The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1879-07-10
"WHAT DREAMS MAY COME"

"WHAT DREAMS MAY COME"
Some of the Strange Fancies that Fit
Through the Brain.
DeQuincey describes the magnifying
of real and common things, the feeling
of tremendous dependency, the indie
scribable prolongation of time and ex-
tension of space-as elements in his OPT
UNI visions. All these may character
ize the dreams of fever, and with most
singular counterfeit of system and ac-
tuality. A sick man, for instance, lies
in bed, and, half-waking, bethinks him
of drink of water. He feels himself
arise, pass through the door of his
chamber and enter the corridor. At
once the bare walls stretch out in end
less and changing vistas, he walks be-
meath Grecian colonnades for miles,
down monstrous rows of inscrutable
sphinxes, amid the massive desolations
of Tadmor or Baalbec, through the ru-
nous closures of Aztec temples, under
the statued caves of Elephanta, or-for
the changes of vision are as incongru-
GUS as they are immense-along mar
row alleys shut in by lofty warehouses,
or sometimes through avenues of palms,
or groves of pine; all nature and all
architecture in a phantasmagoric pro-
cession with him for his little swallow
of water. And reaching stairway af-
ter an infinity of @ons, it expands and
descends like illimitable Egyptian pyra-
mids, one upon the other, until they
open into mighty unfathomable mael-
strom, which in its turn becomes the
rugged sulphurous pit of volcano de-
scending into the very heart of the
globe. This is very like some of De
Quincey's experiences, but it is the YER
table record of a recent invalid.
The grotesque and horrible mingle
oddly in such arrangements of the sleep
ing brain. The same dreamer found
himself climbing with much labor up a
PERCEPTIONS mountain, accompanied by
very beautiful lady with whom he had
a casual acquaintance in real life There
was a joyous tumult of hundreds
of people on the top of this
mountain, and it appeared that they
were erecting a monument to some per-
son unknown. The lady proposed to
help, and did by the simple means of
breaking out from the ledge fragment
of several tons weight and, in the most
natural way, tossing it to the top of the
mountain, where it Immediately fitted
in excellent shape. He followed the
lady's example with equal success, and
this indeed seemed the fit and proper
method of building memorials. In a
moment the lady, the merry crowd, the
mountain, were not, and the first awful
trump of the day of Judgment was
sounding; the skies wore livid, ashen
hue, and limned upon their vault, in
place of sun or stars, which had fled
away because there was no plaC e for
them, were gigantic figures of human
and bestial shapes, and all the land was
crowded with men and women and chill
dren, some screaming, some dumb and
white with dismay, few serene and
happy, and some curious, and noting
down the phenomena and the incidents
attending them. This was the dream
er's part, and as the figures shifted ev.
cry now and then, as by some kaleido-
scopic trick, he strove to organize a
corps of organization, to regard each
quarter of the heavens. There was
nothing stranger, as the dreamer re-
members this astonishing scene, than the
curious irrelevance of the common
place houses and barns and churches :;
the people were about as he would have
expected.
But swifter than a weaver's shuttle
this scene, too, vanished, and the dream
er was in a great theater, packed tier
above tier with human beings, who were
witnessing series of tableaux wants.
There was announced as the closing pic
ture, "The Equality of Man." The
stage was set for palace interior, and
from a stately portal, in the blaze of
many lights, there stepped weirdly
consorted pair, arm in arm. One was
woman OF unearthly beauty, robed with
consummate elegance, adorned with
Jewels, and with the mien of sovereign.
Her companion, upon whose arm She
leaned, was woman also-a colossal
negress of the most hideous African
type. AS the two appeared, the lady
turned her splendid face upon the black.
and leered; the other grinned; and the
house broke into tempestuous laughter
pit to roof, one horrible rush
and din of laughter. Even while they
laughed the la iy's face fell away into
the corruption of the grave, and all her
garments and adornments were filthy
rags, and the negro mask became a
grlnning skull-"the equality of man.
and the chorus of the theater became
vast volume of Kisses and cries of anger.
The dreamer awoke with that sight and
those sounds thrilling every nerve, and
"cried aloud. -" SGunterer,'' in
Springfield Republican.
New England FactOry.Life.