By "mirage" I will assume you are referring to the walls and floor of the children's nursery which, at "Four-Thirty" come alive with scenes from nature, including "yellow giraffes" and "summer-starched grass." The room probably has the ability to produce several different scenes yet it doesn't seem as though it has the technology capable of making the scenes different for each viewer. Bradbury writes that the images are produced by a film projector which is hidden somewhere in the walls of the room: "Hidden films clocked through well-oiled sprockets, and the walls lived." The nursery is somewhat similar to the nursery in another Bradbury short story "The Veldt" where the walls truly do come alive as the lions in the veldt actually end up killing and eating the parents. Bradbury never goes that far in establishing the reality or capabilities of the walls in "There Will Come Soft Rains." It is simply another example of the incredible modern functions of the automated house.
Does anybody know the etymology of the phrase "sweet dreams"? I tried googling but did not find anything satisfying. Is this a relatively new phrase of the modern world or has this been in use for some time? I think it's the latter one. Answer The OED has the interjection as "a farewell to someone going to bed" from the 20th century: 1908 Sears Roebuck Catal. 198/1 Tenor Solos..Good Bye, Sweet Dreams, Good Bye. But it goes back until at least the 19th and possibly 18th centuries. John Wolcot, writing under the pseudonym of Peter Pindar, used it in his poem "Orson and Ellen; A Legendary Tale" published in 1801: Also from 1801 in The infernal Quixote (Page 287) by Charles Lucas: In the March 1776 of The Universal Magazine was published "The Serenade. A Pastoral Tale. From the German of Gesner" , where the shepherd Daphnis watches over his beloved as she sleeps and sings: The same tale appears in 1776's as Idyl XI, " Daphnis ...
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