The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1888-05-27
REVERIEs.

Reader, have you ever loosened tn,
reins to your imagination, and per
mitted it to gambol through the green
budding plains of the future, or ths
sere yellow fields OF the past? Have
you ever allowed your mind to wander
away from the body to gather sweet:
from the elysian shores of forgetfulness.
Has it ever been your lot during SCHOOL
day studies or horticultural pursuits
to succamb to an untamed longing fol-
Utopian pleasures, forgetting the potato
patch or the multiplication table, to in
dulge in philosophical fancies or poeti.
cal play? or has all of your spare time
been spent in playing "jscks," nursing
your corns, or in hunting up love
phrases for your best girl? If the
former be the case, you have extracted
honey from the wild flowers of reverie;
il the latter, you have yet to know tie
bitter from the sweet.
Sometimes one can experience as
much pleasure from a short "reverie, ~
as cow gets from green lucern patch.
1t is like eating ice cream at another
fellows expense, and the zest of it is
that it costs nothing.
A "reverie," in my opinion, is short,
intellectual excursion to the ETHEREAL,
where we gather food for the fancy and
add lustre TO the Imagination. Webster
defines it as loose, irrational mus
ing" We often disagree in the defni-
ton of words, and always, heretofore.
have given in, partly from surplus
OF modesty, but mostly through respect
for old age; but of late having followed
the vocation of book agent, and having
since learned of the death of Mr.. Web
ster, l am better fitted to cling to my
own convictions.
An occasional reveIie is as exhilerat-
ing to the brain as Delmonico dinner
is to the body. 1t drives away IN
pleasant thoughts like food banishes
hunger. Often it has afforded me
heavenly balm by taking me far away
from the hot sunlight of memory, into
the cool, soothing shade of oblivion.
Often has it made me forget the exist
ence OF my mother in-law, and the date
when my promisory note became due !;
and any condition of mind that will
bring such sweet solace to sorrow, must
possess virtues by very large major
ity.
These mental migrations, besides be-
ing inexpensive, may be taken at most
any time; while smoking a good cigar,
taking a promenade with your sweet
heart, or counting the bubbles On a
glass of beer; probably the most mop
perfume moments are in the presence OF
an undertaken, plumber, or q mid
winters gas bill, IS there is nothing
poetical or assimulating in either Of
these unwelcome visitors.
Then there is such a grand freedom
in these flights of fancy; there is moth
ing to check the wanderines of a YER
dant memory or to chill the ardor of
the widest Imagination. There is no
one to stop our transit to the golden
past, to sue US for trespass, or to start
in motion the evil tongue of scandal.
We can scrape up an acquaintance with
Cleopatra, flirt with the MUSES., or play
draw poker with Peter the Great. We
can borrow from the departed dead
pair of old pants, or @ f-w ancient
ideas with much more security and
freedom than We can get the loan of a
shoe-string to-day.
l often think we should cultivate
these mental soirees to a greater extent
than we do, for who knows but that
were we to linger long with those we
meet in our reveries, we might become,
or restrict in ourselves, the person
whom we wish to be.
Many q time, during q hard days
labor, have allowed my buoyant brain
to watt itself far away from the farm,
deep into the realms of the past, to
follow in the footsteps of Milton, or to
roam in the laboratory of an alchemist,
thereby fitting myself to astonish the
world with another Shakespeare, or to
outshine the genius of Thomas Edi-
son; but always, thus far, I have met
with disappointment, and the world has
quit loser, for just as was about to alb
sorb a supsrabundance of inventive
ideas or poetical lore, 1 was brought
back to mundane life by an invitation
from my parental sire, to renew the
rural pleasantries of cultiyating carrots
and hauling hay.
Tom DIX.