It was kept by a delightful old French lady who had seen
better days, and was very kind to me, and did not lend me all the books
I asked for!
Thus irresistibly beguiled by these light wizards of our degenerate age,
I dreamed away most of my school life, utterly deaf to the voices of the
older enchanters--Homer, Horace, Virgil--whom I was sent to school on
purpose to make friends with; a deafness I lived to deplore, like other
dunces, when it was too late.
* * * * *
And I was not only given to dream by day--I dreamed by night; my sleep
was full of dreams--terrible nightmares, exquisite visions, strange
scenes full of inexplicable reminiscence; all vague and incoherent, like
all men's dreams that have hitherto been; _for I had not yet learned how
to dream_.
A vast world, a dread and beautiful chaos, an ever-changing kaleidoscope
of life, too shadowy and dim to leave any lasting impression on the
busy, waking mind; with here and there more vivid images of terror or
delight, that one remembered for a few hours with a strange wonder and
questioning, as Coleridge remembered his Abyssinian maid who played
upon the dulcimer (a charming and most original combination).
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