Читать книгу The Dream-God, or, A Singular Evolvement of Thought in Sleep - John Cuningham - Страница 3

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The sleep was serene, the mind active, and the dream promptly and vividly supervened. A being in the form of a handsome and matured man, full of esprit, in a white and easy-fitting garment, with bright, broad and sweeping wings coming out from each side of his back below the shoulders, appeared to the patient at his bedside, and announced to him that he was the Spirit of Morphine, of a heavenly and immortal nature, and that he had come to carry him on an aerial voyage over many parts of the world; to show him many attractive regions and things, to introduce him to various races, royal personages, distinguished celebrities, etc.

The sleeper with surprise inquired, “How can I go with this stricken and impotent body?”

The Immortal replied, “You must leave your body here; your spiritual being can accompany me.”

Sleeper.—“But I fear that before my return my friends may see and regard my inanimate body as dead, and bury it.”

Immortal.—“Fear not. I will restore you in due time to your body; and I will prepare you for our adventures as I am prepared.”

Thus assured, the somnipathist crept gently out, headway, from his “mortal coil,” glided over the headboard of his bedstead, glanced back upon his sleeping frame in his very image, then sprang lithely to the sill of the window, where the sash had already been thrown up by the Morpheus, and finding himself equipped with needed dress and wings, soared with his companion into the air.

Immortal.—“What route do you prefer?”

Mortal.—“I wish to have a birdseye view of Charleston, (once my home,) by gas-light and then toward the Arctic Pole.”

The aerial voyageurs were, as if in a moment, hovering in a slow, scrutinizing flight over Charleston, with stars above, and looking as upon stars below; and in front, athwart the ocean, a long line of light, gleaming from a newly-risen moon, invited their quickened pinions into the illimitable spaces over the far-bounded deep. Curving in a wide ocean-sweep northward, and moving with lightning-speed, they perceived, although having a full sense of comfort, varying currents of icy gales and warm breezes; and from their transparent height saw beneath them the dark, girdling strata of cyclone hurricanes, or sheeny, swathe-clouds of crystal congelations; or, within their extended girdles, broad, oval areas of clear-rolling sea, and far down, by a peculiar dim lighting of its depths, the plains, hills and vales it immersed, and the myriad tribes of the deep in their amazing animate forms.

Mortal.—“I would see the borealis.”

Immortal.—“You shall, anon.”

The dream seemed to change. The parties suddenly found themselves lying in open sea-shells, structured to their lengths and sizes, floating side by side on a tranquil waste of waters, feet foremost, heads pillowed, and eyes bent upward and northward. A lowered and murky sky appeared as a dun-colored ceiling, of little height above them; and they were thoughtful, and in low tones they occasionally uttered weird thoughts on life—mankind—earth—God. A drowsy moment ensues. Then slowly lifts the gloomy canopy, and along the distant northern horizon, the fog having rapidly disappeared, a lengthened arc of whitish light spans itself. The heavens are again clear. From the bright arc dart upward along their northern hemisphere radiant streams of every lighter hue, and in incessant changeful brilliancy—a panoramic spread of incandescent splendors. A whirl of cold, shimmering light dashes around and over towering icebergs, and amazes the eye. It closes, and when again it opens, the Arctic travellers find themselves soaring aloft, and they look upon an open, calm, unfrozen polar sea.[A] The Spirit of Morphine remarks: “You now see, and will see, things unknown to man. This comparative warmth comes from the fire and glowing heat in the bowels of the earth, as you will soon ascertain.”

They move on; they are at the Pole; the north star is in the zenith. A magnetic needle appears hanging in mid-air, like the visioned dagger before Macbeth, and dips southward and westward toward the other—the magnetic—pole, degrees away. A glare disturbs the eye, and terrible sounds surround them. Behold! the Pole is a large cylindrical aperture (miles in diameter) in our globe, down through which are seen the molten mass and fiery flame within the crust of earth! The watery billows, like a whirlpool, surge in loud roar around its circumferent shore, but enter not; and a column of heat ever rushes on the Arctic air.

A cry of terror and awe escapes from the sleeper. He is conscious of it, but does not awake. The dream resumes.

They are now flying southward, and the somnipathist has a vision (a dream in this dream) of a midsummer circling sun shining a day of months. They view the peculiarities of Iceland, examine the maelstrom, (that singular natural wonder, gurgitating into another earth-aperture, off Norway,) and comprehend by a glance Lapland, Norway and Sweden, their curiosities, peoples, customs, etc. There is not time or space for details. They are en voyage for the Court of Russia.

They alight at the Winter Palace of the Czar.

The Immortal with his pupil enters with free and commanding port—obstructions vanish. A festive scene of splendor—gayety, glitter and ceremony commingled—is at its height. Through the maze of an amazed, gorgeous, throng, they advance to the Emperor, surrounded by rank and beauty; and through the influence of a celestial majesty more enthralling than his own, they secure his deferential and cordial attention. Then follows a confused but charming association with “beautiful women and brave men,” amid all social bewitcheries.

The scene changes. They are seated in a small ice-crystal[B] salon, glistening on all sides except the carpeted floor, with the Emperor and his prime minister alone, all exhilarant with wine, and now sipping the potent subtlety of China’s most famed and fragrant tea, priced at its weight in gold. The philosophy of government, from a republican standpoint, rushes upon the soul of the American, and he exclaims to the mighty potentate of all the Russias:

“How can your humanity conscientiously hold and wield the power of imperial despotism?”

Emperor.—“The one-man power in the light and dignity of a principle, appeals to reason and fascinates the soul. It is the true theory of human government. I am God’s vicegerent, as king and priest, for the well-being and good order of my people.”

Prime Minister.—“This system derives its type from the One-God control of the universe. It has divinity from above, it has patriarchal sanction here below. It can bear comparison with its opposite extreme in absolutism—a pure democracy, the mere many-power, unrestrained, unregulated and uninstructed. What is more irresponsible, more selfishly callous, more heedlessly unstable, and more grinding than the vulgar tyranny of a bare popular majority? Extremes meet and have a singular affinity; it is the secret of the growing friendship between Russia and the United States.”

American.—“Ha! Our American people are not a mass democracy. The United States are republics federated under a Constitution—a system which excludes both your extremes.”

Prime Minister.—“Indeed!”

Immortal.—“There is a golden mean for all finite governments. Uncontrolled power is only for the Infinite.”

Emperor.—“Is even political self-government a right?”

American.—“Surely mankind is entitled to it and should possess it.”

Immortal.—“No! Self-government is the eventual prize of intelligence and virtue. The ignorant or vicious are incapable of it. In the meantime, it is the privilege of the human race to secure it by attempered wisdom, and to guard it against the passions and ignorance of the many, the few, or the one. Goodness in the use of power, more than the form of government, is the great desideratum. Seek most to elevate the mind and heart of man!”

American to Emperor.—“Sire! it is then your best mission to do well your part!”