Mr. Taphouse

So, here's a sample entry in Philip Pullman's intriguing little book THE IMAGINATION CHAMBER I wanted to share. I've broken up the lines to make for easier reading. --JDR

 

 

   Mr Taphouse said one day as he ran his hand 

over a freshly-planed length of oak:

"Feel that, boy, feel how old that is," Malcolm tried,

 but all he could actually feel was the glassy smoothness

 of the bare surface. 

 

 So he imagined it: acorn, sapling, mature tree, 

a mighty canopy in the summer and a gaunt skeleton

 in winter. From then on whenever Malcolm had 

a piece of oak in his hands, or walnut, or even 

simple honest pine, he liked to think of the tree it had been. 

 

He liked to feel the immense age of it, visible 

in the growth rings, and the past of it, and the 

future too, as he thought of the acorns and walnuts

 and pine cones. He imagined it. He pretended 

he could see it. 

 

From somewhere he remembered the expression 

"the mind's eye". He imagined it, and thus he came

to see it, every time, until it became second nature . . . 

 

 

—The Imagination Chamber. Philip Pullman (2022). page 21

 

 

--John R.