{"product_id":"the-substance-of-a-dream-gb-20935","title":"The Substance of a Dream","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Substance of a Dream\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI could almost persuade myself, that others will like this little\r\nfable as much as I do: so curiously simple, and yet so strangely\r\nprofound is its delicate epitome of the old old story, the course of\r\ntrue love, which never did run smooth.\nAnd since so many people have asked me questions as to the origin of\r\nthese stories, I will say a word on the point here. Where do they come\r\nfrom? I do not know. I discovered only the other day that some believe\r\nthem to have been written by a woman. That appears to me to be\r\nimprobable. But who writes them? I cannot tell. They come to me, one\r\nby one, suddenly, like a flash of lightning, all together: I see them\r\nin the air before me, like a little Bayeux tapestry, complete, from\r\nend to end, and write them down, hardly lifting the pen from the\r\npaper, straight off \"from the MS.\" I never know, the day before, when\r\none is coming: it[viii] arrives, as if shot out of a pistol. Who can tell?\r\nThey may be all but so many reminiscences of a former birth.\nThe Substance of a Dream is half a love-story, and half a fairy\r\ntale: as indeed every love-story is a fairy tale. Because, although\r\nthat unaccountable mystery, the mutual attraction of the sexes, is the\r\nvery essence of life, and everything else merely accidental or\r\naccessory, yet only too often in the jostle of the world, in the\r\ntrough and tossing of the waves of time, the accidental smothers the\r\nessential, and life turns into a commonplace instead of a romance. And\r\nso, like every other story, this little story will perhaps be very\r\ndifferently judged, according to the reader's sex. The bearded critic\r\nwill see it with eyes very different from those with which it may be\r\nviewed by the fair voter with no beard upon her chin; for women, as\r\nthe great god says at the end, have scant mercy on their own sex, and\r\nthe heroine of the story is a strange heroine, an enigmatical Mona\r\nLisa, so to say, who will not appeal to everybody so strongly as she\r\ndoes to the Moony-crested Deity, when he sums her up at the close. I\r\nventure, with humility, to concur in the opinion of the Deity, for she\r\nholds me under the same spell as her innumerable other lovers. The\r\nreader, a more formidable authority even[ix] than the god, must decide:\r\nonly I must warn him that to understand, he must go to the very end.\r\nHe will not think his time wasted, if he take half the delight in\r\nreading, as I did, in transcribing, the evidence in the case. Only,\r\nmoreover, when he closes the book will he appreciate the mingled\r\nexactitude and beauty of its name: for no story ever had a name which\r\nfitted it with such curious precision as this one. For the essence of\r\na dream is always that along with its weird beauty, it counters\r\nexpectation, often in such queer, ludicrous, kaleidoscopic ways. So it\r\nis, here.\n\u003cb\u003e ......Buy Now (To Read More)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eProduct details\u003ch3\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eEbook Number\u003c\/b\u003e: 20935 \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor\u003c\/b\u003e: Bain, F. W. (Francis William) \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRelease Date\u003c\/b\u003e: Mar 29, 2007 \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat\u003c\/b\u003e: eBook \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage\u003c\/b\u003e: English \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"booksdeli.com","offers":[{"title":"Bain, F. W. (Francis William),1863-1940 \/ eBook \/ English","offer_id":43217905090717,"sku":"gb-20935-ebook","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0619\/5648\/9373\/products\/20935.jpg?v=1671458140","url":"https:\/\/booksdeli.com\/products\/the-substance-of-a-dream-gb-20935","provider":"booksdeli.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}