Shapes
in the Fire
By M. P. Shiel
To Mistress Beatrice Laws
Dear Beatrice,—The
pieces of this inkling of a Book, which, with much longing, I dedicate
to you, were not all written in the same night, but separated in their
execution by intervals for eating and sleeping; and as you know me to be
of at least not less nervous vigour than your sweet self (for in Thee is
not vigour gobbled up in sweetness?), so you, too, red ruddes, should
read them (in spite of the sub-title), with like intervals, one by one,
not gulp them like porridge or a novel,—which, you know, are
homogeneous, these being designedly heterogeneous—or you will
hardly, I think, get at what one meant to imply (Easily, you know, in
the crash of the orchestra, do the light flute-notes lose themselves on
the tired ear: a fact which seems to indicate that works of art,
especially such as pretend to be more or less musical
should be not only pretty short, but separately imbibed; so that the Concert, for one thing, is wrong; and with it, the book, such as
this, of short detached pieces, which is a literary Concert; only that here,
you have it in your option to extend your concert into as many
nights as there are pieces; and your concert-giver, too, hath it more in
his dominion what piece shall company with what, and what shall be the
precise complexity and information of the whole.) Well, but to maintain
the dear fiction of the Winter’s Night, I will say this
(epistolary—and not as they write big in the volume of the Books, lest
you pout): that the curtain having risen, I will present you first a
diary-extract of a poor friend now dead; then a little morne drama which
I have encountered in the chronicle of one Aventin von Tottenweis; and
next a rather dark experience of my own in the dim Northern seas, which,
in dream, yet revisits me. Then will be a short interlude for
cigarettes, ices, and whispy-lispy, during which will be rendered a
piece just splashed down anyway, for a male reader or two, and in some
places dull (to you I mean)
and in others pretty cheap,—this, however, being a day of cheap
things, sweetmeat; you yourself, perhaps, not so over-dear, and only
over-dear to the beglamoured eyes of male-made me. This, then, you
should skip (recalcitrant roe
that thou art on the Mountains of Endeavour!) Go out on the verandah,
pig’s-eye, and there heave, the open secret of that torse my soul
remembers to the chaste down-look of Dian’s astonished eye-glass, and
the schwärmerei of the
winking Stars. But soon, at about midnight, return; for now, to the
tinkle of a silver bell, will unfold itself the life-history, very well
translated by me from the original, of a poor man of Hindustan, not, I
verily believe, unloved of the gods, but loved, you perceive, in their peculiar fashion: those
people (as the late Mr. Froude uncommonly said to the dying Carlyle)
probably having reasons for their carryings-on, of which we cannot even dream. And truly, dear, this is marvellous in our
eyes, or at least in mine. Well, but now, just as that dark Daphne with
the gems entangled in her hair turns paling in flight from the red rape
of day, I shall (spiritualest wine coming last, you know, as at that
Marriage) once more introduce myself in character this time of lover,
and tell how I wooed one of the ladies of my heart at world-illustrious
Phorfor. Immediately whereupon, Beloved, shall the Day break, and the
Shadows flee away.—Yours, pour toujours et une Nuit d’Hiver!
THE AUTHOR.
Contents
Part I.
Shape I. —Xélucha
Part I.
Shape II.—Maria in the Rose-Bush
Part I.
Shape III.
—Vaila
Interlude—Premier and Maker
Part
II. Shape I—Tulsah
Part
II. Shape II.—The Serpent-Ship
Part
II. Shape III.—Phorfor
And don't forget to check out our
Horror Story of the Day
<<---
From Your Dark Side
