[Illustration: "MOTHER, MOTHER!"]
There was nothing of this in my dream.
It was something like the "camera-obscura" on Ramsgate pier: one goes
in and finds one's self in total darkness; the eye is prepared; one is
thoroughly expectant and wide-awake.
Suddenly there flashes on the sight the moving picture of the port and
all the life therein, and the houses and cliffs beyond; and farther
still the green hills, the white clouds, and blue sky.
Little green waves chase each other in the harbor, breaking into crisp
white foam. Sea-gulls wheel and dash and dip behind masts and ropes and
pulleys; shiny brass fittings on gangway and compass flash in the sun
without dazzling the eye; gay Liliputians walk and talk, their white
teeth, no bigger than a pin's point, gleam in laughter, with never a
sound; a steamboat laden with excursionists comes in, its paddles
churning the water, and you cannot hear them. Not a detail is
missed--not a button on a sailor's jacket, not a hair on his face. All
the light and color of sea and earth and sky, that serve for many a
mile, are here concentrated within a few square feet. And what color it
is! A painter's despair! It is light itself, more beautiful than that
which streams through old church windows of stained glass.
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