Can books and stories about characters and events that are
not real teach us anything useful? YES. There is no doubt about it for me.
Being a handicapped girl, I was a loner in my childhood. I spent a lot of my
time reading books which included real life stories, comics and science books.
I would not have made it to my teen years without either going crazy or driving
people around me crazy if not for books. My addiction to books started when I
was very young.
I had a fracture on my leg and was bedridden for more than 3
months. The cast ran from my toes up to my waist, which made walking
impossible. I was a mischievous and naughty child who could not sit around for
long, therefore tired of trying to entertain me; my family bought me picture
books. To their amazement they discovered I loved reading. By the end of three
months I was reading news paper. I would add some spice and narrate the events
to my mother and her family. So the fracture, which had caused me a lot of trauma,
had not been a very bad event after all. It honed my reading skills. Also after
the incident I was more into reading and less into physical activities. I
became silent because I could not read and talk at the same time. Having found
a way to shut me up people found lots of interesting books for me to read.
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The first story that touched my heart and changed me into a
different person was Mark Twain’s “A
Dog's Tale”. It was the day I felt ashamed of being a human and not a dog. I cried
for three days and could not eat properly because I felt deeply touched by the
dog in the story. 35 years later, I still can’t think of the story without
shedding tears. I feel Mark Twain was the person who taught me more about
myself and human nature than anyone else. He made me think unbiased towards all
living creatures of the world. I have never felt superior just because I am
human since that day. Many people wonder why my thoughts are so different, and
they can’t believe the change was due to an author.
Another
change came over me when I read Scott Peck’s ‘The Road Less Travelled’. Though
there are no fictional characters in the book, some of the things he said in
the book had deep impact on my mind. One of the best things I learned from Scot
Peck was about disciplining children. According to him, we cannot teach
discipline through indiscipline. When a mother shouts at a child not to shout,
she is giving two different messages to the child. One through her action and
one through what she is saying. This is a very important lesson I have learned
in my life. Also his views about love, marriage, relationships and death gave
me a different introspective view into my own life too.
Another
person who had a huge impact on my life is Somerset Maugham. Though his most
famous book had been ‘Of Human Bondage’, my inspiration came from his short
stories in which he made excellent description of human relationships. The characters
in his book have permanently changed the way I look at people. They made me
more broad minded than I was before.
Reading
about the Jews during the regime of Hitler has been the single most changing
event of my life. It has contributed a lot to my disbelief in religions and
allowing distinguishing among people based on their caste, ethnicity or color.
Though an unrelated event to my own life, it kind of connected me with the
people of that time. I had spent a lot of my teen years reading about the
concentration camps and suffering of Jews and slowly the event seeped into my
psyche and became a part of me.
Books, characters
and events narrated in them have a huge impact on my life. Without books, I would
not be the person I am today!
This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda
For those who wish to read
A DOG'S TALE
by Mark Twain
CHAPTER I
My father was a St. Bernard, my
mother was a collie, but I am a
Presbyterian. This is what my mother told me, I do not know
these nice
distinctions myself. To me they are only fine large words meaning
nothing. My mother had a fondness for such; she liked
to say them, and
see other dogs look surprised and
envious, as wondering how she got so
much education. But, indeed, it was not real education; it
was only
show: she got the words by
listening in the dining-room and drawing-room
when there was company, and by
going with the children to Sunday-school
and listening there; and whenever
she heard a large word she said it over
to herself many times, and so was
able to keep it until there was a
dogmatic gathering in the
neighborhood, then she would get it off, and
surprise and distress them all,
from pocket-pup to mastiff, which
rewarded her for all her
trouble. If there was a stranger he was
nearly
sure to be suspicious, and when
he got his breath again he would ask her
what it meant. And she always told him. He was never expecting this but
thought he would catch her; so
when she told him, he was the one that
looked ashamed, whereas he had
thought it was going to be she. The
others were always waiting for
this, and glad of it and proud of her, for
they knew what was going to
happen, because they had had experience.
When she told the meaning of a
big word they were all so taken up with
admiration that it never occurred
to any dog to doubt if it was the right
one; and that was natural,
because, for one thing, she answered up so
promptly that it seemed like a
dictionary speaking, and for another
thing, where could they find out
whether it was right or not? for she was
the only cultivated dog there
was. By and by, when I was older, she
brought home the word
Unintellectual, one time, and worked it pretty hard
all the week at different
gatherings, making much unhappiness and
despondency; and it was at this
time that I noticed that during that week
she was asked for the meaning at
eight different assemblages, and flashed
out a fresh definition every
time, which showed me that she had more
presence of mind than culture,
though I said nothing, of course. She
had
one word which she always kept on
hand, and ready, like a life-preserver,
a kind of emergency word to strap
on when she was likely to get washed
overboard in a sudden way--that
was the word Synonymous. When she
happened to fetch out a long word
which had had its day weeks before and
its prepared meanings gone to her
dump-pile, if there was a stranger
there of course it knocked him
groggy for a couple of minutes, then he
would come to, and by that time
she would be away down wind on another
tack, and not expecting anything;
so when he'd hail and ask her to cash
in, I (the only dog on the inside
of her game) could see her canvas
flicker a moment--but only just a
moment--then it would belly out taut
and full, and she would say, as
calm as a summer's day, "It's synonymous
with supererogation," or
some godless long reptile of a word like that,
and go placidly about and skim
away on the next tack, perfectly
comfortable, you know, and leave
that stranger looking profane and
embarrassed, and the initiated
slatting the floor with their tails in
unison and their faces
transfigured with a holy joy.
And it was the same with
phrases. She would drag home a whole
phrase, if
it had a grand sound, and play it
six nights and two matinees, and
explain it a new way every
time--which she had to, for all she cared for
was the phrase; she wasn't
interested in what it meant, and knew those
dogs hadn't wit enough to catch
her, anyway. Yes, she was a daisy! She
got so she wasn't afraid of
anything, she had such confidence in the
ignorance of those
creatures. She even brought anecdotes
that she had
heard the family and the
dinner-guests laugh and shout over; and as a
rule she got the nub of one
chestnut hitched onto another chestnut,
where, of course, it didn't fit
and hadn't any point; and when she
delivered the nub she fell over
and rolled on the floor and laughed and
barked in the most insane way,
while I could see that she was wondering
to herself why it didn't seem as
funny as it did when she first heard it.
But no harm was done; the others
rolled and barked too, privately ashamed
of themselves for not seeing the
point, and never suspecting that the
fault was not with them and there
wasn't any to see.
You can see by these things that
she was of a rather vain and frivolous
character; still, she had
virtues, and enough to make up, I think.
She
had a kind heart and gentle ways,
and never harbored resentments for
injuries done her, but put them
easily out of her mind and forgot them;
and she taught her children her
kindly way, and from her we learned also
to be brave and prompt in time of
danger, and not to run away, but face
the peril that threatened friend
or stranger, and help him the best we
could without stopping to think
what the cost might be to us. And she
taught us not by words only, but
by example, and that is the best way and
the surest and the most lasting. Why, the brave things she did, the
splendid things! she was just a
soldier; and so modest about it--well,
you couldn't help admiring her,
and you couldn't help imitating her; not
even a King Charles spaniel could
remain entirely despicable in her
society. So, as you see, there was more to her than
her education.
CHAPTER II
When I was well grown, at last, I
was sold and taken away, and I never
saw her again. She was broken-hearted, and so was I, and we
cried; but
she comforted me as well as she
could, and said we were sent into this
world for a wise and good
purpose, and must do our duties without
repining, take our life as we
might find it, live it for the best good of
others, and never mind about the
results; they were not our affair. She
said men who did like this would
have a noble and beautiful reward by and
by in another world, and although
we animals would not go there, to do
well and right without reward
would give to our brief lives a worthiness
and dignity which in itself would
be a reward. She had gathered these
things from time to time when she
had gone to the Sunday-school with the
children, and had laid them up in
her memory more carefully than she had
done with those other words and
phrases; and she had studied them deeply,
for her good and ours. One may see by this that she had a wise and
thoughtful head, for all there
was so much lightness and vanity in it.
So we said our farewells, and
looked our last upon each other through our
tears; and the last thing she
said--keeping it for the last to make me
remember it the better, I
think--was, "In memory of me, when there is a
time of danger to another do not
think of yourself, think of your mother,
and do as she would do."
Do you think I could forget
that? No.
CHAPTER III
It was such a charming home!--my
new one; a fine great house, with
pictures, and delicate
decorations, and rich furniture, and no gloom
anywhere, but all the wilderness
of dainty colors lit up with flooding
sunshine; and the spacious
grounds around it, and the great garden--oh,
greensward, and noble trees, and
flowers, no end! And I was the same as
a member of the family; and they
loved me, and petted me, and did not
give me a new name, but called me
by my old one that was dear to me
because my mother had given it
me--Aileen Mavourneen. She got it out of
a song; and the Grays knew that
song, and said it was a beautiful name.
Mrs. Gray was thirty, and so
sweet and so lovely, you cannot imagine it;
and Sadie was ten, and just like
her mother, just a darling slender
little copy of her, with auburn
tails down her back, and short frocks;
and the baby was a year old, and
plump and dimpled, and fond of me, and
never could get enough of hauling
on my tail, and hugging me, and
laughing out its innocent
happiness; and Mr. Gray was thirty-eight, and
tall and slender and handsome, a
little bald in front, alert, quick in
his movements, business-like,
prompt, decided, unsentimental, and with
that kind of trim-chiseled face
that just seems to glint and sparkle with
frosty intellectuality! He was a renowned scientist. I do not know what
the word means, but my mother
would know how to use it and get effects.
She would know how to depress a
rat-terrier with it and make a lap-dog
look sorry he came. But that is not the best one; the best one
was
Laboratory. My mother could organize a Trust on that one
that would skin
the tax-collars off the whole
herd. The laboratory was not a book, or
a
picture, or a place to wash your
hands in, as the college president's dog
said--no, that is the lavatory;
the laboratory is quite different, and is
filled with jars, and bottles,
and electrics, and wires, and strange
machines; and every week other
scientists came there and sat in the
place, and used the machines, and
discussed, and made what they called
experiments and discoveries; and
often I came, too, and stood around and
listened, and tried to learn, for
the sake of my mother, and in loving
memory of her, although it was a
pain to me, as realizing what she was
losing out of her life and I
gaining nothing at all; for try as I might,
I was never able to make anything
out of it at all.
Other times I lay on the floor in
the mistress's work-room and slept, she
gently using me for a footstool,
knowing it pleased me, for it was a
caress; other times I spent an
hour in the nursery, and got well tousled
and made happy; other times I
watched by the crib there, when the baby
was asleep and the nurse out for
a few minutes on the baby's affairs;
other times I romped and raced
through the grounds and the garden with
Sadie till we were tired out,
then slumbered on the grass in the shade of
a tree while she read her book;
other times I went visiting among the
neighbor dogs--for there were
some most pleasant ones not far away, and
one very handsome and courteous
and graceful one, a curly-haired Irish
setter by the name of Robin
Adair, who was a Presbyterian like me, and
belonged to the Scotch minister.
The servants in our house were
all kind to me and were fond of me, and
so, as you see, mine was a
pleasant life. There could not be a
happier
dog that I was, nor a gratefuller
one. I will say this for myself, for
it is only the truth: I tried in all ways to do well and right, and
honor my mother's memory and her
teachings, and earn the happiness that
had come to me, as best I could.
By and by came my little puppy,
and then my cup was full, my happiness
was perfect. It was the dearest little waddling thing, and
so smooth and
soft and velvety, and had such
cunning little awkward paws, and such
affectionate eyes, and such a
sweet and innocent face; and it made me so
proud to see how the children and
their mother adored it, and fondled it,
and exclaimed over every little
wonderful thing it did. It did seem to
me that life was just too lovely
to--
Then came the winter. One day I was standing a watch in the
nursery.
That is to say, I was asleep on
the bed. The baby was asleep in the
crib, which was alongside the
bed, on the side next the fireplace. It
was the kind of crib that has a
lofty tent over it made of gauzy stuff
that you can see through. The nurse was out, and we two sleepers were
alone. A spark from the wood-fire was shot out, and
it lit on the slope
of the tent. I suppose a quiet interval followed, then a
scream from the
baby awoke me, and there was that
tent flaming up toward the ceiling!
Before I could think, I sprang to
the floor in my fright, and in a second
was half-way to the door; but in
the next half-second my mother's
farewell was sounding in my ears,
and I was back on the bed again.
I reached my head through the
flames and dragged the baby out by the
waist-band, and tugged it along,
and we fell to the floor together in a
cloud of smoke; I snatched a new
hold, and dragged the screaming little
creature along and out at the
door and around the bend of the hall, and
was still tugging away, all
excited and happy and proud, when the
master's voice shouted:
"Begone you cursed
beast!" and I jumped to save myself; but he was
furiously quick, and chased me
up, striking furiously at me with his
cane, I dodging this way and
that, in terror, and at last a strong blow
fell upon my left foreleg, which
made me shriek and fall, for the moment,
helpless; the cane went up for
another blow, but never descended, for the
nurse's voice rang wildly out,
"The nursery's on fire!" and the master
rushed away in that direction,
and my other bones were saved.
The pain was cruel, but, no
matter, I must not lose any time; he might
come back at any moment; so I
limped on three legs to the other end of
the hall, where there was a dark
little stairway leading up into a garret
where old boxes and such things
were kept, as I had heard say, and where
people seldom went. I managed to climb up there, then I searched
my way
through the dark among the piles
of things, and hid in the secretest
place I could find. It was foolish to be afraid there, yet still
I was;
so afraid that I held in and hardly
even whimpered, though it would have
been such a comfort to whimper,
because that eases the pain, you know.
But I could lick my leg, and that
did some good.
For half an hour there was a
commotion downstairs, and shoutings, and
rushing footsteps, and then there
was quiet again. Quiet for some
minutes, and that was grateful to
my spirit, for then my fears began to
go down; and fears are worse than
pains--oh, much worse. Then came a
sound that froze me. They were calling me--calling me by
name--hunting
for me!
It was muffled by distance, but
that could not take the terror out of it,
and it was the most dreadful
sound to me that I had ever heard. It
went
all about, everywhere, down
there: along the halls, through all the
rooms, in both stories, and in
the basement and the cellar; then outside,
and farther and farther
away--then back, and all about the house again,
and I thought it would never,
never stop. But at last it did, hours
and
hours after the vague twilight of
the garret had long ago been blotted
out by black darkness.
Then in that blessed stillness my
terrors fell little by little away, and
I was at peace and slept. It was a good rest I had, but I woke before
the twilight had come again. I was feeling fairly comfortable, and I
could think out a plan now. I made a very good one; which was, to creep
down, all the way down the back
stairs, and hide behind the cellar door,
and slip out and escape when the
iceman came at dawn, while he was inside
filling the refrigerator; then I
would hide all day, and start on my
journey when night came; my
journey to--well, anywhere where they would
not know me and betray me to the
master. I was feeling almost cheerful
now; then suddenly I
thought: Why, what would life be without
my puppy!
That was despair. There was no plan for me; I saw that; I must
stay where
I was; stay, and wait, and take
what might come--it was not my affair;
that was what life is--my mother
had said it. Then--well, then the
calling began again! All my sorrows came back. I said to myself, the
master will never forgive. I did not know what I had done to make him so
bitter and so unforgiving, yet I
judged it was something a dog could not
understand, but which was clear
to a man and dreadful.
They called and called--days and
nights, it seemed to me. So long that
the hunger and thirst near drove
me mad, and I recognized that I was
getting very weak. When you are this way you sleep a great deal,
and I
did. Once I woke in an awful fright--it seemed to
me that the calling
was right there in the
garret! And so it was: it was Sadie's voice, and
she was crying; my name was
falling from her lips all broken, poor thing,
and I could not believe my ears
for the joy of it when I heard her say:
"Come back to us--oh, come
back to us, and forgive--it is all so sad
without our--"
I broke in with SUCH a grateful
little yelp, and the next moment Sadie
was plunging and stumbling
through the darkness and the lumber and
shouting for the family to hear,
"She's found, she's found!"
The days that followed--well, they were
wonderful. The mother and Sadie
and the servants--why, they just
seemed to worship me. They couldn't
seem to make me a bed that was
fine enough; and as for food, they
couldn't be satisfied with
anything but game and delicacies that were out
of season; and every day the
friends and neighbors flocked in to hear
about my heroism--that was the
name they called it by, and it means
agriculture. I remember my mother pulling it on a kennel
once, and
explaining it in that way, but
didn't say what agriculture was, except
that it was synonymous with
intramural incandescence; and a dozen times a
day Mrs. Gray and Sadie would
tell the tale to new-comers, and say I
risked my life to say the baby's,
and both of us had burns to prove it,
and then the company would pass
me around and pet me and exclaim about
me, and you could see the pride
in the eyes of Sadie and her mother; and
when the people wanted to know
what made me limp, they looked ashamed and
changed the subject, and
sometimes when people hunted them this way and
that way with questions about it,
it looked to me as if they were going
to cry.
And this was not all the glory;
no, the master's friends came, a whole
twenty of the most distinguished
people, and had me in the laboratory,
and discussed me as if I was a
kind of discovery; and some of them said
it was wonderful in a dumb beast,
the finest exhibition of instinct they
could call to mind; but the
master said, with vehemence, "It's far above
instinct; it's REASON, and many a
man, privileged to be saved and go with
you and me to a better world by
right of its possession, has less of it
that this poor silly quadruped
that's foreordained to perish"; and then
he laughed, and said: "Why, look at me--I'm a sarcasm! bless
you, with
all my grand intelligence, the
only thing I inferred was that the dog had
gone mad and was destroying the
child, whereas but for the beast's
intelligence--it's REASON, I tell
you!--the child would have perished!"
They disputed and disputed, and I
was the very center of subject of it
all, and I wished my mother could
know that this grand honor had come to
me; it would have made her proud.
Then they discussed optics, as
they called it, and whether a certain
injury to the brain would produce
blindness or not, but they could not
agree about it, and said they
must test it by experiment by and by; and
next they discussed plants, and
that interested me, because in the summer
Sadie and I had planted seeds--I
helped her dig the holes, you know--and
after days and days a little
shrub or a flower came up there, and it was
a wonder how that could happen;
but it did, and I wished I could talk--I
would have told those people
about it and shown then how much I knew, and
been all alive with the subject;
but I didn't care for the optics; it was
dull, and when they came back to
it again it bored me, and I went to
sleep.
Pretty soon it was spring, and
sunny and pleasant and lovely, and the
sweet mother and the children
patted me and the puppy good-by, and went
away on a journey and a visit to
their kin, and the master wasn't any
company for us, but we played
together and had good times, and the
servants were kind and friendly,
so we got along quite happily and
counted the days and waited for
the family.
And one day those men came again,
and said, now for the test, and they
took the puppy to the laboratory,
and I limped three-leggedly along, too,
feeling proud, for any attention
shown to the puppy was a pleasure to me,
of course. They discussed and experimented, and then
suddenly the puppy
shrieked, and they set him on the
floor, and he went staggering around,
with his head all bloody, and the
master clapped his hands and shouted:
"There, I've won--confess
it! He's as blind as a bat!"
And they all said:
"It's so--you've proved your
theory, and suffering humanity owes you a
great debt from henceforth,"
and they crowded around him, and wrung his
hand cordially and thankfully,
and praised him.
But I hardly saw or heard these things,
for I ran at once to my little
darling, and snuggled close to it
where it lay, and licked the blood, and
it put its head against mine,
whimpering softly, and I knew in my heart
it was a comfort to it in its
pain and trouble to feel its mother's
touch, though it could not see
me. Then it dropped down, presently, and
its little velvet nose rested
upon the floor, and it was still, and did
not move any more.
Soon the master stopped
discussing a moment, and rang in the footman, and
said, "Bury it in the far
corner of the garden," and then went on with
the discussion, and I trotted
after the footman, very happy and grateful,
for I knew the puppy was out of
its pain now, because it was asleep. We
went far down the garden to the
farthest end, where the children and the
nurse and the puppy and I used to
play in the summer in the shade of a
great elm, and there the footman
dug a hole, and I saw he was going to
plant the puppy, and I was glad,
because it would grow and come up a fine
handsome dog, like Robin Adair,
and be a beautiful surprise for the
family when they came home; so I
tried to help him dig, but my lame leg
was no good, being stiff, you
know, and you have to have two, or it is no
use. When the footman had finished and covered
little Robin up, he
patted my head, and there were
tears in his eyes, and he said:
"Poor
little doggie, you saved HIS
child!"
I have watched two whole weeks,
and he doesn't come up! This last week a
fright has been stealing upon
me. I think there is something terrible
about this. I do not know what it is, but the fear makes
me sick, and I
cannot eat, though the servants
bring me the best of food; and they pet
me so, and even come in the
night, and cry, and say, "Poor doggie--do
give it up and come home; don't
break our hearts!" and all this terrifies
me the more, and makes me sure
something has happened. And I am so
weak;
since yesterday I cannot stand on
my feet anymore. And within this hour
the servants, looking toward the
sun where it was sinking out of sight
and the night chill coming on,
said things I could not understand, but
they carried something cold to my
heart.
"Those poor creatures! They do not suspect. They will come home in the
morning, and eagerly ask for the
little doggie that did the brave deed,
and who of us will be strong
enough to say the truth to them: 'The
humble little friend is gone
where go the beasts that perish.'"
