Grandmamma was sitting under a tree on the lawn knitting, when the children cl.u.s.tered around with the old request, "Please, grandmamma, tell us a story."
Grandmamma looked a little gravely upon the dear, eager faces, and began:--
"A little boy found himself one day, he could not tell how, in a cell, or rather a small room, which was very comfortable. He could not remember anything that had happened before he came there, nor did he feel frightened although he was quite alone.
"For some time he was content to pa.s.s the time without taking any particular notice of anything. At last he saw that there were several doors--five--in the walls of his room. He noticed that two were high and wide, the rest seemed smaller; and he thought, "I will open one of these first. Doors must be meant to lead somewhere, and I am rather tired of this little room, although it is comfortable."
"He opened the door very easily, and he found himself in a large room.
In the middle of it was a table covered with things that seemed good to eat.
"He did not see any one, but he heard a voice say, "Come in and _taste_."
"So he took up one nice thing after another, according to his will; and after awhile he heard the voice say, "This is enough for once; you may come again."
"He turned to go back to his room, but the door was gone. The way to his cell was open, and this beautiful room was added to his smaller one.
"Now he had plenty of amus.e.m.e.nt. He learned how different were the tastes of the objects before him;--some sweet, some sour; others were bitter, or salt, or spicy; some with flavours that cannot be put into words, they were so delicate and varied. As soon as he had had enough he could taste no longer; so he always knew when to leave off.
"He was satisfied for a long time with this room, for fresh objects were daily added. At last he looked longingly at the door by the side of the opening where the late door was.
"He opened it and walked out, not into a room, but into a lovely garden. The walls were high, but the garden was very broad and long.
"There were the fruits whose delicious flavour he knew: now he found that some of them at least had a fragrant _smell_. However, he scarcely noticed them; for a strange, sweet odour of flowers greeted his newly-found sense. After awhile he felt almost overpowered by this fresh pleasure, and turned to go back for awhile into his little room, when he found that this door had also vanished. He was glad of this, for the delicate perfume of the garden freely came into his cell.
"What a growing pleasure was this garden! Every flower had its own special odour--the rich rose, the tall, queenly lily, and the lowly violet--each in its way the sweetest.
"At first he thought that only the flowers had perfume, but he soon found this was a mistake. By taking more careful notice he perceived that leaves as well as flowers were sometimes scented, as in the musk plant, the geranium, and even those of black-currant bushes.
"As he walked down an avenue of lime trees, he noticed a most delicious scent, which he found came from the small blossoms of the trees high above his head. He turned into a shrubbery, and was greeted by the fresh fragrance of the pine trees, and found that even the resinous buds of other trees had a pleasant scent. The very earth too, after a shower of rain, had a refreshing smell.
"By-and-by he looked at the high walls of the garden, for there seemed to float over them a blended sweetness of something, he knew not what; but in after days he knew it as that of new-mown hay.
"Again, the wind would bring him a smell of something that certainly did not belong to flowers or fruit. It seemed to make him strong, and long to know what was over the wall. It was the sea-breeze that came to him from the vast ocean, and made him feel that his lovely garden was, after all, too bounded.
"He turned the handle of another door. It was that of _touch_, and he found himself in a pa.s.sage. He walked along a little way, and saw an open archway on his right, through which he went, and there he was in the room of taste. He took up a cherry, and it felt smooth; a peach, and it felt soft and downy; a pine-apple, and it was rough. He looked toward the archway through which he had come, when, behold! the whole pa.s.sage wall had vanished, making the old room larger.
"He went into his garden: the gravel path felt hard and firm, the lawn felt soft and springy under his tread. He touched a rose-stalk and he felt its p.r.i.c.kles, while the leaves of the flowers were soft. Some flower-stalks felt sticky, others smooth, and the bark of the oak tree was rough.
"The bright sunshine felt warm to his cheek, and the marble of the fountain felt cold.
"There were now two large doors left, and he resolved to open that of _hearing_.
"All was dark as he stepped into a room or pa.s.sage, he knew not which.
He walked on a little way, then he stopped, for he faintly heard the sound of music. The sweet strains grew longer and louder, drawing him along till he came to a large hall where an organ was being played by a master. Here he stayed to listen and to wonder, spell-bound by the strange high music;--now swelling to a triumph, now sinking to a soft echo; now it told of gladness, and again of sorrow. Then it changed to a solemn, stately march; then there was a sound of rippling sweetness, ending in a lullaby so soothing that he fell fast asleep.
"When he awoke he was in his cell; the door was gone and the mystic hall had vanished. He went into his garden, and heard for the first time the sweet song of birds, the hum of insects, and the soft sound of flowing water from the marble fountain. He heard the swaying of the wind among the leaves and branches of the trees, and the sound of his own footsteps on the path.
""Now for the last door," he said, as he opened it, and was dazzled by a flood of light which nearly blinded him. _Sight_, which had been before but faint and dim, now became clear and open. He found himself in his old room of taste; but instead of the walls were crystal windows, and his table of fruits and food looked small in the midst of the vast s.p.a.ce. He turned into his garden: what a change was there! He saw that the roses were a deep, deep red, and pink, and yellow, and white; that the flowers were of every hue and shade of colour, and the trees of varying green.
"Now he saw the birds whose sweet songs he had often heard, some in bright plumage, and others of graver colours.
"He saw the insects flying about with whose soft hum he was familiar; some too of whose existence he knew nothing before--the noiseless b.u.t.terflies of brown and gold, of deep orange or pale yellow, of azure blue or cream and brown and crimson.
"He saw the darting dragon-fly, shining in black and blue, with gauzy wings of pearly tints; and other insects brilliant with many colours, shining or dusky, flitting by or crawling along the ground.
"Tired out at last with all these wonders, he went back to his cell and slept.
"He awoke thinking, "There are now no new doors to open;" but when he turned to the wall on the opposite side, he saw a door that he had not noticed before.
"He went up to it, but it was bolted and barred from without, and the key was in the lock on the outside. "That door is not meant for me to open," he said; and he went once more into his garden. The high walls were gone, the room with the crystal windows had vanished, but the senses of taste, of smell, of touch, of hearing, and of sight remained.
"He could now go where he liked. He saw the meadows whose sweet smell of newly-mown gra.s.s had delighted him in his garden; and he wandered down to the sh.o.r.e, where he felt again the strength of the sea-breeze. He heard with awe the sound of many waters as myriad waves dashed against the rocky coast--those same waves which farther along, as the sh.o.r.e became sandy, rippled out in the lowest murmurs. In the caves, too, he saw new forms of life--the many-coloured sea-anemones, sea-weeds, sh.e.l.ls; and in the sea itself fishes shining like mother-of pearl.
"There were some mountains in the distance, and he went towards them.
While climbing up their sides, the sky, which had been bright blue, now became overcast. Black, thick clouds quickly gathered, till day seemed turned into night. Then there shot through the darkness a swift, bright flash, lighting everything up for a moment, then leaving all darker than before. He had not recovered from his astonishment when he heard a sudden crash, as if the mountain were splitting into pieces, followed by a long deep roll of boundless sound. Again and again he saw the lightning"s flash and heard the thunder"s roar. Then the raging ceased, the blue sky began to re-appear, the sun shone through the rain-drops, and on the departing clouds he saw an arch of many colours, beautiful in form and brilliancy--the lovely rainbow. He gazed at it with strange new feelings till it all melted away.
"At night he always returned to his cell. This night, however, he was so full of the wondrous scene he had witnessed on the mountain that he stayed out of doors, walking up and down his familiar garden path with downcast eyes. He was deep in thought, when at last he raised his eyes, and instead of a clear sky he saw tiny points of light shining through the gray twilight. As the darkness deepened he saw myriads and myriads of these bright points--the stars. He wondered at the mystery.
"He now began to meet with beings like himself, at first one or two, then many more. He found the difference in human beings was very great indeed. Some of them kindly came to him, and told him many things about the world in which he now daily lived. They taught him how to read books in which was written the wisdom of men who had lived long ago. Here was a new, wide opening, as he looked back into the past, into the times so very far away. But the books were not all old; some were written by living men, into which they had put their choicest thoughts, and they gave him an insight into the best part of a man--his soul and mind.
Others told him of the wonderful discoveries made by clever men. They brought him a telescope, to look through to the stars at night; which stars, they told him, were other worlds, and that this little world where he lived was but a speck compared with the rest of creation. In looking through the telescope he saw into great depths--stars beyond stars, in number far exceeding his powers of thought. They showed him a microscope; and in looking through it he saw undreamt-of beauty in familiar flowers and insects, and in all natural objects. They told him of the useful and beautiful things that men had found under the ground--coal, metals, and precious stones. Some of these they showed him when polished;--the diamond, which seemed to have taken the rainbow to itself and given it back in a flash, now of pure, now of many-coloured light; the delicate opal, which looked like a rainbow vanishing; the red ruby, the green emerald, the violet amethyst, the clear crystal, and many more besides. They showed him lovely forms, that men had sculptured in white marble; and paintings representing many things--now a stormy sea with waves lashed into fury against the rocks--again a summer evening landscape whose calm soothed his spirit. Scenes from the old books were made to live again; and then, again, were painted familiar objects. Wherever he looked, he saw more to see; whenever he listened, he found there was more to hear. What surprised him most of all was, that there were some men who did not care to find out and learn more about the wonders in them and around them; and then he noticed that those who would not use their eyes, and ears, and other senses, became dim of sight and hard of hearing, gradually shrinking back into the state they were before they had opened the doors of their cells.
"He thought of the barred door, and sometimes through its c.h.i.n.ks he felt something steal as once the sea-breeze stole over his garden wall. The thought of that something followed him more and more.
"By this time he knew that all sights were not fair to look upon, nor all sounds delightful; and whenever he saw and heard the sad and wrong, he seemed to be most conscious of the something beyond his cell. He felt that he was in the world not alone to learn its wonders, but also to teach the ignorant, to help the weak, to be kind, and true, and brave, and patient to all.
"Knowledge was a good thing, but goodness was better. The longer he lived, he felt the less he knew; and the reason was, that he saw more and more clearly the vast extent of creation.
"Then some one came to him and spoke of an old Book which told of the great Creator of the world, and that all its wonderful beauty was the work of His hand; that the sorrow and the wrong which he had seen around him were but for a time, for the Creator was also the Father of the universe, and had sent His Son into the world as its Saviour, and to die for its deliverance.
"Afterwards he read in this Book the story of the life and death of this Son of G.o.d, who was also the Son of man; and he learned that a fuller and truer life lay beyond the things that are now seen. So with reverent feeling he waited, thinking much of the closed door.
"At last, the bars were undone, the key was turned in the lock, the door was opened, the walls of his cell fell down, and he stood young and strong on the outside! Then he saw and heard things I cannot tell you about, so like the old, and yet so different. But he felt no fear; for he knew he was under the same wise, kind, righteous laws, under the Ruler of the universe, and that the kingdoms of the seen and the unseen are but one."
THE END.