Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (174 page)

"Do
not
push
casual
mountains
on
my
head,"
I
replied,
"but
get on
with
the
dream."

"Well,"
said
he,
"I
dreamed
a
dream
and
here
is
the
dream."

2

My
mind
was
full
of
disquietude,
impatience,
anger;
and
as
the
horse stretched
and
eased
under
me
I
dwelt
on
my
own
thought.
I
did
not pursue
it,
for
I
was
not
actively
thoughtful.
I
hatched
it.
I
sat
on
a thought
and
kept
it
warm
and
alive
without
feeling
any
desire
to make
it
grow.

"She
shall
end
it
to-day,"
I
thought
in
summary.

And
then:

I'll
end
it
to-day.

And
thereon
I
ceased
thinking,
for
when
the
will
has
been
invoked a
true,
the
truest,
act
of
being
has
been
accomplished,
and
the
mind, which
never
questions
the
will,
may
go
on
holiday.
As
against
willing all
thought
is
a
form
of
laziness,
and
my
thought,
having
in
that
realm neither
business
nor
interest,
went
lazily
to
the
nearest
simple
occurrence
that
could
employ
it,
and
I
became
only
a
person
on
a
horse; listening
to
the
horse;
looking
at
it;
feeling
it
with
my
limbs
and feeling
myself
by
its
aid.

There
was
great
pleasure
in
the
way
my
legs
gripped
around
that warm
barrel;
in
the
way
my
hands
held
the
beast's
head
up;
in
the way
my
waist
and
loins
swayed
and
curved
with
the
swaying
and curving
of
the
animal.
I
touched
her
with
my
toe
and
tapped
her neck;
and
on
the
moment
she
tossed
her
head,
shaking
a
cascade
of mane
about
my
hands;
gathered
her
body
into
a
bunch
of
muscles, and
unloosed
them
again
in
a
great
gallop;
while
from
behind
the hooves
of
my
servant's
beast
began
to
smack
and
pelt.

In
some
reaches
the
surrounding
country
flowed
into
and
over
the track;
and
everywhere
in
its
length
the
grass
threw
a
sprinkle
of
green. There
were
holes
here
and
there;
but
more
generally
there
were hollows
which
had
been
holes,
and
which
had
in
time
accumulated driftage
of
one
kind
or
another,
so
that
they
had
a
fullish
appearance without
having
anything
of
a
level
look;
but
on
the
whole
I
knew of
worse
roads,
and
this
one
was
kept
in
tolerable
repair.

Not
far
from
this
place
we
left
the
road
and
struck
along
a
sunken path
all
grown
over
at
the
top
with
shadowing
trees;
and
so
to
another and
much
better-kept
road,
and
on
this
one
I
shook
out
the
reins
and we
went
galloping.

It
was
not
unknown
to
me,
this
place.
Indeed
it
was
so
well
known that
I
had
no
need
to
look
to
one
side
or
the
other,
for
everything that
was
to
be
seen
had
been
seen
by
me
many
hundreds
of
times;
and, if
we
except
grass
and
trees
and
grazing
cattle,
there
was
nothing
to be
seen.