Read Ebook: Magic A Fantastic Comedy by Chesterton G K Gilbert Keith

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 393 lines and 12712 words, and 8 pages

We can't be Ancient Britons, you know.

Ancient Britons....

DOCTOR. Don't bother. It's only his broad-mindedness.

DUKE. I saw the place you're putting up for it, Mr. Smith. Very good work. Very good work, indeed. Art for the people, eh? I particularly liked that woodwork over the west door--I'm glad to see you're using the new sort of graining ... why, it all reminds one of the French Revolution.

See here, does a Duke live here?

DOCTOR. Yes, only one.

MORRIS. I reckon he's the one I want, anyhow. I'm his nephew.

Well, pretty well, Duke; and better still for Paul T. Vandam, I guess. I manage the old man's mines out in Arizona, you know.

DUKE. Ah, very go-ahead man! Very go-ahead methods, I'm told. Well, I dare say he does a great deal of good with his money. And we can't go back to the Spanish Inquisition.

And how's Patricia?

DUKE. Oh, she's very well, I think. She....

Well, then, where's Patricia?

If I may say so, I quite agree with you. I have often taken the liberty of warning your sister against going out in all weathers like this.

DUKE. The artist temperament! What I always call the artistic temperament! Wordsworth, you know, and all that.

All what?

DUKE. Why, everything's temperament, you know! It's her temperament to see the fairies. It's my temperament not to see the fairies. Why, I've walked all round the grounds twenty times and never saw a fairy. Well, it's like that about this wizard or whatever she calls it. For her there is somebody there. For us there would not be somebody there. Don't you see?

MORRIS. Somebody there! What do you mean?

DUKE. Well, you can't quite call it a man.

MORRIS. A man!

DUKE. Well, as old Buffle used to say, what is a man?

MORRIS. With your permission, Duke, I eliminate old Buffle. Do you mean that anybody has had the tarnation coolness to suggest that some man....

DOCTOR. I am a medicine man.

MORRIS. And you don't look mythical, Doc.

See here, Duke! In most commercial ways we're a pretty forward country. In these moral ways we're content to be a pretty backward country. And if you ask me whether I like my sister walking about the woods on a night like this! Well, I don't.

DUKE. I am afraid you Americans aren't so advanced as I'd hoped. Why! as old Buffle used to say....

You need not trouble. I know who it is.

Patricia, where have you been?

PATRICIA. Oh! in Fairyland.

DOCTOR. And whereabouts is that?

PATRICIA. It's rather different from other places. It's either nowhere or it's wherever you are.

MORRIS. Has it any inhabitants?

PATRICIA. Generally only two. Oneself and one's shadow. But whether he is my shadow or I am his shadow is never found out.

MORRIS. He? Who?

PATRICIA. Oh, you needn't get conventional about it, Morris. He is not a mortal.

MORRIS. What's his name?

PATRICIA. We have no names there. You never really know anybody if you know his name.

MORRIS. What does he look like?

PATRICIA. I have only met him in the twilight. He seems robed in a long cloak, with a peaked cap or hood like the elves in my nursery stories. Sometimes when I look out of the window here, I see him passing round this house like a shadow; and see his pointed hood, dark against the sunset or the rising of the moon.

SMITH. What does he talk about?

PATRICIA. He tells me the truth. Very many true things. He is a wizard.

MORRIS. How do you know he's a wizard? I suppose he plays some tricks on you.

PATRICIA. I should know he was a wizard if he played no tricks. But once he stooped and picked up a stone and cast it into the air, and it flew up into God's heaven like a bird.

MORRIS. Was that what first made you think he was a wizard?

PATRICIA. Oh, no. When I first saw him he was tracing circles and pentacles in the grass and talking the language of the elves.

MORRIS. Do you know the language of the elves?

PATRICIA. Not until I heard it.

MORRIS. See here, Patricia, I reckon this kind of thing is going to be the limit. I'm just not going to have you let in by some blamed tramp or fortune-teller because you choose to read minor poetry about the fairies. If this gipsy or whatever he is troubles you again....

DOCTOR. Come, you must allow a little more for poetry. We can't all feed on nothing but petrol.

DUKE. Quite right, quite right. And being Irish, don't you know, Celtic, as old Buffle used to say, charming songs, you know, about the Irish girl who has a plaid shawl--and a Banshee. Poor old Gladstone!

I thought you yourself considered the family superstition bad for the health?

DOCTOR. I consider a family superstition is better for the health than a family quarrel. Well, it must be nice to be young and still see all those stars and sunsets. We old buffers won't be too strict with you if your view of things sometimes gets a bit--mixed up, shall we say? If the stars get loose about the grass by mistake; or if, once or twice, the sunset gets into the east. We should only say, "Dream as much as you like. Dream for all mankind. Dream for us who can dream no longer. But do not quite forget the difference."

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet