THE MAHATMA—A DREAM STORY
THE MAHATMA
THE GREAT WHITE ROAD
THE HARE
THE SHOOTING
THE COURSING
THE HUNTING
THE COMING OF THE RED-FACED MAN
THE MAHATMA
A DREAM STORY
“Ultimately a good hare was found which took the field at . . . There
the hounds pressed her, and on the hunt arriving at the edge of the
cliff the hare could be seen crossing the beach and going right out to
sea. A boat was procured, and the master and some others rowed out to
her just as she drowned, and, bringing the body in, gave it to the
hounds. A hare swimming out to sea is a sight not often
witnessed.”—_Local paper, January_ 1911.
“. . . A long check occurred in the latter part of this hunt, the
hare having laid up in a hedgerow, from which she was at last
evicted by a crack of the whip. Her next place of refuge was a
horse-pond, which she tried to swim, but got stuck in the ice
midway, and was sinking, when the huntsman went in after her. It
was a novel sight to see huntsman and hare being lifted over a wall
out of the pond, the eager pack waiting for their prey behind the
wall.”—_Local paper, February_ 1911.
The author supposes that the first of the above extracts must have
impressed him. At any rate, on the night after the reading of it, just
as he went to sleep, or on the following morning just as he awoke, he
cannot tell which, there came to him the title and the outlines of this
fantasy, including the command with which it ends. With a particular
clearness did he seem to see the picture of the Great White Road,
“straight as the way of the Spirit, and broad as the breast of Death,”
and of the little Hare travelling towards the awful Gates.
Like the Mahatma of this fable, he expresses no opinion as to the
merits of the controversy between the Red-faced Man and the Hare that,
without search on his own part, presented itself to his mind in so odd
a fashion. It is one on which anybody interested in such matters can
form an individual judgment.