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pass over our sensoria * " bide their time , " and pass away—make " themselves air , into which they vanish . ** We lie down a& nigjht , and a&oUicfcr multitude of ideas passes over the aforesaid sensooa with greater rapidity , aad with a wildness and incoherency peculiar to themselves . As the thoughts of « leep seem but dreams to the waker , are not the thoughts of vigilance but as dreams to the sleeper ? Do not the aforesaid two portions of life uniformly
accuse each other of dreaming ? And followeth it not , by all the laws of ratiocination , that life itself is but a dream ? Methinks it is a pleasant thought , to contemplate the world in the light of one stupendous dormitory , in which all the families of the race are fast asleep , and in which life only enacts the part of the bellman , just giving them a stir that they may sleep more soundly . Already , methinks , I see the poppy triumphant over the myrtle and the laureL Like the sound of the sea heard at a distance and at
night , I hear the heavy breathing of the somnolent world . Silence , thou nasal orator ! Dost thou think that thou art yet in thy conventicle ? Where didst thou get those horrid dreams of thine ? Shall so many noble beings be undone , and thou be one of the elect ? Dost thou think that damning others will save thyself ? What speakest thou about the justice of God , and the lake of everlasting fire , and the prince of darkness and his angels ? Can he not find thee a place , as sub-deputy-tormentor , as an
underfamiliar of the holy office below ? I tell thee , it is all a dream—a foul and pestilent dream—an infernal Fata Morgana of thy own crazy brain . Drink mandragora , man , and learn to sleep more soundly . What , chattering still ? Up , and be waking ! Look where I point thee . What is that thou seest ? It is the glorious sun coming out of his ocean-bower . See ( how he turneth the sky around him into gold . Ah , well did one John Milton , a poor old
London blind man , term him ** the arch-chymic sun ! " The worst of it is , he too is a dreamer , and maketh nothing but visionary gold . But J forget thee , thou owl of religion 1-r—and well I may— -for what dost thou here ? Nodding again ! Look up , and tell me what thou seest ? Is thxtf sight in . harmony with thy damnatory creed ? Could the same God have made the Sun and the Devil ? ** Go thou , and learn what this meaneth , I will have
mercy and not sacrifice . " Lost time ! Vain trouble ! ** He has no speculation in those eyes , that he doth glare with "—he is again talking in his sleep—Atonement—Election—Regeneration— " What will the line stretch out to the crack o' doom ? " Sleep on , thou solemn buzzard—as thou wilt , I believe , till the last trump shall waken thee . But I hear something louder than this orthodox thunder . Methinks it comes from " the sides of the north . " The mountains of Poland are
communing with each other ; and the watchword of Liberty is passing from rock to rock . The pine-forests are murmuring something about Kosciusko , and the awakening eagle is shaking his wings as if he had but just recovered his freedom . Go on , noble Poles ! If the Russian Xerxes comes , let him find a new Leonidas , and a happier Thermopylae . There may be Marathons out of Attica . Let not men say , like Hamlet the Dane , *« Why then the Polack never will defend it ; " but let them see how dear to the noble and the brave
are the country of their birth and the freedom of their fathers . Wake , gallant Poles ! and "sleep no more . " Day is breaking over all the worldand it is an unhealthy custom to sleep in the day-time . Your climate surely does not require a siesta . In Spain it may do pretty well , for there the sleep of the free and fortunate Spaniard is watched over by the police , and by Ferdinand the Beloved . In Portugal too , it may be safe and pleasant ; for there reigns a prince of the true royal blood , who respects so much the liber-
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The Dreamer . J 79
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1831, page 179, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2595/page/35/
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