"I am not one who was born in the custody of wisdom. I am one who is fond of olden times and intense in quest of the sacred knowing of the ancients." Gustave Courbet

07 December 2016

Swarming.


Out he slipped without his cap or apron, and sure enough the door was open. In he went, and up and up in the darkness, climbing the steps and then the ladders, until he was among the bells, when a sense of dread and loneliness came upon him all at once, and he fell in a swoon. So ends the second quarter.

When the chimes began to right Tony awakened, and many wonderful things did he now begin to see. The spirits of the bells were swarming all around him; goblins and fairies and elfin spirits in endless numbers were pouring out in all directions from the chiming bells, until the whole interior of the tower seemed thronged with them. But when the chimes stopped, the elfish figures, one by one, faded into nothingness, and then when the bells hung still Toby noticed for the first time that each bell was itself a strange and mysterious figure with a long beard, and its muffled hand on its goblin mouth.

Charles Dickens, from "The Chimes, A Goblin Story"

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