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You're built to win it. Welcome to snoozecast, the podcast designed to help you fall asleep. Find us at snewscast.com and if you enjoy our show, please share us with a friend. This episode is brought to you by Tree Frog Songs. Tonight, we'll read the short story, the Magic Carpet, from the compilation called The Day Before Yesterday by Richard Middleton, published in 1912. We first read this story back in 2020. Middleton was a tragic figure, a young man impatient for success, who managed to live the life of the romantic Bohemian poet, complete with poverty, unrequited love for an impossible woman and an early tragic death. No novels were published while he was alive. Soon after his death, the literary world discovered him. Critical acclaim followed for the brilliance of his work and the brevity of his life. Four volumes of his collected works were published, including this one. If you enjoy this story and also enjoy mild mannered ghost stories, be sure to listen to the Ghost Ship written by the same author. Just search in your podcast app for snoozecast presents spooky stories or go to snoozecast.com slash series. And just to reassure our listeners this story, the magic carpet is in no way spooky. It is about a young boy who uses his imagination to embark on whimsical adventures. Let's get cozy. Close your eyes. Relax your body into the softness of your bed. Now, take a few deep breaths. The Magic Carpet There were two rugs in the library, and for some time we used to dispute the vexed question of their relative merits. Aesthetically, there was something to be said for both of them. The rug that stood by the writing desk from which father wrote to the newspapers was soft and furry. Indeed, it was almost as pleasant a couch as the sofa with the soft cushions in the drawing room, which was taboo. Moreover, it lent itself very readily to such fashionable winter sport as bare hunting, providing as it did a trackless prairie, a dangerous marsh where the quarry itself as the adventure required. the joys of the other rug were of a comer kind, and were, perhaps, chiefly due to its advantageous position before the fire. It was pleasant to toast oneself on a winter evening, and trace with idle fingers the agreeable deviations of its pattern. Sometimes it might be the ground plan of a makeup city with forts and sweet shops and palaces for our friends. Sometimes it would be a maze and we would pursue with baited breath the vaulted passages that led to the dreadlayer of the Minotaur. But such plots as these were of a passive rather than active interest. the argument dispassionately,

Fenemore Cooper may have had a slight advantage over Nathaniel Hawthorne. Bear hunting may have been a little more popular than the dim excitement of Greek myth. But while the discussion was at its height,

they're dawned in the east, the sun, that was to prove fatal, to perseus, and the deer slayer alike.

I do not know from which of our uncles, the Arabian Knights, first came to an enraptured audience, but I am sure that an uncle must have been responsible for its coming. For as a gift, it was a vancular in its splendor. We quickly realized that the world had changed and took the necessary steps to welcome our new guest. The old lamp in the hall that had graced the illicit doings of pirates and smugglers in the past was stents forward the property of Aladdin.

A strange bottle that had been cruso-served to confine the unfortunate Jeannie.

And with quickening pulses, we discovered

that in the fireside rug, we possessed no less a treasure than the original magic carpet.

I must explain that we were not like those fortunate children of whom misnazbit rights with such humerus charm. To us, there fell no tremendous adventures. We might polish Aladdin's lamp till it shone like the moon without gaining a single concrete acid drop for our pains. But the Arabian Knights gave us all that we ever thought of, seeking either in books or toys in those uncritical days, a starting point for our dreams. And this, I take it, is the best thing that a writer can give a child, and it was for lack of this that we considered the works of Louis Carroll Silly. While finding one of the books of Miss Molesworth, I wish I could recall its name, a masterpiece of fancy. So, when the din of the schoolroom did not suit my mood, or the authorities were unduly didactic, I would slip away to the twilight library and guide the magic carpet through the delicate meadows of my dreams.

The F- to the twilight library and guide the magic carpet through the delicate meadows of my dreams. The fire would blaze and crackle in the great and fill my eyes with tears so that it was easy to fancy myself in a sparkling world of sunshine. from from the shadows of the room, little creatures would creep out to touch my glowing cheeks with cool, soft fingers or to pluck timidly at the sleeve of my coat. I did not endeavour to give these shy companions of the dark and definite place in my universe. Their sympathetic reticence was reassuring in that room of great leaping shadows. and I was glad that they should keep me company in the blackness. A thing so terrible when I woke up at night. Sometimes, perhaps, I wondered how they could bear to live in the place where nightmare was. But for the rest, I accepted their society gladly and without question. There was plenty of room on the carpet for such quiet fellows. And if they liked to accompany me on my travels, I at least would not prevent them. It did not occur to me at the time as it certainly does now, that I should never again be so near to fairyland as I was then. I was inclined to be skeptical concerning the actual existence of the supernatural, though I recognized that a judicious acceptance of its theories set a new kingdom beneath one's feet for play. And it is only now that I realize how wonderfully vivid my dreams were. With what zest of timid life life the little shadow folk thrilled and trembled around me. It is true that I remained conscious of my normal environment, the fire, the dark room, and the bookcases were all there. and even a kind of quiet sense of the world beyond the door. The hall and the passages and my brothers and sisters at their quarrels. But it was as if these things had become merely an idea in my mind, while my feet were set on the pleasant roads of a new world. The thing that I had hoped became true, and the truth that I had been taught lingered in my mind only as a familiar story, a business of second-hand emotions, neither very desirable nor very interesting. The little folk gathered and whispered round me in the dark, and there was full day in the world that was my own. It was hard to leave that world for this other place, which even now I cannot understand. But when some errant Olympian or

righteousnessly indignant brother had dragged me from my layer, I did not attempt to defend myself

from the charge of moodyness. I had no words to tell them what they had done,

and I could only stand blinking beneath

the light of the gas in the hall, and endeavor to recall their holy tiresome rules and regulations for the life of youth. dimly, I knew that my right place was before the fire in the library, and I wondered whether the little folk could use the magic carpet without me, or whether they stayed expected in the shadows like me, a little lonely and a little chill. But in those days, moodyness was only a lesser crime than sol-g-ness. And I had to fold up my fancies and pass an emotional bankrupt into the unsympathetic world of the playroom. Tomorrow perhaps the magic carpet might be mine again. Meanwhile I would exist. Peter Pan has asked us a good many times whether we believe in fairies. It is, of course, a matter of faith to be accepted or denied, but not to be discussed. my part, I think of a little boy nodding on a rug before the fire on many a winter's evening, and I clap my hands. Gratitude could Do no less.

Children. attitude could do no less. Children and the spring. Poets and careless happy fellows like that may say what they like for the spring. But there are only two seasons in the year for children. The parties of Christmas appeal to our senses in a hundred pleasant ways. They shone with Jack Frost and Chinese lanterns and the gay gelatin from crackers. They compressed our limbs in the pride of new uncomfortable suits and tight shiny shoes. They tasted of burnt raisins and orange jelly jelly. They sang with frosty carols and sensible tombs and the agreeable din of penny musical instruments. They smelt of Christmas tree candles and tangerine oranges. Then there were pantomimes and large silver pieces from the pockets of millionaire uncles, and if all else failed, the possibility of snow. Certainly, there was There's nothing to matter with winter. Summer too had its fears and measurable joys. This was the season of outdoor sports, hunting and boating and digging holes to New Zealand. I was cricket, real cricket, which means that you are out if you hit the ball into the next garden, and that you stop playing if you break a window. And there was hurling of javelins and wild shrubberies, and dabbling and silver brooks for elusive minos. Later there would come long adventurous journeys in railway trains. When like wise travelers, we would cuddle provisions of buns and pears and tepid sandwiches in our laps. Our legs would be so stiff when we reached our destination that we would taught her on the platform like old men, and our eyes would be wary with watching a fleeting world. But as the cap crept up the gritty hills, we would see the ocean waiting for us to come and play with it, and everything else in life would be forgotten. The country, its apple trees and pigs and its secret places was not to be despised, but it was the sea that led us home to our dreams. Yet possibly the finest thing that the summer had to give us was the healthy, joyous sense of fatigue that comes from games. It was pleasant to drop on the lawn when cricket was over and stay there, not wholly displeased with the scent of the flowers. Looking into the blue sky until the gnats drove you into tea. It was pleasant to lie on the beach with the heat creeping up and down your face until let the sand trickle through your fingers, while the long waves whispered out to sea. It was pleasant to drows in the hay after hunting buffaloes all the sunny afternoon. It was only at such moments when the air had a savor of sleep that we really felt conscious of youth as a desirable possession. A child's year would be divided abruptly into winter and summer. For youth is impatient of compromise, but as things are, there are spring and autumn to be reckoned with. For autumn, there There was not much to be said. There were nuts and blackberries, and the sweet scented fallen leaves,

in which we would paddle up to our knees. But the seaside brown was wearing off our legs, And night came so soon, and with so harsh and boisterous a no.

It was not bad when we happened to be feeling very brave to lie awake at night and hear the branches when the wind hurt them. sheer discomfort of the outer world made bet delicious. But the necessary courage for this point of view was rare, and normally we would wish the night's quieter and less exciting. The autumn wind was forever fumbling at our nursery windows like a burglar, recreeping along the passages like a supernatural thing. Sometimes our hearts stopped beating while we listened. of all the seasons of the year, spring is most oppressive to the spirit of childhood. The dear, artificial things that had made the winter lovely were gone. the past world the lights of the summer were still to come. Yet nature called us forth to a muddy, unfinished world. Then was the season of the official walk, a dreary traffic on nice clean pavements that placed everything in the world worth walking to out of bounds. A cold wind without the compensating advantage of snow with swing round the corners of streets, and we would feel as if we were wearing the ears and noses of other people. When we were not quarreling, we were sulking, and each was equally fatal. For the Olympians only needed a pretext to make our days bitter with iron and our quarrels, that had kinder seasons of the year were the regretted accidents of moments. Lingerd now from day to day and became the source of fierce and lonely pride. If one of us released for a minute from the wearing of the world's woes made timid efforts to arrange a game, he would become the object of general suspicion, and he would be regarded as a hypocritical effort to win the favor of the grown-up folk. The correct attitude was one of surly elufeness that spluttered once or twice a day into tearful rebellion against the interference of the authorities. It is insulting to give a man medicine when he tells you that he wishes he were dead.

Of course, underlying these disorders was just that dim spirit of disquiet that has made this season of the year notable for the production of lyric poetry. We had no means of expressing the thing that troubled our blood. Indeed, we ourselves did not know what was the matter. Though this ignorance did not make our discomfort less, who in the glare of a Christmas party or on the shore of a summer's sea could run faster than we seemed to take a spiteful pleasure in lingering in this unattractive place. And although our attitude towards life appeared to have been determined for us by fate, when the long day ended, and when we thought over things in bed, we had not even the satisfaction of being proud of our day's work. We would vow, silently, to our pillows, that things should go better tomorrow. But alas, there might be many Tomorrow's before summer summer brought peace to our blood.

It is not only children whom the spring winds stir to madness, but a man has driven but poorly if he cannot contrive to bear in patience with this fernel torment of living, or even to turn it to some useful purpose in his work. children who can only express themselves in their play must pay for the joys of the coming summer, in moods, speechless, and almost too bitter for their years. sympathy with all the green, quick things of nature, their blood is in a state of passionate unrest for which their minds can supply no adequate reason. And they are unhappy in consequence. But I am far from blaming the Olympians for the attitude they adopted in this difficult business, they kept wise eye on our health. if if our notiness became outrageous, we were punished for the rest, as they could not give us lips of silver and a pipe of gold, with which to chant the amazing gladness of the spring. I do not see what they could do. Yn yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n y