Dream Life

Dream Life

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dream Life, by Donald G. Mitchell
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Title: Dream Life A Fable Of The Seasons
Author: Donald G. Mitchell
Release Date: February 26, 2006 [EBook #17862]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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DREAM LIFE:
A
FABLE OF THE SEASONS

BY
DONALD G. MITCHELL
---- We are such stuff As dreams are made of; and our little life Is
rounded with a sleep
Tempest.
NEW YORK
SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG, AND COMPANY
1876.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, by Charles
Scribner & Co.,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Southern District of New York
RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY
H.O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY

A NEW PREFACE.
Twelve years ago, this autumn, when I had finished the concluding
chapters of this little book, I wrote a letter of Dedication to Washington
Irving, and, forwarding it by mail to Sunnyside, begged his permission
to print it. I think I shall gratify a rational curiosity of my readers
(however much they may condemn my vanity) if I give his reply in full.
"My dear Sir,--
"Though I have a great disinclination in general to be the object of
literary oblations and compliments, yet in the present instance I have
enjoyed your writings with such peculiar relish, and been so drawn

toward the author by the qualities of head and heart evinced in them,
that I confess I feel gratified by a dedication, over-flattering as I may
deem it, which may serve as an outward sign that we are cordially
linked together in sympathies and friendship.
"I would only suggest that in your dedication you would omit the LL.D.,
a learned dignity urged upon me very much 'against the stomach of my
sense,' and to which I have never laid claim.
"Ever, my dear sir, "Yours, very truly, "Washington Irving "Sunnyside,
Nov. 1851."
I had been personally presented to Mr. Irving for the first time, only a
year before, under the introduction of my good friend, Mr. Clark (the
veteran Editor of the old Knickerbocker in its palmy days). Thereafter I
had met him from time to time, and had paid a charming visit to his
delightful home of Sunnyside. But it was after the date of the
publication of this book and during the summer of 1852, that I saw Mr.
Irving more familiarly, and came to appreciate more fully that
charming bonhomie and geniality in his character which we all
recognize so constantly in his writings. And if I set down here a few
recollections of that pleasant intercourse, they will, I am sure, more
than make good the place of the old letter of Dedication, and will serve
to keep alive the association I wish to cherish between my little book
and the name of the distinguished author who so kindly showed me his
favor.
For the first time, after many years, Mr. Irving made a stay of a few
weeks at Saratoga, in the summer of 1852. By good fortune, I chanced
to occupy a room upon the same corridor of the hotel, within a few
doors of his, and shared very many of his early morning walks to the
"Spring." What at once struck me very forcibly in the course of these
walks, was the rare alertness and minuteness of his observation: not a
fair young face could dash past us in its drapery of muslin, but the eye
of the old gentleman drank in all its freshness and beauty with the keen
appetite and the grateful admiration of a boy; not a dowager brushed
past us bedizened with finery, but he fastened the apparition in my
memory with some piquant remark,--as the pin of an entomologist

fastens a gaudy fly. No rheumatic old hero-invalid, battered in long
wars with the doctors,--no droll marplot of a boy, could appear within
range, but I could see in the changeful expression of my companion the
admeasurement and quiet adjustment of the appeal which either made
upon his sympathy or his humor. A flower, a tree, a burst of music, a
country market-man hoisted upon his wagon of cabbages,--all these by
turns caught and engaged his attention, however little they might
interrupt the flow of his talk.
I ventured to ask on one occasion, if he had depended solely upon his
memory for the thousand little