Chapter 8 - Page 2

a church, and now drew away
into a horror of infinite distance and infinite littleness, the
poor soul was very well aware of what must follow, and struggled
hard against the approaches of that slumber which was the beginning
of sorrows.

But his struggles were in vain; sooner or later the night-hag would
have him by the throat, and pluck him strangling and screaming,
from his sleep. His dreams were at times commonplace enough, at
times very strange, at times they were almost formless: he would
be haunted, for instance, by nothing more definite than a certain
hue of brown, which he did not mind in the least while he was
awake, but feared and loathed while he was dreaming; at times,
again, they took on every detail of circumstance, as when once he
supposed he must swallow the populous world, and awoke screaming
with the horror of the thought. The two chief troubles of his very
narrow existence - the practical and everyday trouble of school
tasks and the ultimate and airy one of hell and judgment - were
often confounded together into one appalling nightmare. He seemed
to himself to stand before the Great White Throne; he was called
on, poor little devil, to recite some form of words, on which his
destiny depended; his tongue stuck, his memory was blank, hell
gaped for him; and he would awake, clinging to the curtain-rod with
his knees to his chin.

These were extremely poor experiences, on the whole; and at that
time of life my dreamer would have very willingly parted with his
power of dreams. But presently, in the course of his growth, the
cries and physical contortions passed away, seemingly for ever; his
visions were still for the most part miserable, but they were more
constantly supported; and he would awake with no more extreme
symptom than a flying heart, a freezing scalp, cold sweats, and the
speechless midnight fear. His dreams, too, as befitted a mind
better stocked with particulars, became more circumstantial, and
had more the air and continuity of life. The look of the world
beginning to take hold on his attention, scenery came to play a
part in his sleeping as well as in his waking thoughts, so that he
would take long, uneventful journeys and see strange towns and
beautiful places as he lay in bed. And, what is more significant,
an odd taste that he had for the Georgian costume and for stories
laid in that period of English history, began to rule the features
of his dreams; so that he masqueraded there in a three-cornered hat
and was much engaged with Jacobite conspiracy between the hour for
bed and that for breakfast. About the same time, he began to read
in his dreams - tales, for the most part, and for the most part
after the manner of G. P. R. James, but so incredibly