Lord Dunsany -- Tales of Wonder

Lord Dunsany Tales of Wonder TALES OF WONDER by Lord Dunsany Preface Ebrington Barracks Aug. 16th 1916. I do not know where I may be when this preface is read. As I write it in August 1916, I am at Ebrington Barracks, Londonderry, recovering from a slight wound. But it does not greatly matter where I am; my dreams are here before you amongst the following pages; and writing in a day when life is cheap, dreams seem to me all the dearer, the only things that survive. Just now the civilization of Europe seems almost to have ceased, and nothing seems to grow in her torn fields but death, yet this is only for a while and dreams will come back again and bloom as of old, all the more radiantly for this terrible ploughing, as the flowers will bloom again where the trenches are and the primroses shelter in shell-holes for many seasons, when weeping Liberty has come home to Flanders. To some of you in America this may seem an unnecessary and wasteful quarrel, as other people's quarrels often are; but it comes to this that though we are all killed there will be songs again, but if we were to submit and so survive there could be neither songs nor dreams, nor any joyous free things any more. And do not regret the lives that are wasted amongst us, or the work that the dead would have done, for war is no accident that man's care could have averted, but is as natural, though not as regular, as the tides; as well regret the things that the tide has washed away, which destroys and cleanses and crumbles, and spares the minutest shells. And now I will write nothing further about our war, but offer you these books of dreams from Europe as one throws things of value, if only to oneself, at the last moment out of a burning house. DUNSANY. A Tale of London which amethysts are where they sit and watch the sunset. Musicians in the gloaming steal softly "Come," said the Sultan to his hasheesh-eater in along the ways; unheard their feet fall on the the very furthest lands that know Bagdad, white sea-sand with which those ways are "dream to me now of London." strewn, and in the darkness suddenly they play And the hasheesh-eater made a low obeisance on dulcimers and instruments with strings. Then and seated himself cross-legged upon a purple are there murmurs in the balconies praising their cushion broidered with golden poppies, on the skill, then are there bracelets cast down to them floor, beside an ivory bowl where the hasheesh for reward and golden necklaces and even was, and having eaten liberally of the hasheesh pearls. blinked seven times and spoke thus: "Indeed but the city is fair; there is by the sandy "O Friend of God, know then that London is the ways a paving all alabaster, and the lanterns desiderate town even of all Earth's cities. Its along it are of chrysoprase, all night long they houses are of ebony and cedar which they roof shine green, but of amethyst are the lanterns of with thin copper plates that the hand of Time the balconies. turns green. They have golden balconies in Page 1 Tales of Wonder Lord Dunsany "As the musicians go along the ways dancers incense for the braziers that perfume the streets, gather about them and dance upon the new songs exchanged for gold with alien tribes, alabaster pavings, for joy and not for hire. raw silver for the statues of their heroes, gold to Sometimes a window opens far up in an ebony make balconies where the women sit, great palace and a wreath is cast down to a dancer sapphires to reward their poets with, the secrets or orchids showered upon them. of old cities and strange lands, the earning of the dwellers in far isles, emeralds, diamonds, and "Indeed of many cities have I dreamt but of the hoards of the sea. And whenever a ship none fairer, through many marble metropolitan comes into port and furls its violet sails and the gates hasheesh has led me, but London is its news spreads through London that she has secret, the last gate of all; the ivory bowl has come, then all the merchants go down to the nothing more to show. And indeed even now river to barter, and all day long the chariots whirl the imps that crawl behind me and that will not through the streets, and the sound of their going let me be are plucking me by the elbow and is a mighty roar all day until evening, their roar is bidding my spirit return, for well they know that I even like--" have seen too much. 'No, not London,' they say; and therefore I will speak of some other city, a "Not so," said the Sultan. city of some less mysterious land, and anger not "Truth is not hidden from the Friend of God," the imps with forbidden things. I will speak of replied the hasheesh-eater, "I have erred being Persepolis or famous Thebes." drunken with the hasheesh, for in the desiderate A shade of annoyance crossed the Sultan's face, city, even in London, so thick upon the ways is a look of thunder that you had scarcely seen, the white sea-sand with which the city glimmers but in those lands they watched his visage well, that no sound comes from the path of the and though his spirit was wandering far away charioteers, but they go softly like a light sea- and his eyes were bleared with hasheesh yet wind." ("It is well," said the Sultan.) "They go softly that storyteller there and then perceived the down to the port where the vessels are, and the look that was death, and sent his spirit back at merchandise in from the sea, amongst the once to London as a man runs into his house wonders that the sailors show, on land by the when the thunder comes. high ships, and softly they go though swiftly at evening back to their homes. "And therefore," he continued, "in the desiderate city, in London, all their camels are pure white. "O would that the Munificent, the Illustrious, the Remarkable is the swiftness of their horses, that Friend of God, had even seen these things, had draw their chariots that are of ivory along those seen the jewellers with their empty baskets, sandy ways and that are of surpassing lightness, bargaining there by the ships, when the barrels they have little bells of silver upon their horses' of emeralds came up from the hold. Or would heads. O Friend of God, if you perceived their that he had seen the fountains there in silver merchants! The glory of their dresses in the basins in the midst of the ways. I have seen small noonday! They are no less gorgeous than those spires upon their ebony houses and the spires butterflies that float about their streets. They were all of gold, birds strutted there upon the have overcloaks of green and vestments of copper roofs from golden spire to spire that have azure, huge purple flowers blaze on their no equal for splendour in all the woods of the overcloaks, the work of cunning needles, the world. And over London the desiderate city the centres of the flowers are of gold and the petals sky is so deep a blue that by this alone the of purple. All their hats are black--" ("No, no," said traveller may know where he has come, and the Sultan)--"but irises are set about the brims, may end his fortunate journey. Nor yet for any and green plumes float above the crowns of colour of the sky is there too great heat in them. London, for along its ways a wind blows always from the South gently and cools the city. "They have a river that is named the Thames, on it their ships go up with violet sails bringing Page 2 Lord Dunsany Tales of Wonder "Such, O Friend of God, is indeed the city of to London and its railways and villas and wire London, lying very far off on the yonder side of and slipped away towards the chalk country Bagdad, without a peer for beauty or and open Kent. I felt as I once felt as a child on excellence of its ways among the towns of the one summer's day when I found a door in a earth or cities of song; and even so, as I have garden where I played left luckily ajar, and I told, its fortunate citizens dwell, with their hearts pushed it open and the wide lands were before ever devising beautiful things and from the me and waving fields of corn. beauty of their own fair work that is more We settled down into a steady gallop and the abundant around them every year, receiving fields began to drift by under us, and a great new inspirations to work things more beautiful wind arose full of fresh breath. We left the clay yet." lands where the bracken grows and came to a "And is their government good?" the Sultan said. valley at the edge of the chalk. As we went down into it we saw the fox go up the other side "It is most good," said the hasheesh-eater, and like a shadow that crosses the evening, and fell backwards upon the floor.

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