The Philosophy of Mystery · 28 of 35

Reverie

“That fools should be so deep-contemplative.”

“In his brain

He hath strange places cramm’d

With observation, the which he vents

In mangled forms.”

As You Like It.

Astr. I was dreaming last night, Evelyn, of your eccentric puppets; and I cannot but wonder at the contrasted influences of nitrous oxide on the brain and marrow, as you say. In one, we see the wondrous phenomena of somnambulism; in the other, a state of apathy, like the almost senseless reverie of the idiot.

Ev. You are shrewd, Astrophel, and have hit on these objective analogies with the acuteness of a pathologist. Contrasts they truly are; and yet there is a natural transition from one to the other.

Somnambulism is the most eccentric condition of sleep; and Reverie is that state which constitutes the nearest approximation to slumber. But the French verb, rêver, is a comprehensive word, signifying all the eccentricities of mind, from idiocy to divine philosophy; so that its derivative, “Reverie,” may be construed into Dream, Delirium, Raving, Thought, Fancy, Meditation, Abstraction.

You may wonder at this combination, but, however you may smile, the existence of every one is marked by a certain degree of moral or instinctive mania, modified by the peculiarity of habit, taste, or sentiment; and, I may add, of intellectual monomania (“monomanie raisonnante”), in reference to some particular subject. There may indeed be an incubation of madness; and, if circumstances occur to sit and hatch, the germs will be developed. When these two, moral and intellectual error (which may separately pass current in the world for eccentricity), unite, then the man is mad, and becomes an irresponsible agent.

The term “Reverie,” then, will imply the varied conditions of that faculty, which phrenology terms concentrativeness; the extremes of which mark the idiot and the sage.

Idiocy is the most abject and imperfect condition of the waking mind, resembling closely the first disposition to slumber, the sensation of doziness. The creature will commit the most absurd acts, and utter the most ridiculous or profane expressions, without the redeeming apology of being engaged in abstract thought or abstruse calculation.

It is consolatory, however, to know that this weakness is usually connate, or manifested at the very dawn of intellect; so that we have not the painful study of contrasting, in one being, the light of mind with its shadowy darkness.

The idiot, indeed, often appears so little more than a laughing or a dancing vegetable, that pity yields to curiosity and mirth; and, instead of mourning, we work into the plot and incidents of a novel or a stage farce, either that strange mixture of weakness and cunning which is delineated in Davie Gellatly, or the absolute imbecility of Audrey, Slender, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek.

But this melancholy being is not always a solitary curiosity. In many districts, especially in the stream-fed valleys of Europe and Asia, nature fails, by wholesale, in the development of that “paragon of animals,” man.

Such are the Capots, or Cretins, of Chinese Tartary, as we learn from Sir George Staunton; those of the Rhone and Tyrolese valleys; the Coliberts of Rochelle; the Cagneux of Brittany; the Gaffos of Navarre; the Gavachos of Spain; and the Gezitani of the Pyrenees.

The condition of the lowest class of these wretched beings is indeed that of idiocy; their intellectual power being little more than the mental blank which would mark the acephalous, or brainless monsters, could such abortions attain the age of maturity. It is mere animal life, with the very faintest stamp of intelligence.

The Cretin is from four to five feet high, cadaverous, flabby, the head immensely out of proportion, the skin studded with livid eruptions, the eyes blear and squinting, the lips slavering, the limbs weak and crooked; and (like the Struldbrugs of Swift) the senses are imperfect, the hearing and speech often absolutely lost,—the expression being that of a fool or a satyr. And dissection demonstrates the frequent causes of all this; for, in the skull of these beings, we often find a bluish jelly, instead of healthy brain. This diseased pulp is thus the source of both animal and intellectual apathy. The idiot will often seem insensible to pain, while his flesh is burning; and objects or subjects do not cause sufficient impression on this pulpy brain to produce their image, so that the being may almost live without a sense.

Cast. This is a dreary, but, I suppose, a faithful picture, and shows us one of those impressive contrasts which nature is fraught with. The Cretin dwarf amidst the gigantic sublimity of the Alps; the lava stream rolling over the chestnut groves of Valombrosa; the malaria that steams up from the Pontine even to Albano; the murky sulphur cloud that floats over Avernus, and the Solfaterra; and the poison-snake creeping among the honied flowers and purple festoons which gild the prairies and interlace the forests of Columbia, show us how intimately are blended the lights and shadows of creation. Yet Evelyn will let me ask him if there are not many beautiful stories, which we may have deemed the creation of poesy, proving that idiotism is not always definite and permanent. I ought to blush while I recite them. The romance of Cymon and Iphigenia is not a mere fable. I have heard a story of a youth who was an idiot to his 17th year. At this time he saw a beautiful girl, and instantly felt deep and devoted love for her; and became, from this almost divine influence, as acute in intellect as his playmates.

Astr. And what writeth the quaint Anatomist of Melancholy?—“We read in the lives of the Fathers a story of a child that was brought up in the wilderness from his infancy by an old hermite. Now come to man’s estate, he saw by chance two comely women wandering in the woods. He asked the old man what creatures they were. He told him fayries. After a while talking obiter, the hermite demanded of him which was the pleasantest sight that he ever saw in his life? He readily replied, the two fayries he espied in the wilderness. So that without doubt there is some secret loadstone in a beautiful woman, a magnetique power.”

Ida. We do not hold your gallantry lightly, Astrophel; there is some hope of your conversion.

Ev. That mind is termed weak, where there is a want of the power of fixing the attention to one object, a wandering of the imaginative faculty. A train of ideas arises, between the links of which there is some remote relation; but its beginning and end may appear so dissonant, that the absent person will fail to recognize the connexion, until, by an effort to retrace the steps of thought, the mystery is developed.

Ida. The subjects of this form of reverie are, I presume, the wool-gatherers of society, being “every thing by turns, and nothing long;” and often, like the dog in the fable, losing the substance while they grasp at the shadow; others employ their time by sitting

“Musing all alone,

Building castles in the air,”

forming plans and projecting schemes which shall fill men’s minds with wonder, and their own pockets with gold.

But these castle-builders are, alas! but the dupes of their own mad fancy. The card-house is nearly finished, and one imprudent touch of the child topples it down headlong. One of the most salutary lessons on this foible is the fable of the Persian visionary, the glassman Alnaschar, who, by rehearsing one kick of the foot, that was to indicate his despotic will, broke into ten thousand pieces the basket of merchandize, which, by its accumulating profits, was to raise him to the highest dignities. Such are the results of self-glamourie or castle-building.

Ev. It is a moral lesson of great worth, dear Ida. But these wanderings are often assimilating the true delirium of fever, of which the dreams of Piranesi are examples. In his sketches of these illusions he figures himself as ascending by steps so high that he at length vanishes into the clouds.

Now there are many curious instances of forgetfulness, as there may be a confusion of ideas from this deficiency of concentration, memory being, as it were, deranged. From study, or intense thought, a jumble of strange ideas will sometimes force themselves involuntarily on the mind, displacing or confusing the subject of meditation.

Thus a German, of the name of Spalding, of high attainments, informs us, that after great mental labour, he was intending to write this receipt: “fifty dollars, being one half-year’s rate,” but quite unconsciously concluded it thus: “fifty dollars through the salvation of Bra.” And the author of the “Spiritual Treasury,” Mason, during his devotion to its composition, had, as he believed, taken the address of a visitor on whom he was to wait; but on referring to his note, he read, not the address, but—“Acts ii. verse 8.”

Children have naturally a want of power of concentration. I have told you that if a new or more attractive object strikes their sight, they will drop that which they were holding; and Foote would often, while taking a pinch, let his snuff-box fall from his hand, if for a moment his attention was diverted.

Astr. The reverse of wandering, then, you term concentrativeness. You would not stigmatize the passive or involuntary form of abstraction, as the reverie of a monomaniac.

Ev. No. As attention is concentration of a sense, abstraction is the concentration or attention of the mind; therefore the power of fixing the senses and forgetting the mind, is attention, that of fixing the mind and forgetting the senses, is abstraction—philosophy, if you will.

The active form, the power of fixing the attention on one subject, or of separating ideas and bringing them into association on one point, is the great characteristic of the philosopher and the mathematician. That inattention to minutiæ during this abstraction, has, I grant, caused the shafts of satire to be profusely flung at many a “learned pundit;” for the jokes of Rabelais are eclipsed by the eccentricities of our sages: Dominie Sampson is no caricature.

As I trace these forms of reverie from monomania to its curious contrast, the folie raisonnante of men of one idea, (in which there is an aberration of intellect, or want of consciousness on all subjects but one,) and so on to philosophical abstraction, we shall learn, not without some humility, how close an alliance does really exist between great wits and madness.

The records of history and fiction teem with the illusions of the monomaniacs from intense impression. The madness of Ophelia and of Lear, are true and faithful illustrations of the effects of brooding over sorrow. In the monarch, indeed, that one momentary glimpse of reason when the word “ king ” like an electric shock falls on his ear, and, for an instant, lights up his intellect, which as suddenly darkness again overshadows, beautifully shows forth by contrast this madness of one idea.

Dr. Gooch relates the case of a lady, who in consequence of an alarm of fire, believed that she was the Virgin Mary, and that her head was constantly encircled by a brilliant halo or glory.

A gentleman, on narrowly escaping from the earthquake at Lisbon, fell into a state of delirium whenever the word “earthquake” was pronounced in his hearing.

In “Pechlin” we read of a lady, who gazed with painless interest on the comet of 1681 until she observed it through a telescope of high power; the terror was so intense, that she was frightened to death even in a few days.

Dr. Morrison relates the case of an insane gentleman who had consulted a gypsy, and was instantly in a state of high excitement, whenever a subject associated with her prophecies was alluded to.

My friend, Dr. Uwins, informed me of an intellectual young gentleman, who from some morbid association with the idea of an elephant, was struck by an horrific spasm whenever the word was named, or even written before him; and to such a pitch was this infatuation carried, that elephant paper, if he were sensible it were such, produced the same effect.

The Reverend John Mason, of Water Stratford, evinced in every thing sound judgment, except that he believed that he was Elias, and foretold the advent of Christ, who was to commence the millennium at Stratford.

Dr. Abercrombie writes of a young botanist who had gained a prize: he thought he was in a boat sailing to Greenwich on a botanical excursion, and conversed rationally on all points but that of the prize, which he asserted another student had gained.

Hear, too, another rhapsody of the “Opium-Eater.” After a close and intense study of the works of Livy, the words Consul Romanus seemed to haunt his mind. “At a clapping of hands would be heard the heart-rending sounds of ‘Consul Romanus;’ and immediately came sweeping by in gorgeous paludaments, Paulus Marius girt round by a company of centurions, with the crimson tunic hoisted on a spear, and followed by the alalagmos of the Roman legions.”

There is a story (written in the seventeenth century) of a youth, who in a playful frolic put a ring on the marriage finger of a marble Venus; and a strange illusion came upon him that she had thus become his wife, and, in obedience to the injunctions of the ceremony, came to his bed when the sable canopy of night was spread around them. So intense was this illusion, and so cold and loveless was his heart withal, that, as the story goes, an exorcist was employed to dissolve the spell which had so firmly bound him.

Ida. I believe it was Mrs. Barry, who (as we read in the “Last Essays of Elia,”) averred that when playing the child of Isabella, she felt the burning tears of Mrs. Porter fall on her neck, as she was breathing o’er her some pathetic sentence. Even the study of Lady Macbeth, in midnight solitude, so intensely excited the imagination of Mrs. Siddons, that Campbell says, as she was disrobing herself in her chamber, she trembled with affright, even at the rustling of her own silk attire.

Ev. I could add many stories to yours, Ida. This sensibility, if protracted or in excess, becomes the Panophobia of Esquirol. He attended once a lady whom the slightest noise alarmed, and who was wont to scream with affright at the simple moving of herself in bed.

From the journal of Esquirol I will quote other fragments, in which we see that every object was associated with one image.

“During our promenade he (a gallant general) interrupted me several times, in the midst of a very connected conversation, saying, “Do you hear how they repeat the words ‘ coward, jealous?’ &c.” This illusion was produced by the noise of the leaves and the whistling of the wind among the branches of the trees, which appeared to him well-articulated sounds; and, although I had each time combated it with success, the illusion returned whenever the wind agitated the trees anew.

“A young married man was in a state of fury whenever he saw a woman leaning on a man’s arm, being convinced that it was his own wife. I took him to the theatre at the commencement of his convalescence, but as soon as a lady entered the saloon accompanied by a gentleman, he became agitated, and called out eagerly several times, ‘That is she, that is she.’ I could hardly help laughing, and we were obliged to retire.

“A lady, twenty-three years of age, afflicted with hysterical madness, used to remain constantly at the windows of her apartment during the summer. When she saw a beautiful cloud in the sky, she screamed out ‘Garnerin, Garnerin, come and take me!’ and repeated the same invitation until the cloud disappeared. She mistook the clouds for balloons sent up by Garnerin.”

Cast. There is here as much romance, as when Ajax mistook a drove of oxen for the armed Greeks, or Don Quixote the windmills for a band of Spanish giants.

Ev. Again, Dr. Beddoes relates the case of a scholar, who locked himself up to study the Revelation. The confinement brought on dyspeptic pains and spasms, and he was persuaded that “the monster blasphemy, with ten heads, was preying on his vitals.”

The Reverend Simon Brown died with the conviction that his rational soul was annihilated by a special fiat of the Divine will; and a patient in the Friends’ “Retreat,” at York, thought he had no soul, heart, or lungs.

From “Tulpius” we learn, that the wife of Salomon Galmus sank into a state of extreme melancholy, from the deep conviction that she was a visitant from the tomb, but sent back to the world without her heart, for God had detained that in heaven.

Such illusions are sometimes excited by wounds of the brain. A soldier of the field of Austerlitz was struck with a delirious conviction that he was but an ill-made model of his former self. “You ask how Père Lambert is,” (he would say;) “he is dead, killed at Austerlitz; that you now see is a mere machine, made in his likeness.” He would then often lapse into a state of catalepsy insensible to every stimulus.

Dr. Mead tells us of an Oxford student, who ordered the passing bell to be rung for him, and went himself to the belfry to instruct the ringers. He returned to his bed only to die.

A Bourbon prince thought himself dead, and refused to eat until his friends invited him to dine with Turenne and other French heroes long since departed.

There was a tradesman who thought he was a seven-shilling piece, and advertised himself thus: “If my wife presents me for payment, don’t change me.” Accuse me not of transatlantic plagiarism.

Bishop Warburton tells us of a man who thought himself a goose pie; and Dr. Ferriday, of Manchester, had a patient who thought he had swallowed the devil.

So indeed thought Luther. As in Hudibras,

“Did not the devil appear to Martin

Luther in Germany for certain?”

In Paris there lived a man who thought he had with others been guillotined, and when Napoleon was emperor, their heads were all restored, but in the scramble he got the wrong one.

And there is the “Visitor of Phantaste” in the old play of “Lingua,” who exclaims: “No marvel, for when I beheld my fingers, I saw they were as transparent as glass.”

You perceive that the illusions of Pope’s “Rape of the Lock” are not all fictions: the maids who fancied they were turned into bottles, were not more in error than these philosophers with their maladie imaginaire.

Cast. Is there not wisdom, Evelyn, in nursing some of these innocent illusions? I remember Kotzebue, in his “Journey to Paris,” relates the following anecdote of a young girl, romantically in love. Her lover had often accompanied her on the harp: he died, and his harp had remained in her room. After the first excess of her despair, she sunk into the deepest melancholy, and much time elapsed ere she would sit down to her instrument. At last she did so, gave some touches, and, hark! the harp, tuned alike, resounded in echo. The good girl was at first seized with a secret shuddering, but soon felt a kind of soft melancholy: she was firmly persuaded that the spirit of her lover was softly sweeping the strings of the instrument. The harpsichord, from this moment, constituted her only pleasure, as it afforded her the certainty that her lover was still hovering near her. One of those unfeeling men, who want to know and clear up every thing, once entered her apartment. The girl instantly begged him to be quiet, for at that very moment the dear harp spoke most distinctly. Being informed of the amiable illusion which overcame her reason, he laughed, and, with a great display of learning, proved to her by experimental physics, that all this was very natural. From that instant the maiden grew melancholy, drooped, and soon after died.

Ev. Truth is not always to be spoken, nor too much energy exerted, in our treatment; for many a mad act, as it will be called, is resorted to, as a relief.

Tirouane de Mericourt was wont to saturate her bedclothes with cold water, then lie down on it. Although an extreme remedy, it might yield her relief from burning pains. In the darker ages, she would have been chained and scourged.

But from Marcus Donatus we read the following case of still more melancholy interest; another illustration of your question, dear Castaly:

“Vicentinus believed himself too large to pass one of his doorways. To dispel this illusion, it was resolved by his physician that he should be dragged through this aperture by force. This erroneous dictate was obeyed; but, as he was forced along, Vicentinus screamed out in agony, that his limbs were fractured, and the flesh torn from his bones. In this dreadful delusion, with terrific imprecations against his murderers, he died.”