrors the evil moon now hung very low, but the puffy worms of the sea need no moon to feed by. And as I watched the ripples that told of the writhing of worms beneath I felt a new chill from afar out whither the condor had flown, as if my flesh had caught a horror before my eyes had seen it. Nor had my flesh trembled without cause, for when I raised my eyes I saw that the waters adabbed very low, showing much of the vast reef whose rim I had seen before. And when I saw that this reef was but the black basalt crown of a shocking icon whose monstrous forehead now shone in the dim moonlight, and whose vile hooves must paw the hellish hooves miles below, I shrieked and shrieked, lest the hidden face rise above the waters, and lest the hidden eyes look at me after the slinking away of that leering and treacherous yellow moon. And to escape this relentless thing I plunged gladly and unhesitatingly into the stinking shallows where amidst weedy walls and sunken streets that sea-worms feast upon the world's dead. And of what the moon brings by H. P. Lovecraft. DREAMERS by Siegfried Sassoon Soldiers are citizens of Death's gray land, drawing no dividend from times tomorrows, in the great hour of destiny they stand, each with his feuds and jealousies and sorrows. Soldiers are sworn to action, they must win some flaming fatal climax with their lives. Soldiers are dreamers when the guns begin, they think of fire-lit homes, clean beds and wives. I see them in foul dugups, gnawed by rats, and in the ruined trenches lashed with rain, dreaming of things they did with balls and bats, and mocked by hopeless longing to regain bank holidays and picture shows and spats, going to the office and the train. END OF DREAMERS by Siegfried Sassoon My Platonic Sweetheart by Mark Twain Read for Dreams Collection One, Stories and Forms by Michelle Frye, Veteran Rouge, Louisiana This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. And now, My Platonic Sweetheart by Mark Twain My Platonic Sweetheart was published in Harper's Magazine in the December 1912 issue. Note, Mark Twain was always interested in those psychic phenomena which we call dreams. His own sleep fancies were likely to be vivid and it was his habit to recall them and to find interest and sometimes amusement in their detail. In the story which follows, he sat down, and not without some fidelity to circumstance, dream circumstance, a phase of what we call recurrent dreams. As the tale progressed, he felt an inclination to treat the subject more fully, more philosophically, and eventually he laid the manuscript away. The time did not come when he was moved to rewrite it, and for the pure enjoyment of it as a delicate fancy it may be our good fortune that he left it unchanged. A-B-P. And now, the story. I met her first when I was seventeen and she fifteen. It was in a dream. No, I did not meet her, I overtook her. It was in a Missouri village which I had never been in before, and was not in at that time except dream wise. In the flesh I was on the Atlantic seaboard ten or twelve hundred miles away. The thing was sudden and without preparation after the custom of dreams. There I was crossing a wooden bridge that had a wooden rail, and was untidy with scattered wisps of hay, and there she was, five steps in front of me, half a second previously, neither of us was there. This was the exit of the village which lay immediately behind us. Its last house was the blacksmith's shop, and the peaceful clinking of the hammers, a sound which nearly always seems remote, and is always touched with a spirit of loneliness and a feeling of soft regret for something, you don't know what, was wafted to my ear over my shoulder. In front of us was the winding country road with woods on one side, and on the other a rail fence with blackberry vines and hazel bushes crowding its angles, on an upper rail a bluebird, and scurrying toward him along the same rail a fox squirrel with his tail bent high like a shepherd's crook. Beyond the fence a rich field of grain, and far away a farmer in shirt sleeves and straw hat, wading knee deep through it, no other representative of life and no noise at all, everywhere a Sabbath stillness. I remember it all, and the girl too, and just how she walked and how she was dressed. In the first moment I was five steps behind her, in the next one I was at her side, without either stepping or gliding, it merely happened, the transfer ignored space. I noticed that, but not with any surprise, it seemed a natural process. I was at her side, I put my arm around her waist and drew her close to me, for I loved her, and although I did not know her, my behavior seemed to me quite natural and right, and I had no misgivings about it. She showed no surprise, no distress, no displeasure, but put an arm around my waist and turned up her face to mine with a happy welcome in it, and when I bent down to kiss her she received the kiss, as if she was expecting it, and as if it was quite natural for me to offer it and her to take it and have pleasure in it. The affection which I felt for her and which she manifestly felt for me was a quite simple fact, but the quality of it was another matter. It was not the affection of brother and sister, it was closer than that, more clinging, more endearing, more reverent. It was not the love of sweethearts, for there was no fire in it. It was somewhere between the two, and was finer than either, and more exquisite, more profoundly contending. We often experience this strange and gracious thing in our dream loves, and we remember it as a feature of our childhood loves too. We strolled along across the bridge and down the road, chatting like the oldest friends. She called me George, and that seemed natural and right, though it was not my name, and I called her Alice, and she did not correct me, though without a doubt it was not her name. Everything that happened seemed just natural and to be expected. Once I said, what a dear little hand it is, and without any words she laid it gratefully in mind for me to examine it. I did it, remarking upon its littleness, its delicate beauty, and its satin skin, then kissed it. She put it up to her lips without saying anything, and kissed it in the same place. Around a curve of the road, at the end of half a mile, we came to a log house and entered it, and found the table set and everything on it steaming hot. A roast turkey, corn in the ear, butter beans, and the rest of the usual things, and a cat curled up asleep in the splint bottom chair by the fireplace, but no people, just emptiness and silence. She said she would look in the next room if I would wait for her. So I sat down, and she passed through the door, which closed behind her with a click of the latch. I waited and waited. Then I got up and followed, for I could not any longer bear to have her out of my sight. I passed through the door and found myself in a strange sort of cemetery, a city of innumerable tombs and monuments stretching far and wide on every hand, and flushed with pink and gold lights flung from the sinking sun. I turned around and the log house was gone. I ran here and there and yonder down the lanes and between the rows of tombs, calling Alice, and presently the night closed down, and I could not find my way. Then I woke in deep distress over my loss, and was in my bed in Philadelphia, and I was not 17 now, but 19. 10 years afterwards, in another dream. I found her. I was 17 again, and she was still 15. I was in a grassy place in the twilight deeps of a magnolia forest, some miles above Natchez, Mississippi. The trees were snowed over with great blossoms, and the air was loaded with their rich and strenuous fragrance. The ground was high, and through a rift in the wood, a burnished patch of the river was visible in the distance. I was sitting on the grass, absorbed in thinking, when an arm was laid around my neck, and there was Alice sitting by my side and looking into my face. A deep and satisfied happiness and an unwardable gratitude rose in me, but with it there was no feeling of surprise, and there was no sense of a time lapse. The 10 years amounted to hardly even a yesterday, indeed to hardly even a noticeable fraction of it. We dropped in the tranquilized way into affectionate caressing and pettings, and chatted along without a reference to the separation, which was natural, for I think we did not know there had been any that one might measure with either clock or omnac. She called me Jack, and I called her Helen, and those seemed the right and proper names, and perhaps neither of us suspected that we had ever borne others, or if we did suspect it, it was probably not a matter of consequence. She had been beautiful 10 years before, she was just as beautiful still, girlishly young and sweet and innocent, and she was still that now. She had had blue eyes, a hair of glossy gold before, she had black hair now, and dark brown eyes. I noted these differences, but they did not suggest change, to me she was the same girl she was before, absolutely. It never occurred to me to ask what became of the log house, I doubt if I even thought of it. We were living in a simple and natural and beautiful world where everything that happened was natural and right, and was not perplexed with the unexpected, or with any forms of surprise, and so there was no occasion for explanations and no interest attaching to such things. We had a dear and pleasant time together, and were like a couple of ignorant and contented children. Helen had a summer hat on, she took it off presently and said, It was in the way, now you can kiss me better. It seemed to me merely a bit of courteous and considerate wisdom, nothing more, and a natural thing for her to think of and do. We went wandering through the woods since came to a limpid and shallow stream, a matter of three yards wide. She said, I must not get my feet wet, dear, carry me over. I took her in my arms and gave her my hat to hold. This was to keep my own feet from getting wet. I did not know why this should have that effect. I merely knew it, and she knew it too. I crossed the stream and said I would go on carrying her, because it was so pleasant, and she said it was pleasant to her too, and wished we had thought of it sooner. It seemed a pity to me that we should have walked so far, both of us on foot, when we could have been having this higher enjoyment, and I spoke of it regretfully as something lost which could never be got back. She was troubled about it too, and said there must be some way to get it back, and she would think. After musing deeply a little while, she looked up radiant and proud, and said she had found it. Carry me back and start over again. I can see, now, that that was no solution, but at the time it seemed luminous with intelligence, and I believe that there was not another little head in the world that could have worked out that difficult problem with such swiftness and success. I told her that, and it pleased her, and she said she was glad it all happened so that I could see how capable she was. After thinking a moment, she added that it was quite atreous. The words seemed to mean something, I do not know why. In fact, it seemed to cover the whole ground and leave nothing more to say. I admired the nice apneists and the flashing felicity of the phrase. It was filled with respect for the marvelous mind that had been able to engender it. I think less of it now. It is a noticeable fact that the intellectual coinage of dreamland often passes for more there than it would fetch here. Many a time and after years my dream sweetheart threw off golden sayings, which crumbled to ashes under my pencil when I was setting them down in my notebook after breakfast. I carried her back and started over again, and all the long afternoon I bore her in my arms, mile upon mile, and it never occurred to either of us that there was anything remarkable in a youth like me being able to carry that sweet bundle around half a day without some sense of fatigue or need of rest. There are many dream worlds, but none is so rightly and reasonably and pleasantly arranged as that one. After dark, we reached a great plantation house, and it was her home. I carried her in, and the family knew me, and I knew them, although we had not met before, and the mother asked me with ill disguised anxiety how much twelve times fourteen was, and I said a hundred and thirty five, and she put it down on a piece of paper saying it was her habit in the process of perfecting her education not to trust important particulars to her memory. And her husband was offering me a chair, but noticed that Helen was asleep, so he said it would be best not to disturb her, and he backed me softly against a wardrobe and said I could stand more easily now. Then a negro came in, bowing humbly with his slouch hat in his hand, and asked me if I would have my measure taken. The question did not surprise me, but it confused and worried me, and I said I should like to have advice about it. He started toward the door to call advisors, then he and the family and the lights began to grow dim, and in a few moments the place was pitch dark, but straight away there came a flood of moonlight and a gust of cold wind, and I found myself crossing a frozen lake, and my arms were empty. The wave of grief that swept through me woke me up, and I was sitting at my desk in the newspaper office in San Francisco, and I noticed by the clock that I had been asleep less than two minutes, and what was of more consequence I was twenty-nine years old. That was 1864. The next year and the year after I had momentary glimpses of my dream sweetheart, but nothing more. These are sat down in my notebooks under their proper dates, but with no talks nor other particulars added, which is sufficient evidence to me that there were none to add. In both of these instances there was the sudden meeting and recognition, the eager approach, then the instant disappearance, leaving the world empty and of no worth. I remember the two images quite well. In fact, I remember all the images of that spirit, and I can bring them before me without help of my notebook. The habit of writing down my dreams of all sorts while they were fresh in my mind, and then studying them and rehearsing them and trying to find out what the source of dreams is, and which of the two or three separate persons inhabiting us is their architect, has given me a good dream memory, a thing which is not usual with people, for few drill the dream memory, and no memory can be kept strong without that. I spent a few months in the Hawaiian Islands in 1866, and in October of that year I delivered my maiden lecture. It was in San Francisco. In the following January I arrived in New York and had just completed my 31st year. In that year I saw my platonic dream sweetheart again. In this dream I was again standing on the stage of the opera house in San Francisco, ready to lecture and with the audience vividly individualized before me in the strong light. I begun, spoke a few words, and stopped cold with fright, for I discovered that I had no subject, no text, nothing to talk about. I choked for a while, then got out a few words, allaying poor attempt at humor. The house made no response. There was a miserable pause, then another attempt, and another failure. There were a few scornful laughs, otherwise the house was silent, unsmilingly austere, deeply offended. I was consuming with shame. In my distress I tried to work upon its pity. I began to make servile apologies mixed with gross and ill-timed flatteries, and to beg and plead for forgiveness. This was too much, and the people broke into insulting cries, whistling, hootings, and catcalls, and in the midst of this they rose and began to struggle in a confused mass toward the door. I stood dazed and helpless, looking out over this spectacle, and thinking how everybody would be talking about it next day, and I could not show myself in the streets. When the house was become wholly empty and still, I sat down on the only chair that was on the stage and bent my head down on the reading desk to shut out the look of that place. Soon that familiar dream voice spoke my name and swept all my troubles away. Robert, I answered, agnus. The next moment we two were lounging up the Blossomy Gorge called the EO Valley in the Hawaiian Islands. I recognized without any explanations that Robert was not my name, but only a pet name, a common noun, and meant deer, and both of us knew that agnus was not a name, but only a pet name, a common name, whose spirit was affectionate, but not conveyable with exactness in any but the dream language. It was about the equivalent of deer, but the dream vocabulary shaves meanings finer and closer than do the world's daytime dictionaries. We did not know why those words should have those meanings. We had used words which had no existence in any known language, and had expected them to be understood, and they were understood. In my notebooks there are several letters from this dream sweetheart in some unknown tongue, presumably dream tongue, with translations added. I should like to be master of that tongue, then I could talk in shorthand. Here is one of those letters, the whole of it. Rax Oha Tao. Translation, when you receive this it will remind you that I long to see your face and touch your hand for the comfort of it and the peace. It is swifter than waking thought, for thought is not thought at all, but only a vague and formless fog, until it is articulated into words. We wandered far up the fairy gorge, gathering the beautiful flowers of the ginger plant, and talking affectionate things, and tying and re-tying each other's ribbons and cravats, which didn't need it, and finally sat down in the shade of a tree and climbed the vine-hung precipices with our eyes up and up toward the sky to where the drifting scarfs of white mist clove them across and left the green summits floating pale and remote, like spectral islands wandering in the deeps of space, and then we descended to the earth and talked again. How still it is and soft and balmy and reposeful, I could never tire of it. You like it don't you Robert? Yes and I like the whole region, all the islands. Maui, it is a darling island. I have been here before, have you? Once, but it wasn't an island then. What was it? It was a Sufa. I understood it was a dream word for part of a continent. What were the people like? They hadn't come yet, there weren't any. Do you know Agnes? That is Haikikala, the dead volcano over there across the valley. Was it here in your friend's time? Yes, but it was burning. Do you travel much? I think so. Not here much, but in the stars a good deal. Is it pretty there? She used a couple of dream words for, you will go with me sometime and you will see. Noncommittal as one perceives now, but I did not notice it then. A man of war lit on her shoulder. I put out my hand and caught it. Its feathers began to fall out and it turned into a kitten. Then the kitten's body began to contract itself to a ball and put out hairy long legs and soon it was a tarantula. I was going to keep it, but it turned into a starfish and I threw it away. Agnes said it was not worthwhile to try to keep things. There was no stability about them. I suggested rocks, but she said a rock was like the rest. It wouldn't stay. She picked up a stone and it turned into a bat and flew away. These curious matters interested me, but that was all. They did not stir my wonder. While we were sitting there in the Eogorge talking, a Kanaka came along who was wrinkled and bent and whiteheaded and he stopped and talked to us in the native tongue and we understood him without trouble and answered him in his own speech. He said he was 130 years old and he remembered Captain Cook well and was present when he was murdered, saw it with his own eyes and also helped. Then he showed us his gun which was of a strange make and he said it was his own invention and was to shoot arrows with, though one loaded it with powder and it had a percussion lock. He said it would carry a hundred miles. It seemed a reasonable statement. I had no fault to find with it and it did not in any way surprise me. He loaded it and fired an arrow aloft and it darted into the sky and vanished. Then he went his way saying that the arrow would fall near us in half an hour and would go many yards into the earth, not minding the rocks. I took the time and we waited, reclining upon the mossy slant at the base of a tree and gazing into the sky. By and by there was a hissing sound followed by a dull impact and Agnes uttered a groan. She said in a series of fainting gasps, Take me in your arms. It passed through me. Hold me to your heart. I am afraid to die. Closer, closer. It is growing dark. I cannot see you. Don't leave me. Where are you? You're not gone. You will not leave me. I would not leave you. Then her spirit passed. She was clay in my arms. The scene changed in an instant and I was awake and crossing Bond Street in New York with a friend and it was snowing hard. We had been talking and there had been no observable gaps in the conversation. I doubt if I had made any more than two steps while I was asleep. I am satisfied that even the most elaborate and incident-crowded dream is seldom more than a few seconds in length. It would not cost me very much of a strain to believe in Mohammed's 70-year dream, which began when he knocked his glass over and ended in time for him to catch it before the water spilled. Within a quarter of an hour I was in my quarters, undressed, ready for bed, and was jotting down my dream in my notebook. A striking thing happened now. I finished my notes and I was just going to turn out the gas when I was caught with the most strenuous gape for it was very late and I was very drowsy. I fell asleep and dreamed again. What now follows occurred while I was asleep and when I woke again the gape had completed itself, but not long before I think, for I was still on my feet. I was in Athens, a city which I had not then seen, but I recognized the Parthenon from the pictures although it had a fresh look and was in perfect repair. I passed by it and climbed a grassy hill toward a palatial sort of mansion which was built of red terracotta and had a spacious portico whose roof was supported by a rank of fluted columns with Corinthian capitals. It was noonday, but I met no one. I passed into the house and entered the first room. It was very large and light, its walls were of polished and richly tinted and veined onyx and its flora was a pictured pattern in soft colors laid in tiles. I noted the details of the furniture and the ornaments, the thing which I should not have been likely to do when awake, and they took sharp hold and remained in my memory. They are not really dim yet and this was more than 30 years ago. There was a person present, Agnes. I was not surprised to see her, but only glad. She was in the simple Greek costume and her hair and eyes were different as to color from those she had had when she died in the Hawaiian islands half an hour before. But to me she was exactly her own beautiful little self as I had always known her and she was still 15 and I was 17 once more. She was sitting on an ivory sati crocheting something or other and had her crools in a shallow willow work basket in her lap. I sat down by her and we began to chat in the usual way. I remembered her death but the pain and the grief and the bitterness which had been so sharp and so desolating to me at the moment that it happened had wholly passed from me now and had left not a scar. I was grateful to have her back but there was no realizable sense that she had ever been gone and so it did not occur to me to speak about it and she made no reference to it herself. It may be that she had often died before and knew that there was nothing lasting about it and consequently nothing important enough in it to make conversation out of. When I think of that house and its belongings I recognize what a master in taste in drawing and color and arrangement is the dream artist who resides in us. In my waking hours when the inferior artist in me is in command I cannot draw even the simplest picture with a pencil nor do anything with a brush and colors. I cannot bring before my mind's eye the detailed image of any building known to me except my own house at home of St. Paul's St. Peter's the Eiffel Tower the Taj the capital of Washington I can reproduce only portions partial glimpses the same with Niagara Falls and the Matterhorn and other familiar things in nature. I cannot bring before my mind's eye the face or figure of any human being known to me I have seen my family at breakfast within the past two hours I cannot bring their images before me I do not know how they look before me as I write I see a little grove of young trees in the garden high above them projects the slender lance of a young pine beyond it is a glimpse of the upper half of a dull white chimney covered by an a-shaped little roof shingled with brown red tiles and half a mile away is a hilltop densely wooded and the red is cloven by a curved wide vacancy which is smooth and grass clad I cannot shut my eyes and reproduce that picture as a whole at all nor any single detail of it except the grassy curve and that but vaguely and fleetingly but my dream artist can draw anything and do it perfectly he can paint with all the colors and all the shades and do it with delicacy and truth he can place before me vivid images of palaces cities hamlets hovels mountains the valleys lakes skies glowing in sunlight or moonlight are veiled in driving gusts of snow or rain and he can set before me people who are intensely alive and who feel and express their feelings in their faces and who also talk and laugh seeing and swear and when I wake I can shut my eyes and bring back those people and the scenery and the buildings and not only in general view but often in nice detail while agnes and I sat talking in that grand Athens house several stately Greeks entered from another part of it disputing warmly about something or other and passed us by with courteous recognition and among them was Socrates I recognized him by his nose a moment later the house and agnes and Athens vanished away and I was in my quarters in New York again and reaching for my notebook in our dreams I know it we do make the journeys we seem to make we do see the things we seem to see the people the horses the cats the dogs the birds the whales are real not chimeras they are living spirits not shadows and they are immortal and indestructible they go whether they will they visit all resorts all points of interest even the twinkling suns that wander in the wastes of space that is where those strange mountains are which slide from under our feet while we walk and where those vast caverns are whose bewildering avenues close behind us and in front when we are lost and shut us in we know this because there are no such things here and they must be there because there is no other place this tale is long enough and I will close it now in the 44 years that I have known my dream land sweetheart I have seen her once in two years on an average mainly these were glimpses but she was always immediately recognizable notwithstanding that she was given to repairing herself and getting up doubtful improvements in her hair and eyes she was always 15 and looked it and acted it and I was always 17 and never felt a day older to me she is a real person not a fiction and her sweet and innocent society has been one of the prettiest and pleasantest experiences of my life I know that to you her talk will not seem a first intellectual order but you should hear her in dreamland then you would see I saw her a week ago just for a moment 15 as usual and I 17 instead of going on 63 as I was when I went to sleep we were in India and Bombay was in sight also Windsor Castle its towers and battlements veiled in a delicate haze and from it the tams flowed curving and winding between its swarded banks to our feet I said there is no question about it England is the most beautiful of all the countries her face lighted with approval and she said with that sweet and earnest irrelevance of hers it is because it's so marginal then she disappeared it was just as well she could probably have added nothing to that rounded and perfect statement without damaging its symmetry this glimpse of her carries me back to Maui and that time when I saw her gasp out her young life that was a terrible thing to me at the time it was paternaturally vivid and the pain and the grief and the misery of it to me transcended many sufferings that I have known in waking life for everything in a dream is more deep and strong and sharp and real than is ever its pale imitation in the unreal life which is ours when we go about awake and clothed with our artificial selves in this vague and dull tinted artificial world when we die we shall slough off this cheap intellect perhaps and go abroad into dreamland clothed in our real selves and aggrandized and enriched by the command over the mysterious mental magician who is here not our slave but only our guest end of my platonic sweetheart by Mark Twain read for you by Michelle Fry Baton Rouge, Louisiana in December 2019 the city of my dreams by Theodore Dreiser read for dreams collection one stories and poems by Phil Shamp this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the city of my dreams by Theodore Dreiser it was silent the city of my dreams marble and serene do perhaps to the fact that in reality I knew nothing of crowds poverty the winds and storms of the inadequate that blow like dust along the paths of life it was an amazing city so far flung so beautiful so dead there were tracks of iron stocking through the air and streets that were as canyons and stairways that mounted in vast flights to noble plazas and steps that let down into deep places where were strangely enough underworld silences and there were parks and flowers and rivers and then after 20 years here it stood as amazing almost as my dream save that in the waking the flush of life was over it it possessed the tang of contests and dreams and enthousiasms and delights and terrors and despairs through its ways and canyons and open spaces and underground passages were running seething sparkling darkling a mass of beings such as my dream city never knew the thing that interested me then as now about new york as indeed about any great city but more definitely new york because it was and is so preponderantly large was the sharp and at the same time immense contrast it showed between the dull and the shrewd the strong and the weak the rich and the poor the wise and the ignorant this perhaps was more by reason of numbers and opportunity than anything else for of course humanity is much the same everywhere but the number from which to choose was so great here that the strong or those who ultimately dominated were so very strong and the weak so very very weak and so very very many i once knew a poor half demented and very much shriveled little seamstress who occupied a tiny hall bedroom in a side street rooming house cooked her meals on a small alcohol stove set on a bureau and who had about space enough outside of this to take three good steps either way i would rather live in my hall bedroom in new york than in any 15 room house in the country that i ever saw she commented once and her poor little colorless eyes held more of a sparkle and snap in them than i ever saw there before or after she was want to add to her sewing income by reading fortunes in cards and tea leaves and coffee grounds telling of love and prosperity to scores as lowly as herself who would never see either the color and noise and splendor of the city as a spectacle was sufficient to pay her for all her ills and have i not felt the glamour of it myself and do i not still broadway at 42nd street on those self same spring evenings when the city is crowded with an idle sightseeing cloud of westerners when the doors of all shops are open the windows of nearly all restaurants wide to the gaze of the idle passerby here is the great city and it is lush and dreamy a may or june moon will be hanging like a burnished silver disk between the high walls aloft a hundred a thousand electric signs will blink and wink and the floods of citizens and visitors in summer clothes and with gay hats the street cars jouncing their endless car loads on indifferent errands the taxis and private cars fluttering about like jeweled flies the very gasoline contributes a distinct perfume life bubbles sparkles chatters gay incoherent stuff such as broadway and then fifth avenue that's singing crystal street on a shopping afternoon winter summer spring or fall what tells you as sharply of spring when its windows crowded with delicate affronteries of silks and gay nothings of all description it greets you in january february and march and how as early as november again it sings of palm beach and newport and the lesser or greater joys of the tropics and the warmer seas and in september how the haughty display of furs and rugs in this same avenue and costumes deluxe for ball and dinner cry out of snows and blizzards when you are scarcely ten days back from mountain or seaside one might think from the picture presented and the residences which line the upper section that all the world was inordinately prosperous and exclusive and happy and yet if you but knew the tawdry underbrush of society the tangle and mat of futile growth between the tall trees of success the shabby chambers crowded with aspirants and climbers the immense mansions barren of a single social affair perfect and silent i often think of the vast mass of underlings boys and girls who with nothing but their youth and their ambitions to commend them are daily and hourly setting their faces new york word reconnoituring the city for what it may hold in the shape of wealth or fame or if not that position and comfort in the future and what if anything they will reap ah their young eyes drinking in its promise and then again i think of all the powerful or semi-powerful men and women throughout the world toiling at one task or another a store a mine a bank a profession somewhere outside of new york whose one ambition is to reach the place where their wealth will permit them to enter and remain in new york dominant above the mass luxuriating in what they consider luxury the illusion of it the hypnosis deep and moving that it is how the strong in the weak the wise in the fools the greedy of heart and of eye seek the napente the leafy of its something hugeness i always marvel at those who are willing seemingly to pay any price the price whatever it may be for one sip of this poison cup what a stinging quivering zest they display how beauty is willing to sell its bloom virtue its last rag strength and almost a usurus portion of that which it controls youth its very best years its hope or dream of fame fame and power their dignity and presence age its weary hours to secure but a minor part of all this a taste of its vibrating presence and the picture that it makes can you not hear them almost singing its praises end of the city of my dreams by theodore dreiser dreams are best by robert w service read for dreams collection one stories and poems by nemo this is a leber vox recording all leber vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit leber vox dot org dreams are best by robert w service i just think that dreams are best just to sit in fancy things give you gold no acid test try not how your silver rings fancy women pure and good fancy men upright and true fortress in your solitude let life be a dream to you for i think that thought is all truths a minion of the mind love's ideal comes a call as you seek so shall you find but ye must not seek too far things are never what they seem let a star be just a star and a woman just a dream oh you dreamers proud and pure you have gleaned the sweet of life golden truths that shall endure over pain and doubt and strife i would rather be a fool living in my paradise than the leader of a school sadly sane and weary wise oh you cynics with your sneers fallen brains and hearts of brass tweak me by my foolish ears write me down a simple ass i'll believe the real you is the you without a taint i'll believe each woman too but a slightly damaged saint yes i'll smoke my cigarette vestured in my garb of dreams and i'll borrow no regret all is gold the golden gleams so i'll charm my solitude with the faith that life is blessed brave and noble bright and good oh i think that dreams are best end of dreams are best by robert w surface nightmare by claire castan smith recorded for dreams collection one stories and poems by a new gate novelist this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox dot org nightmare by claire castan smith as though a thousand vampires from the day fleeing unseen oppressed that nightly deep the straightening and darkened skies of sleep closed on the dreamland dale in which i lay eternal tensions numbed the wings of time while through the unending narrow ways i saw awakening up precipitous gloom i thought to reach the dawn far pinnacled sublime rejected at the closing gates of light i turned and down new dreams and shadows fled where beatling shapes availed colossal dread with gothic wings enormous arched the night end of nightmare by claire castan smith the dream of akonoske by luff cario herne recorded for dreams collection one stories and poems by steve mayor this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox dot org the dream of akonoske by luff cario herne in the district called toichi of yamato province there used to live a goshi named miata akonoske here i must tell you that in japanese feudal times there was a privileged class of soldier farmers freeholders corresponding to the class of yeoman in england and these were called goshi in akonoske's garden there was a great and ancient cedar tree under which he was want to rest on sultry days one very warm afternoon he was sitting under the tree with two of his friends fellow goshi chatting and drinking wine when he felt all of a sudden very drowsy so drowsy that he begged his friends to excuse him for taking a nap in their presence then he lay down at the foot of the tree and dreamed this dream he thought that as he was lying there in his garden he saw a procession like the train of some great daimyo descending a hill nearby and that he got up to look at it a very grand procession it proved to be more imposing than anything of the kind which he had ever seen before and it was advancing toward his dwelling he observed in the van of it a number of young men richly appared who were drawing a great lacquered palace carriage or goshu guruma hung with bright blue silk when the procession arrived within a short distance of the house it halted and a richly dressed man evidently a person of rank advanced from it approached akonoske bowed to him profoundly and then said honored sir you see before you a kerai vassal of the cocoa of toko yo my master the king commands me to greet you in his august name and to place myself wholly at your disposal he also bids me inform you that he augustly desires your presence at the palace be therefore pleased immediately to enter this honorable carriage which he has sent for your conveyance upon hearing these words akonoske wanted to make some fitting reply but he was too much astonished and embarrassed for speech and in that same moment his will seemed to melt away from him so that he could only do as the kerai paid him he entered the carriage the kerai took a place beside him and made a signal the drawers seizing the silken ropes turned the great vehicle southward and the journey began in a very short time to akonoske's amazement the carriage stopped in front of a huge two storied gateway romon of a chinese style which he had never before seen here the kerai dismounted saying i go to announce the honorable arrival and he disappeared after some little waiting akonoske saw two noble looking men wearing robes of purple silk and high caps of the form indicating lofty rank come from the gateway these after having respectfully saluted him helped him to descend from the carriage and led him to the great gate across a vast garden to the entrance of a palace whose front appeared to extend west and east to a distance of miles akonoske was then shown into a reception room of wonderful size and splendor his guides conducted him to the place of honor and respectfully seated themselves apart while serving maids in costume of ceremony brought refreshments when akonoske had partaken of the refreshments the two purple robe the tendons bowed low before him and addressed him in the following words each speaking alternately according to the etiquette of courts it's now our honorable duty to inform you as to the reason of your having been summoned hither our master the king augustly desires that you become his son in law and it is his wish and command that you shall wed this very day the august princess his maiden daughter we shall soon conduct you to the presence chamber where his augustness even now is waiting to receive you but it will be necessary that we first invest you with the appropriate garments of ceremony having thus spoken the attendants rose together and proceeded to an alcove containing a great chest of gold lacquer they opened the chest and took from it various robes and girdles of rich material and a kamuri or regal headdress with these they attired akonoske as befitted a princely bridegroom and he was then conducted to the presence room where he saw the cocoa of to koyo seated upon the daiza wearing a high black cap of state and robed in robes of yellow silk before the daiza to left and right a multitude of dignitaries sat in rank motionless and splendid as images in a temple and akonoske advancing into their midst saluted the king with the triple prostration of usage the king greeted him with gracious words and then said you've already been informed as to the reason of your having been summoned to our presence we have decided that you shall become the adopted husband of our only daughter and the wedding ceremony shall now be performed as the king finished speaking a sound of joyful music was heard and a long train of beautiful court ladies advanced from behind a curtain to conduct akonoske to the room in which the bride awaited him the room was immense but it could scarcely contain the multitude of guests assembled to witness the wedding ceremony all bowed down before akonoske as he took his place facing the king's daughter on the kneeling cushion prepared for him as a maiden of heaven the bride appeared to be and her robes were beautiful as a summer sky and the marriage was performed amid great rejoicing afterwards the pair were conducted to a suite of apartments that had been prepared for them in another portion of the palace and there they received the congratulations of many noble persons and wedding gifts beyond counting some days later akonoske was again summoned to the throne room on this occasion he was received even more graciously than before and the king said to him in the southwestern part of our dominion there's an island called raishu we have now appointed you governor of that island you'll find the people loyal and docile but their laws have not yet been brought into proper accord with the laws of toko yo and their customs have not been properly regulated we entrust you with the duty of improving their social condition as far as may be possible and we desire that you shall rule them with kindness and wisdom all preparations necessary for your journey to raishu have already been made so akonoske and his bride departed from the palace of toko yo accompanied to the shore by a great escort of nobles and officials and they embarked upon a ship of state provided by the king and with favoring winds they safely sailed to raishu and found the good people of that island assembled upon the beach to welcome them akonoske entered at once upon his new duties and they did not prove to be hard during the first three years of his governorship he was occupied chiefly with the framing and the enactment of laws but he had wise counselors to help him and he never found the work unpleasant when it was all finished he had no active duties to perform beyond attending the rites and ceremonies ordained by ancient custom the country was so healthy and so fertile that sickness and want were unknown and the people were so good that no laws were ever broken and akonoske dwelt and ruled in raishu for twenty years more making an all twenty three years of sojourn during which no shadow of sorrow traversed his life but in the twenty fourth year of his governorship a great misfortune came upon him for his wife who had borne him seven children five boys and two girls fell sick and died she was buried with high pomp on the summit of a beautiful hill in the district of hanryoko and a monument exceedingly splendid was placed upon her grave but akonoske felt such grief at her death that he no longer cared to live now when the legal period of mourning was over there came to raishu from the takoyo palace a shisha or royal messenger the shisha delivered to akonoske a message of condolence and then said to him these are the words which are august master the king of takoyo commands that i repeat to you we will now send you back to your own people and country as for the seven children they are the grandsons and granddaughters of the king and shall be fitly cared for do not therefore allow your mind to be troubled concerning them on receiving this mandate akonoske submissively prepared for his departure when all his affairs had been settled and the ceremony of bidding farewell to his counselors and trusted officials had been concluded he was escorted with much honor to the port there he embarked upon the ship sent for him and the ship sailed out into the blue sea under the blue sky and the shape of the island of raishu itself turned blue and then turned gray and then vanished forever and akonoske suddenly awoke under the cedar tree in his own garden for a moment he was stupefied and dazed but he perceived his two friends still seated near him drinking and chatting merrily he stared at them in a bewildered way and cried aloud how strange akonoske must have been dreaming one of them exclaimed with a laugh what did you see akonoske that was strange then akonoske told his dream that dream of three and twenty years sojourn in the realm of takoyo in the island of raishu and they were astonished because he had rarely slept for no more than a few minutes one go she said indeed you saw strange things we also saw something strange while you were napping a little yellow butterfly was fluttering over your face for a moment or two and we watched it then it delighted on the ground beside you close to the tree and almost as soon as it alighted there a big big ant came out of a hole and seized it and pulled it down into the hole just before you woke up we saw that very butterfly come out of the hole again and flutter over your face as before and then it suddenly disappeared do not know where it went perhaps it was akonoske's soul the other go she said certainly i thought i saw it fly into his mouth but even if that butterfly was akonoske's soul the fact would not explain his dream the ants might explain it returned the first speaker ants are queer beings possibly goblins anyhow there's a big ants nest under that cedar tree let us look cried akonoske greatly moved by the suggestion and he went for a spade the ground about and beneath the cedar tree proved to have been excavated in a most surprising way by a prodigious colony of ants the ants had furthermore built inside their excavations and their tiny constructions of straw clay and stems bore an odd resemblance to miniature towns in the middle of a structure considerably larger than the rest there was a marvelous swarming of small ants around the body of one very big ant which had yellowish wings and a long black head why there's the king of my dream cried akonoske and there is the palace of takoyo how extraordinary raishi ought to lie somewhere southwest of it to the left of that big root yes here it is how very strange now i'm sure i can find the mountain of hanryoko and the grave of the princess in the wreck of the nest he searched and searched and at last discovered a tiny mound on the top of which was fixed a water-worn pebble in shape resembling a buddhist monument underneath it he found embedded in clay the dead body of a female ant end of the dream of akonoske by lofcario herne miss cubbage and the dragon of romance by lord duncany recorded for dreams collection one stories and poems by michelle fry baton rouge louisiana in january 2020 this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox.org miss cubbage and the dragon of romance by lord duncany this tale is told in the balconies of belgrave square and among the towers of paunt street men sing it at evening in the brumpton road little upon her 18th birthday thought miss cubbage of number 12 a prince of wells square that before another year had gone its way she would lose sight of that unshapely oblong that was so long her home and had you told her further that within that year all trace of that so-called square and of the day when her father was elected by a thumping majority to share in the guidance of the destinies of the empire she would utterly fade from her memory she would merely have said in that affected voice of hers go on there was nothing about it in the daily press the policy of her father's party had no provision for it there was no hint of it in conversation at evening parties to which miss cubbage went there was nothing to warn her at all that a loathsome dragon with golden scales had rattled as he went should have come up clean out of the prime of romance and gone by night so far as we know through hammer smith and come to artel mansions and then had turned to his left which of course brought him to miss cubbage's father's house there sat miss cubbage at evening on her balcony quite alone waiting for her father to be made a baronet she was wearing walking boots and a hat and a low neck evening dress for a painter was but just now painting her portrait and neither she nor the painter saw anything odd in the strange combination she did not notice the roar of the dragon's golden scales nor distinguish above the manifold lights of london the small red glare of his eyes he suddenly lifted his head a blaze of gold over the balcony he did not appear a yellow dragon then for his glistening scales reflected the beauty that london puts upon her only at evening and night she screamed but to no night nor knew what night to call upon nor guessed where the dragon's overthrowers of far romantic days nor what mightier game they chased or what wars they waged per chance they were busy even then arming for armageddon out of the balcony of her father's house in prince of whale square the painted dark green balcony that grew blacker every year the dragon lifted miss cubbage and spread his rattling wings and london fell away like an old fashion and england fell away and the smoke of its factories and the round material world that goes humming around the sun vexed and pursued by time until there appeared the eternal and ancient lands of romance lying low by mystical seas you had not pictured miss cubbage stroking the golden head of one of the dragons of song with one hand idly while with the other she sometimes played with pearls brought up from lonely places of the sea they filled huge heliotish shells with pearls and laid them there beside her they brought her emeralds which she set to flash among the tresses of her long black hair they brought her threaded sapphires for her cloak all this the princess of fable did and the elves and the gnomes of myth and partly she still lived and partly she was one with long ago and with those sacred tales that nurses tell when all their children are good and evening has come and the fire is burning well and the soft pat pat of the snowflakes on the pain is like the furtive tread of fearful things in old enchanted woods if at first she missed those dainty novelties among which she was reared the old sufficient song of the mystical sea singing a fairy lore at first soothed and at last consult her even she forgot those advertisements of pills that are so dear to england even she forgot political kent and the things that one discusses and the things that one does not and had perforced to content herself with seeing sailing by huge golden laden galleons with treasure for madrid and the merry skull and crossbones of pirateers and the tiny nautilus setting out to sea and ships of heroes trafficking in romance or of princes seeking for enchanted aisles it was not by chains that the dragon kept her there but by one of the spells of old to one to whom the facilities of the daily press had for so long been accorded spells would have paled you would have said and galleons after a time and all things out of date after a time but whether the centuries passed her or whether the years or whether no time at all she did not know if anything indicated the passing of time it was the rhythm of elephant horns blowing upon the heights if the centuries went by her the spell that bound her gave her also perennial youth and kept a light forever the land and by her side and save from decay the marble palace facing the mystical sea and if no time went by her at all her single moment on those marvelous coasts was turned as it were to a crystal reflecting a thousand scenes if it was all a dream it was a dream that knew no morning and no fading away the tide roamed on and whispered of mastery and of myth while near that captive lady asleep in his marble tank the golden dragon dreamed and a little way out from the coast all that the dragon dreamed showed faintly in the mist that lay over the sea he never dreamed of any rescuing night so long as he dreamed it was twilight but when he came up nimbly out of his tank night fell and starlight listened on the dripping golden scales there he and his captive either defeated time or never encountered him at all while in the world we know rage rancest valiers are battles yet to be i know not to what part of the shore of romance he bore her perhaps she became one of those princesses of whom fable loves to tell but let it suffice that there she lived by the sea and kings ruled and demons ruled and kings came again and many cities returned to their native dust and still she abided there and still her marble palace passed not away nor the power that there was in the dragon spell and only once did there ever come to her a message from the world that of old she knew it came in a pearly ship across the mystical sea it was from an old school friend that she had had in putney merely a note no more in a little neat round hand it said it is not proper for you to be there alone and of miss cubbage and the dragon of romance by lord duncanny my nightmare by john james piet recorded for dreams collection one stories and poems by newgate novelist this is a libravox recording all libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox.org my nightmare by john james piet all day my nightmare in my thought i keep spellbound it seemed by some magician's charm a giant slumbered on my slothful arm his great slow breathing's jarred the land of sleep like far off thunder rumbling low and deep lifting his brawny bosom bronzed and warm when low a voice shook me with stern alarm who art thou here that dost not so nor reap behold the sleeping servant of thy day arouse him to thy deed if thou but break his slumber a spell awake he will obey i lifted up my voice and cried awake and i awoke my arm unnerved lay dead a useless thing beneath my sleeping head my birthday 1863 end of my nightmare by john james piet