This accident is not unlike my dream; belief of it
Oppresses me already.
OTHELLO.
Upon a certain clear and starry night of unbroken tranquility and peace,
in the month of September, in the year of Grace one thousand eight hundred
thirty and two; I, JOHN WATERS of man's Estate, Gentleman, dreamed a
Dream. And lest I might be forced, like the great Babylonian monarch of
yore, to say 'the thing is gone from me,' I resolved while a vague
remembrance yet rested in my thoughts, to record if possible some lasting
memorial of it.
Now, more than one half of the average number of years, assigned by
computation to a generation of our race, have, since that point of time,
rolled into the rearward hemisphere of Eternity; trials and changes, deep
and stern and manifold, have rent and desolated this _house not made with
hands_, and have exercised and broken the spirit that is supposed to be
contained within it; yet the slight memorandum, written at that time, lies
unchanged before me, and gives evidence of the comparatively impassible
duration of inert matter over man; whose home, and whose abiding-place is
not of earth!
It is not that I can hope to describe my sensations of that night, in such
a manner as to impart them to the contemplative spirit that may read this
sketch, and to afford pleasure at all comparable with that which I
enjoyed; but I have thought that I might by the recital awaken some
gratifying recollections of still higher flittings of the imagination into
the regions of unlimited Fancy; where the pleasure has been, as was mine,
alike unbounded and pure.
In an Existence like ours, where so much is ideal; where so many things
are feared, that never come to pass; hoped for, that are never realized;
enjoyed, that are impalpable to sense; where that, which by common
convention is called substantial and real, is very far inferior to that
which is falsely termed illusory and vain; where life borders on
immortality; and the spiritual world so closely overhangs the natural,
that it is as difficult to separate them as it is in Switzerland to know
which is Alps and which is Heaven;--there may oftentimes be much pleasure,
perhaps some instruction, in a DREAM.
What should we say of dreams, if our eyes could but once have been opened
upon the bright intellectual fancies, and anticipations; or upon the
spiritual movements, of some of those by the side of whose supine and
deserted forms it may have been our privilege to watch; but who, on waking
into restored consciousness, remember not what they may have seen, or
imagined, or may perhaps have accomplished, in their sleep?
How often, within the compass of our own minds, do we not find thoughts
and images that spring from sources that we cannot trace! Have we not more
than once been called upon to perform some act of life, important to
ourselves, or perchance to others; or been in some incidental circle of
friends, or of persons who were strangers until then; or walked upon some
lonely path in Europe--all for the first time as we suppose, and yet have
we not had it irresistibly borne in upon our minds, that we have done all
this before! signed the same paper in the same presence! heard the same
voices speak the same words! noticed the same faces in the same positions!
or recognized the mountains perhaps, and the trees, the landscape, the
rocks, the very brook, as acquaintances of old; although the broad
Atlantic had never yet been crossed by us before--except in spirit!
Did you never in the day or night dream yourself to be upon some lofty
overhanging precipice? did you never in imagination look down over its
extreme verge upon the dark coast that skirts the foot of it, so far below
you that you only distinguish the Rocks themselves by the white foam of
the blue wave that breaks over them? Did you never hold by a bush while
you were bending over this awful verge, listening to the low roar of the
deep and distant waters, and perceive the Eagle itself soaring mid-way
only up the cliff--and while you grew chill with the thoughts of depth,
and danger, and distance from relief, did you never feel the bush give way
and the gravel slide from beneath you, and the whole mass come thundering
down from earth to ocean?
One throb is given to madness and in the next you wake and find the body
in security although perhaps in pain. Have you been in actual danger? do
you believe that you have been? If not, why do you immediately pray to God
and bless Him at such moments for his protection and care of you? Is it
not that while the body has been quiescent, the excursive Soul has been in
spiritual presence on the edge of that beetling and stupendous height?
Suppose, as the mother sits beside the small bed, drinking with her eyes
that draught of ecstatick pleasure which only Woman's heart can taste, she
could perceive the spirit of her boy, rising from the body that it leaves
behind in roseate sleep, a thousand times more beautiful than it and yet
the same; and still her own; and taking upon himself, as of his proper
right, the grace and charm of 'a young and rose-lipped cherub,' should
chase, (and all within her sight,) the rainbow-butterflies of Paradise
across its swards of velvet, and laugh in music to express his joy!
Suppose that to the husband it should be given to behold his Wife--the
pure in heart!--walking like a seraph in the Spiritual Life, as the
earliest light of morning moves along the hill-tops; her countenance
'beautified with salvation' and joy unfolding itself at her approach: he
sees and follows her as she enters into grottoes of shells, compared with
which all flowers of Earth are mere attempts at colour! She listens to
choirs of angels, joining worthily with them in the celestial chaunt! and
when the hearts of both are elevated by the anthem strain, she kneels in
solitude and prays for him in words that rise to Heaven, a grateful and
accepted incense!
Regard in silence those features of the young and beautiful upon the bed
of slow consuming death; with what a grace do they not awake from the
momentary trance of sleep! thoughts, not given to be revealed, have been
garnered by that precious spirit as it hath soared upward toward the
Heaven that is now bending with a summons unto everlasting Life! How
gently yet how touchingly do not its glances and its last regrets pass
through the diaphanous covering that remains to it of mortality, upon the
friend who gazes in equal love and wonder at its side! how like the light
within the vase! how sublimated the expression! how intent, how occupied
that long look! how effulgent that passage of hope! how intimate, how
exalted must have been the communion, when gleams of Faith and Joy, too
beautiful for utterance, indicate the redeemed soul just fluttering to
ascend in 'robes made white in the blood of the Lamb!'
Are not these and such as these, imaginations, communions, capacities,
employments of the soul in Dreams? Ah! if what is called the Sleep of
Death be mysterious, be awful, be sublime, be beautiful at times; how much
more so,--when the form lies waiting to be revivified by the quick return
of the excursive spirit,--how much more so is the Sleep of Life!
I was lying in my bed, in a deep delicious repose, in my own bed, without
either care, or cold, or gout, to molest me even in my dreams; I had been
occupied during the evening with some elementary algebraical processes in
the company of my dear son who was to prepare them for examination at
school on the following day and who had succeeded in arriving at correct
results, had copied off his work, and packed it in his satchel for the
morning.
Methought, while I slept, my son and I stood together hand in hand in the
Church where we were accustomed to worship. We were very near the altar,
but with our faces directed toward the organ and front gallery. There is
in my mind some recollection of another person, I believe our Rector, near
us but a little behind us.
Presently the surface of the gallery extended itself in breadth and
height, so greatly as to cover the entire organ-loft with it's increased
plane, and it became an immense practising-board, such as, upon a small
scale, teachers of mathematics use to resolve problems upon for the
instruction of a class, and it immediately assumed the deep slate-coloured
hue that such boards are frequently painted.
And now there arranged themselves upon this board, in white characters,
problem after problem in Equation; the Rule in which we had been
exercising. I cannot describe the celerity with which these problems were
stated upon the board, and worked out to the intense gratification of my
son and myself; the most difficult and apparently unequal quantities being
with the rapidity of thought interchanged neutralized reduced and
determined, so that what seemed at the outset extremely involved, became
lucid as day, and the unknown quantities made specific to our perfect
satisfaction in an instant of time.
We were delighted with the lesson. I felt the hand of my son gently
pressing mine, as he was accustomed to do when he would evince his
satisfaction at any thing we examined successfully together; and we agreed
with each other to cherish the recollection of these elucidations for
future practice.
Turning again toward the board, we found it entirely freed from any trace
of what had been wrought upon it. And now, in a manner which I have no
possible means of imparting to the Reader, the good and evil of Life
formed the specific and the unknown quantities that were wrought out upon
the board. Problem succeeded problem, formed out of various conditions of
life, with the same rapidity as those in Arabicks had been, and though
vastly more complicated, with the same satisfactory result. Every variety
and combination of circumstances in life seemed exhibited; positive
negative neutral in a moment; until certain trials and occurrences led to
certain virtues, with the same precision as in the preceding series of
demonstrations _x_ had for example been shewn to be equal to 8. Our joy
was beyond expression in words; we embraced each other and I well remember
saying, 'My dear Hal, this is Truth; positive Truth; moral, but as certain
and as irrefragible, as any mathematical Truth is or ever can be shewn to
be.'
We turned again toward the Board, and another course altogether of
demonstrations passed over the surface of it, and was made scrutable to
our perceptions. By one process the illimitable power of GOD was borne in
upon my apprehension with a vividness of conception that I had never felt
before.
By another I well remember Truth and Wisdom were shewn to be one and the
same, and all Truth to proceed from and to be an attribute of GOD. By
another, Infinite Justice, deduced from Infinite Power and Infinite Truth,
was arrived at, as His essential and necessary quality. Again, the
revealed Word of GOD as declared in the Bible was established in my mind
as the irresistible result of another process; and, although several had
intermediately passed over the Board, this was I think the last. The Board
faded, the figure at our side disappeared, we were out of church, and
presently I awoke, and lo! it was a DREAM! But the recollection of that
dream has never faded from my memory, and I trust that the influences of
it may never be lost.
My mind for some time previous had been much afflicted with considerations
and doubts respecting the free agency of man, and the truth of the
Scriptures so far as they relate to everlasting punishment, and to the
prescience of GOD. These doubts had been infused in conversation by the
reasoning of an eminent lawyer. If you believe in the doctrine of
everlasting punishment said he, and believe also in the prescience of GOD,
and in HIS Omnipotence, must you not admit that GOD might prevent the
sinner from entering at all into this world of probation? into this world
of trial which is to prove too severe for his powers of resistance? If I
know that a candle that I purpose lighting will, from any accident, or by
any other hand after I shall have lighted it, be made to burn my
neighbor's house; am I not in some degree participant or accessary to the
consequence if I persist in the intention? Why is man to be made subject
to consequences more direful to him than if he had never been born at all
into this world of evil? He has had no voice in determining his mission
into it, nor has his will been consulted in the creation of his spirit,
nor in the qualities with which that spirit is endued; his existence also
in a state of indulgence of wicked impulse, how short and limited it has
been; and how frequently mingled with the disposition if not with repeated
Effort toward goodness; shall he for twenty years of vice, be subjected to
_everlasting_ punishment? how can this consist with Divine Justice and
Mercy? You say that he has had the free option of good and evil; possibly
so; but he has not chosen the good, he has not adopted the course that
leads to everlasting happiness, and his everlasting misery might have been
prevented; why then should he have been called into being? Is not this
misery ordained to him, since it is not prevented, and since it has always
been apparent as the result of life to the creative power which must know,
and which could prevent, and has yet determined to create?
Now these doubts were weighing on my heart when I first stood before that
board; and when I had left the church, they were all removed. They had
made themselves--air, into which they vanished. My hands were clasped
together in pleasure at the relief; and when I awoke, a sensation, the
purest perhaps that life affords, had entire possession of my heart, my
mind, my soul. It was that gentle, yet etherial sensation--that
yellow-green of the ransomed spirit--when gratitude that has never drawn a
chain behind it, gratitude free as joy, gratitude beautiful as hope, melts
into love toward HIM, 'who first hath loved us!'
'Parent of Heaven! great Master of mankind!
Where'er Thy providence directs, behold
My steps with cheerful resignation turn!
Fate leads the willing, drags the backward on.
Why should I mourn, when grieving I must bear;
Or take with guilt what, guiltless, I might share!'