The First Love Of My Life - Books!

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.

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.'"