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It may be the caprice of an extravagant imagination, it may be the freak of a foolish fancy, an empty day-dream, an idle reverie, but to me while it lasts, it is sweeter than any reality. Thus was it with this picture that hung upon my bedroom wall that night. I could not take my eyes from it. There I lay, tired and travel-worn, on an easy bed; but the light burned beside me and I could not sleep.
He touched first at Ismarus, where his first misfortune took place, and in a skirmish with the natives he lost a number of men from each ship's crew. A storm then drove them to the land of the Lotus-Eaters, a wondrous people, kindly and content, who spend their lives in a day-dream and care for nothing else under the sun.
Father's had the electric current run over there from the mill, now, and that doesn't cost anything except . . ." Mr. Welles' curiosity satisfied, he fell back into his old shimmer of content and walked along, hearing Paul's voice only as one of the morning sounds of the newly awakened world. Presently he was summoned out of this day-dream by a tug at his hand.
As I had done sufficiently well at it to warrant such a step, I consented to do so, and now I lead the life of a country gentleman. It may interest some people to know that a certain day-dream, once thought so improbable, has come true, inasmuch as a considerable portion of my time is spent in the little conservatory which, as I have said elsewhere, leads out of the drawing-room.
"Very effective certainly, Sir Percy," sneered Chauvelin, "and we will certainly boom the cannon from this very fort, an it so please you...." "At what hour, Monsieur, is my letter to be ready?" "Why! at any hour you please, Sir Percy." "The 'Day-Dream' could weigh anchor at eight o'clock... would an hour before that be convenient to yourself?"
The next surprise that came was a visit from Piney Hancock, one Saturday afternoon in May. The girls had gone up after wild flowers into the wood-lot. Here Shad and Mr. Robbins had been cutting birches for nearly a week. Helen wandered through the violet-carpeted glades in a perfect day-dream.
There was the early summer sun blazing down upon an already parching earth. And there, too, were the significant clouds, fleecy white clouds for the most part, but all deepening to a heavy, gray density. At any moment they might obscure that ruddy light and pour out their dismal measure of discomfort, turning the world from a smiling day-dream to a nightmare of drab regret.
It is merely sentimental slush, sloppy shirking of anything that compels national alertness, or effort, or self-discipline, or self-denial; a moral cowardice that pushes away any fact which disturbs a shallow, torpid, irresponsible, self-indulgent optimism. Our golden age of isolation is over. To attempt to return to it would be a mere pernicious day-dream.
But he would not be refusing me when I asked him, and he will be going to Toronto in the fall, and surely the Lord will touch the lad's heart " He was off in a happy day-dream again, a dream wherein his nephew stood in Glenoro pulpit when their aged minister laid down the work. Andrew Johnstone did not answer for some minutes.
But ever, amid school and household tasks, her day-dream was that, in time, she might be a "high-seat" Quaker. Each Sunday, up to the time of the third disobedience, Mr. Anthony went to the Quaker meeting house, some thirteen miles from home, his wife and children usually accompanying him, though, as non-members, they were rigidly excluded from all business discussions.
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