Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1870-05-10
The Reality of Dreams.

Sancho Panza was a philosopher IL
pronouncing blessing on the man tha
invented sleep He, the miserable fol
lower of beggarly master, could, by
sleep, exchange the labors and exaction'
of his position which appropriated his
waking hours, for the glorious realities
and conscious repose he found in dream
land. Thousands join with him in bene
dlctions on the mythical benefactor Of
the race. Sleep and night are the poor
man IS luxury and holiday. Jobs beau
tifully poetical description of the grave
is peculiarly applicable to sleep:
Where the wicked cease from troubling
And the weary are at rest,
There the prisoners rest together;
They hear not the voice of the oppressor.
The small and the great are there,
And the servant is free from his master.
Sleep has been beautifully personified
as the twin-brother or alter ego of death.
The simile fails in the positive con-
scious enjoyment of repose which is felt
in sleep, but which we can scarcely con-
ceive of as in death. There is the con-
seriousness of rest in sleep in spite Of the
absence of our voluntary exercise of the
bodily and mental faculties. There is
more: there is the positive enjoyment
of happiness as the soul ranges untram-
meled through the realities of dreams,
and slides down the backward groove of
memory to the pleasures of childhood
and youth, divested of all the annoy
ances that make their possession ques-
tionable blessing at the time. To those
whose maturer years project on the can
vas of their life's history only the som
ber tints of trouble and sorrow, this
dream retrospect is unspeakably cheer
ing
Again we wander through the pleasant
paths and over the sunny fields of long
ago, hand in hand with our favorite com
panions. Again we feel the soft hand of
parental tenderness placed in caress or
blessing on our heads-the hand that for
years has been but senseless dust We
hear the voice Of mingled reproof and
affection, which once awoke all the bet
ter feelings of our nature, that are now
hidden and panoplied by the indurated
armor of sel6shness. Again we expe-
rience the delicious, deliriaRs agony of
love. and behold the face of her once so
Onndll KOfSnlpeQ--dh luol iOng since re-
moved from its pedestal.
God in our dreams, soitens the frozen
soil of our hearts and keeps alive the
germs of human love, which, after all,
are but emanations from His own great
fountain of love. He graoioasly allows
us TO live over again the pleasures of
youth. which we but half appreciated
while we had possession, before harsh /
experience soreclosed the mortgage. |
Through the ivory gate Of dreams streams
forth 10 our tired conscience the life |
giving rays Of true happiness How
paltry our enjoyment of Wiae-awake con
soiorsness compared with the delicious |
realities Of sieepi DO nat these vista |
lions give us an earnesf Of What may be |
in the great hereafter May We not, /
after having served our harsh earthly
stIrpiiceship, grasp those youthful eN-
pefisnecs that nsqv pr neE life hssson?
Better than merely human conjecture, 1
may we not rely upon the promise that I
as shall "renew onr youth rs the eagle,
ard fcck canadenJly torEaIa n . real
that shall restore our lost I
- = ~ilheal iheIr attendant aHnoyanoe2 I
y For the fuinre, creams and sleep have