fool; a
cruel person; a kind and compassionate one; a quarrelsome person; a
peacemaker; old persons and young; beautiful girls and homely ones. They
talk in character, each preserves his own characteristics. There are
vivid fights, vivid and biting insults, vivid love-passages; there are
tragedies and comedies, there are griefs that go to one's heart, there
are sayings and doings that make you laugh: indeed, the whole thing is
exactly like real life.

O.M. Your dreaming mind originates the scheme, consistently and
artistically develops it, and carries the little drama creditably
through--all without help or suggestion from you?

Y.M. Yes.

O.M. It is argument that it could do the like awake without help or
suggestion from you--and I think it does. It is argument that it is the
same old mind in both cases, and never needs your help. I think the
mind is purely a machine, a thoroughly independent machine, an automatic
machine. Have you tried the other experiment which I suggested to you?

Y.M. Which one?

O.M. The one which was to determine how much influence you have over
your mind--if any.

Y.M. Yes, and got more or less entertainment out of it. I did as you
ordered: I placed two texts before my eyes--one a dull one and barren
of interest, the other one full of interest, inflamed with it, white-hot
with it. I commanded my mind to busy itself solely with the dull one.

O.M. Did it obey?

Y.M. Well, no, it didn't. It busied itself with the other one.

O.M. Did you try hard to make it obey?

Y.M. Yes, I did my honest best.

O.M. What was the text which it refused to be interested in or think
about?

Y.M. It was this question: If A owes B a dollar and a half, and B owes
C two and three-quarter, and C owes A thirty-five cents, and D and A
together owe E and B three-sixteenths of--of--I don't remember the rest,
now, but anyway it was wholly uninteresting, and I could not force my
mind to stick to it even half a minute at a time; it kept flying off to
the other text.

O.M. What was the other text?

Y.M. It is no matter about that.

O.M. But what was it?

Y.M. A photograph.

O.M. Your own?

Y.M. No. It was hers.

O.M. You really made an honest good test. Did you make a second trial?

Y.M. Yes. I commanded my mind to interest itself in the morning paper's
report of the pork-market, and at the same time I reminded it of an
experience of mine of sixteen years ago. It refused to consider the pork
and ga