The Philosophy of Mystery · 23 of 35

Intense Impression.—memory

“The dream’s here still: even when I wake, it is

Without me as within me; not imagined, felt.”

Cymbeline.

Ev. I believe, then, that waking and slumbering association is memory; and I have interposed the glimpse of metaphysics to break the monotony of my illustrations, for they are not yet exhausted.

A gentleman, as we read in Dr. Pritchard’s work, was confined, after a severe accident, for several weeks, and the accident was not once during this period remembered by him; but, on his convalescence, he rode again over the same ground, and all the circumstances instantly flashed across his mind.

In their youth, Dr. Rush escorted a lady, on a holiday, to see an eagle’s nest. Many years afterwards, he was called to attend her in the acute stage of typhus; and, on his entrance into her chamber, she instantly screamed out, “Eagle’s nest!” and it is said, from this moment, the fever began to decline.

We ourselves have witnessed these flashes of memory more than once, during the acuteness of brain fever, where journeys, and stories, and studies, have been renewed after they had been long forgotten.

There are many romantic incidents in illustration which have been beautifully wrought into a poem, or drama, as that play of Kotzebue, written to illustrate the happy success of the Abbé de l’Epée in France, in imparting knowledge and receiving sentiments from the deaf and dumb. In this, the young Count Solar, by gestures, unfolds, step by step, his birth-place, and at length screams with joy, as he stands before the palace of his ancestors.

Then there is the story of little Montague, who was decoyed by the chimney sweep. Some time after this, the child was engaged to clean the chimney of a mansion, and, descending into a chamber, which had been indeed his own nursery, lay down, in his sooty clothes, on the quilt, and, by this happy memory, discovered his aristocratic birth. This is the incident which still enlivens the pageantry of May-day.

These reminiscences will occur sometimes in the most sudden and unexpected manner. In one of the American journals, we are told of a clergyman, who, at the termination of some depressing malady, had completely lost his memory. His mind was a blank, and he had, in fact, to begin the world of literature again. Among other of his studies was the Latin language. During his classical readings with his brother, he one day suddenly struck his head with his hand, and stated that he had a most peculiar feeling, and was convinced that he had learned all this before.

Boërhave, in his “Prelectiones Academic. Institut. Med.,” relates the case of a Spanish tragic writer, whose memory, subsequently to an acute febrile disease, was so completely impaired, that not only the literature of various languages he had studied was lost to him, but also their elements, the alphabets. When even his own poetic compositions were read to him, he denied himself to be the author. But the most interesting feature of the case is this: that, on becoming again a votary of the Muse, his recent compositions so intimately resembled his original productions in style and sentiment, that he no longer doubted that both were the offspring of his own imagination.

Even Priestley’s master-mind was sometimes sleeping thus, being subject (to quote his own words) “to humbling failures of recollection;” so that he lost all ideas of things and persons, and had so forgotten his own writings, that, on the perusal of a work, he sat himself to make experiments on points which he had already illustrated, but on which his mind was then a “ tabula rasa.”

Above all, the superlative memory of Sir Walter lay in a deep sleep, after a severe indisposition. It is recorded by Ballantyne, that when “the Bride of Lammermoor, in its printed form, was submitted to his perusal, he did not recognize, as his own, one single incident, character, or conversation it contained; yet the original tradition was perfect in his mind. When Mrs. Arkwright, too, sung some verses of his, one evening, at Lord Francis Egerton’s, the same oblivion was o’er his mind, and he whispered to Lockhart, ‘Capital words;—whose are they? Byron’s, I suppose; but I don’t remember them.’ ”

My friend, Dr. Copland, informed me (in May, 1839) of a lady of fifteen, Miss D——, who, in consequence of extreme exhaustion from disorder, forgot all her accomplishments, and had to begin her education afresh.

The Countess of Laval had, in her childhood, been taught the Armorican of Lower Brittany (which is a dialect of the Welch), but had, as she believed, forgotten it. On attaining the adult period, this lady had an acute fever, and, during her delirium, she ceased to speak in her native language, and chattered fluently in the bastard Welch.

A foreign gentleman, as we were told by Mr. Abernethy, after an accident on the head, spoke French only, and quite forgot the English, which he had before this spoken very fluently.

A Welch patient, in St. Thomas’s Hospital, some years since, having received an injury, began to speak in Welch, and ever after continued to do so, although before his accident he constantly conversed in English.

On the contrary, we learn, from Dr. Pritchard, of a lady who, after a fit of apoplexy, forgot her original language (the English), and spoke only in French, so that her nurses and servants conversed with her only by interpreters.

There may be a partial derangement of memory, one set of impressions only being erased.

A friend of Dr. Beattie, in consequence of a blow on the head, lost only his attainments in Greek; and Professor Scarpa (whose corpus striatum was disorganised) lost only the memory of proper names.

You may now comprehend how instantaneously material impressions derange and destroy memory, and its converse, the production of memory by material impressions, will be far less mysterious to you.

But creatures to which the gift of intellect is not granted, in which innate ideas cannot arise, still evince the faculty of memory. It is, therefore, possible that fish and insects, possessing memory, dream. Of course the doctrines of Pythagoras, and Simonides, and the story of the interpretation of the language of birds by the vizier of Sultan Mahmoud, are mere fables, and the cackling of the Roman geese was accidental; yet the bird does possess the memory of language, and the power of imparting ideas.

Nightingales’ notes (as Bechstein has beautifully recorded them) seem to me like the Mexican language, and to express variety of sentiments of adoration and love. The parrot, magpie, jackdaw, jay, starling, and bullfinch, are prattlers; and the exquisite little canary, the pupil of my friend, Mrs. H——, the pet, indeed, not only of its mistress, but of statesmen and learned physiologists, warbled its words in purest melody. From Sir William Temple we learn the faculty of the wonderful parrot of Prince Maurice, of Nassau, at the Hague, that responsed almost rationally to promiscuous questions. Granting, then, this faculty of memory, it is clear the bird may dream, and I may add one other quotation from the “Domestic Habits of Birds,” in proof of this.

“We have, however, heard some of these night-songs which were manifestly uttered while the bird was asleep, in the same way as we sometimes talk during sleep—a circumstance remarked by Dryden, who says,

“ ‘The little birds in dreams their songs repeat.’

“We have even observed this in a wild bird. On the night of the 6th April, 1811, about ten o’clock, a dunncock ( accentor modularis ) was heard in a garden to go through its usual song more than a dozen times very faintly, but distinctly enough for the species to be recognised.” The night was cold and frosty, but might it not be that the little musician was dreaming of summer and sunshine? Aristotle, indeed, proposes the question whether animals hatched from eggs ever dream. Marcgrave, in reply, expressly says, that his “parrot, Laura, often rose in the night, and prattled while half asleep.”

Among quadrupeds, it is probable that those which, by their half-reasoning instinct, approach nearest to the power of comparison, and those which, in contrast to the callous-hoofed, possess an acuteness of feeling, and therefore the nearest approximate intelligence, are the most prone to dream.

Although we know nothing of the dreams of that very learned dog, which Leibnitz assures us he saw, and which uttered an articulate language, and often enjoyed a chat with his master; yet, of the slumbering visions of the canines I have many illustrations. Vic, a fat terrier, was a somniloquist. She would bark, and laugh, and run round the room, or against tables; the surest proof of somnambulism. Indeed dogs are celebrated by many poets for their dreaming propensities. Ennius writes —

“Et canis in somnis leporis vestigia latrat.”

And Lucretius has left us a very comprehensive poetical account of the dreams of brutes.

Even Chaucer refers to these dreams; and in the Hall of Branksome,

“The stag-hound, weary with the chace,

Urged in dreams the forest race.”

It is probable that the dreams of brutes are very short.

From simple, unassociated memory, too, springs the dream of the infant; pure and innocent as the thought of a cherub. For delight is the common feeling of a dreaming child; and when its lips are touched in sleep, the memory of its mother’s bosom will excite its lips and tongue to the congenial action of suction, though a fright of the previous day will change its slumbers into moments of terror, and it will murmur and cry in its dream.

I believe it is Sir H. Wotton who lays much stress on the adoption of plans of education for a child, grounded on the discovery of its secret thoughts during its simple somniloquent dream.

Cast. It is wonderful how vividly are revived in our dream those scenes of our early life, which our waking efforts could not recollect.

This did not escape Chaucer, as I remember in Dryden’s version of a fable:

“Sometimes forgotten things, long cast behind,

Rush forward in the brain, and come to mind.

The nurse’s legends are for truths receiv’d,

And the man dreams but what the boy believ’d.

Sometimes we but rehearse a former play,

The night restores our actions done by day.”

Ev. Yet do not associate this brilliancy of infantine reminiscence with vigour of the thought. The brain in children is, as it were, like wax, easily impressible. And remember, the ideas of children are more resembling the imperfect associations of our dreams; the tutorage of our advancing mind fills it with more serious and rational images characterized by judgment.

The first impressions of childhood are bright as fancy; so that we think in waking more of things present. But, in dreams of things long agone there is, in fact, no complete oblivion, in a healthy mind, for any one of our infantile impressions may chance to be brought to us in our dream.

But if impression be intense, it may assimilate that of childhood, and become as permanent. My friend, Dr. Uwins, told me of a patient who, in a joke, once amused himself by throwing stones at the gibbeted pirates on the bank of the Thames. An epileptic tendency succeeded; and ever after this, his dreams were of gibbets and chains, and to that degree, that his judgment and philosophy were powerless in controlling his fears.

And in the book of the Prussian, Greding, we read of J. C. V., a youth, who, in his eighth year, had been attacked by a dog. His future, and, indeed, nightly dreams, were of this creature, and these so intense, as to reduce his health to a very low degree.

Now it is easy to believe the period of slumber so limited, that the subject of reflection shall not have disappeared, that the thought had scarcely time to cool:

“Lateat scintillula forsan.”

Thus Moses Mendelssohn had all the sounds, heard during the day, reverberating in his slumbering mind.

Or we may suppose, that the idea last imprinted on the mind, or by which it had been exclusively occupied, and the thoughts which are so much modified by our temperament, study, and contemplation, would be the first to influence as the mind awakened, ere the image of fresh objects had been again perceived.

Sir Walter, in his diary, thus writes: “When I had in former times to fill up a passage in a poem, it was always when I first opened my eyes that the desired ideas thronged upon me. I am in the habit of relying upon it, and saying to myself when I am at a loss, ‘Never mind, we shall have it all at seven o’clock to-morrow morning.’ ”

Warton, the professor of poetry at Oxford, after partaking of a Sunday dinner with a friend, repaired to his service at his Church. On his way, he was powerfully saluted with a cry of “Live mackarel.” He slumbered in his pulpit during the singing of the psalm, and, on the organ ceasing, he arose, half awake, and instead of his solemn prayer, cried with a loud voice, “All alive, all alive oh!”

I remember the storytellers in the coffee-houses at Aleppo, as if aware of this last impression, used to run out when they perceived they had excited a deep interest.

Ida. It is curious to hear, even by your own quotations, Evelyn, that poets have so revelled in the luxury of dreams, from Homer to Pope, chiefly employing them, however, as the materiel of their poesy. Have they condescended to glance at their causes?

Ev. Lucretius, Claudian, George Stepney, Dryden, and a few others. Apropos as to causes.

In the “Anatomy of Melancholy” we have the following quaint summary: “As Tully notes, for the most part our speeches in the daytime cause our phantasy to work upon the like in our sleep, so do men dream on such subjects they thought on last:

“ ‘Somnia quæ mentes ludunt volitantibus umbris,

Nec delubra deûm nec ab æthere numina mittunt,

Sed sibi quisque facit,’ ” &c.

For that cause, when Ptolemy, king of Egypt, had posed the seventy interpreters in order, and asked the nineteenth man what would make one sleep quietly in the night, he told him “the best way was to have divine and celestial meditations, and to use honest actions in the daytime.” Lod. Vives wonders how schoolmen could sleep quietly and were not terrified in the night, they had such monstrous questions and thought of such terrible matters all day long. They had need amongst the rest to sacrifice to god Morpheus, whom Philostratus paints in a white and black coat, with a horn, and ivory box full of dreams of the same colours, to signify good and bad.

Cast. These are the manufacture, I presume, of two of those sons of sleep, born to him by a beautiful but erring grace, “Phantasus,” or Fancy, and “Phobetor,” or Terror. With the relations and illustrations of these good and bad dreams, the pages of both fiction and authentic history abound: another poetical batch of causes, Ida. Lucia exclaims:

“Sweet are the slumbers of the virtuous man,

Oh Marcia! I have seen thy godlike father —

A kind refreshing sleep is fallen upon him.

I saw him stretch’d at ease, his fancy lost

In pleasing dreams. As I drew near his couch,

He smil’d, and cried: ‘Cæsar, thou cans’t not hurt me.’ ”

Another poet writes thus:

“But most we mark the wonders of her reign,

When sleep has lock’d the senses in her chain:

When sober judgment has his throne resign’d,

She smiles away the chaos of the mind;

And, as warm fancy’s bright elysium glows,

From her each image springs, each colour flows.

She is the sacred guest, th’ immortal friend;

Oft seen o’er sleeping innocence to bend,

In that dead hour of night, to silence giv’n,

Whispering seraphic visions of her heav’n.”

Then Richmond exclaims: “My heart is very jocund in the remembrance of so fair a dream.” While the coward conscience of Richard thus speaks:

“By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night

Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard,

Than could the substance of ten thousand soldiers.”

Aufidius thus recounts his slumbering memory of the prowess of Coriolanus:

“This happy Roman, this proud Marcius, haunts me.

Each troubled night, when slaves and captives sleep,

Forgetful of their chains, I in my dreams

Anew am vanquish’d; and beneath his sword

With horror sinking, feel a tenfold death —

The death of honour.”

And yet another:

“Tho’ thy slumber may be deep,

Yet thy spirit shall not sleep.

There are shades that will not vanish;

There are thoughts thou canst not banish.”

And, lastly, Crabbe, in his “World of Dreams:”

“That female fiend, why is she there?

Alas! I know her. Oh, begone!

Why is that tainted bosom bare?

Why fixed on me that eye of stone?

Why have they left us thus alone?

I saw the deed——”

Astr. You will drown us in a flood of Helicon, fair lady, if you thus dole out the thoughts of these maudlin poets. The records of national and domestic history, the dreams of the conqueror of thousands, and of the midnight assassin, are replete with incidents, if we will search for them, more impressive, ay, and more romantic, than all this rhyming; and from the legends of history alone I could select a legion of dreaming mysteries, which would dissolve all these fine-spun theories of Evelyn, regarding the essence, as he terms it, of the dream. He must adopt a clearer course, in showing us his causes, than by harping on this favourite theme of memory; and we must listen through another moonlight, ere we be made wiser, by the unfolding of this grand secret of visions.