I HAD been thinking how strange a thing it was that I disliked so many people and liked so few. Only to look at some persons seemed enough to put me out of humor and make me feel like saying cross things. But there were others, though not near so many of them, whom I loved to meet and whom I could hardly be cross to if I tried. I had been thinking about this, when I fell asleep and had a dream.

I thought I was carried away to a strange country where it was always dark. No morning ever came there, the sun never shone, and there were no stars in the sky. Yet people were living there, and I could see them walking about. But they were very strange people, such as I had never seen before, nor heard of, nor even thought of. I called them the lantern-people because they looked like great lanterns with lights inside of them that shone through.

And they were of a very strange shape, for they had ever so many sides, and on every side was a picture. Some were pretty and some were ugly pictures. Every person I saw had both pretty and ugly sides.

Of course I was very much surprised and stood looking a long while, for the people could not see me though I could see them and was close to them. On some of their sides were pictures of snakes, wasps, and pigs; on other sides, of doves, lambs, flowers, and such beautiful things.

And now I want to tell you a very curious thing about the way the people acted when they met each other. I noticed, when a man met another in the street, he would quickly turn around one of his sides, so that the man he met could see it, and nothing else—that is, nothing but the picture that was on the side turned toward him.

While I stood watching I saw a man coming along who turned almost the whole way around, so as to bring the picture of a dog in front, where it could be most plainly seen. It was a bull-dog—one of the sort that shows its teeth—very ugly and cross-looking. I could not understand why he should take so much trouble to turn out that ugly picture (for he had prettier ones that I could see) until I saw another man coming toward him, who turned out a picture uglier still. It was of a bear.

As soon as they came close up to one another the pictures seemed to be alive. I was astonished to see their eyes move and their mouths open and shut, seeming to snap at one another. And all I could hear were barkings and growlings until they were gone, the dog and the bear trying to bite each other as far as I could see them.

Next came a little girl. Happening to look behind her, she saw another little girl following her. At once she turned round one of her sides, that had the picture of a wasp on it. But the little girl who was coming after her turned out the picture of a beautiful butterfly. As soon as they met, the wasp began to buzz and dart out its sharp sting, and I saw the butterfly fluttering and fluttering, till presently it was scared away and the picture of a great spider came in its place. Then the spider seemed to dart at the wasp, and the wasp tried to sting the spider; and the little girls went off quarrelling as fiercely as the two men had done.

Next I saw a young woman. She was prettier than any of the lantern-people I had yet seen. I saw her coming from a long way down the street, and she never turned her sides, no matter whom she met, but always kept one picture in front, and that was of a dove. It had a ring of black around its neck and an olive-leaf in its mouth. I thought to myself:

“What a beautiful picture!”

Just then another young woman came up and pushed rudely against her, and I saw this rude one turn out the picture of a snake. And the snake hissed and darted out its forked tongue, but the dove would not go. All it did was to coo softly and flutter with its wings and hold out the olive-leaf.

When the snake found that it could not frighten the dove away, it began to creep off itself, as if ashamed; and what was my surprise to see, presently, another dove come in its place! And the doves began to coo to each other, and to look pleased and happy, and the two young women took hold of each other’s hands; then they put their arms around each other’s neck and kissed each other and so they passed happily by.

After this I walked about the streets looking at the strange people I met there, and, seeing a crowd of them going into a building that had wide-open doors, I went in with them. I found it was a church. In a little while the minister stood up in the pulpit and began to preach to them about being kind to one another and loving one another, very much as the ministers do that we hear. I was up in the gallery, and could see all the people as they sat listening to him. As he went on in his sermon I saw how they turned out their good sides, one by one, some quickly, some more slowly, until hardly an ugly side could be seen in the whole congregation.

But no sooner was the sermon finished, and the blessing pronounced, than there was a shifting round of sides again, some doing this before they left their pews, some as they passed down the aisle, some as they walked down the church-steps; so that most of them came out pretty much the same as they went in.

After leaving the church, I passed before a large private house where a servant-man was standing at the door. As he could not see me I stole by him softly and went into the house. I found everything very elegant there. Beautiful furniture filled the rooms, and costly paintings covered the walls. But I soon learned that these things were not for use or enjoyment, but only for show.

The family was a fashionable one that had a great deal of company and visited a great deal. The mother, a tall, fine-looking woman, was evidently the ruling spirit among them. Whenever she and her daughters were getting ready for a walk, or a drive, she turned out the picture of a large peacock, and her daughters turned out little peacocks. I followed them into the street, and as they walked along could see the people bowing and smiling to them; but as soon as they had passed, these same people made fun of them.

In a second house that I entered the family was seated at dinner. Though not so fine a house as the first, nor so expensively furnished, I could tell at a glance it was a far happier home. I looked round to see if I could discover the cause of this difference, and here again my eye rested on the mother, who sat at the head of the table; but what a contrast with the other! The dove was on her breast, and a brood of doves on the breasts of the little ones who were gathered around her. There was cheerful, innocent talk in which all took part, without a word of unkindness for any one, present or absent.

I stayed about this house for the rest of the day—it was a pleasant place to be in—and when, toward its close, the mother stole apart to a little room alone, I peeped in and saw there a chair, and a table with an open book on it, and a kneeling-cushion, well used, on the floor beside the table. Then I said to myself:

“Perhaps here is the secret of the difference between this and the more elegant home.”

I cannot close this account of what I saw while I was in that strange country without telling of a difference that I noticed between the old and the young people there. The young were constantly changing their sides; the old did not change them nearly so often. It appeared that if they had turned out their ugly sides for the most part during their former lives, they lost the power, as they grew old, to draw them back again. On the other hand, if they had struggled against the bad and kept out the good, the good became fixed there.

My dream seemed to last a long time, and I visited a great many places and saw a great many persons that I have not told about here. But this I noticed everywhere I went—that those who kept out their good sides had the best time of it. They were contented and cheerful themselves,[251]
[252] and helped to make others so. The doves, as we have read, brought out other doves, and the flowers brought out other flowers. Whoever turned out these saw them turned out by other people also. And so, with a pleasant prospect without and a kindly spirit within, the good-sided people experienced a happiness which the ugly-sided people never knew.