is all a dream. You think your being is
reality and that you hear my voice speaking. I tell you it is but fancy.
We are the figures--the mimes in some vast hypnotic exhibition--the
shadows in some gigantic spirit's disordered dream. Hypnotism," he
continued, pursuing a line of thought which his impulsive words had
suggested, "has, in fact, proven that no one can distinguish the real
from the unreal. You remember, when we went to see Flint, the great
hypnotist, how his subjects passed from one condition to another and
took on any personality at the operator's will; capering and grimacing
about the stage with all the characteristics and even the facial
expression of monkeys, one minute, and simpering as silly school-girls
the next; and to them it was all real--as real as this room, these
bodies, these pictures are to us. I read some lines once that seemed to
express the idea:

"I sometimes think life but a dream
Of some great soul in some great sphere,
And what appear as truths but seem,
And what seem truths do but appear."

He repeated these words with slow earnestness, adding solemnly, "Who
knows? Who knows?"

The man who sat listening drew a long breath. He was a rich idler with a
good deal of worldly wisdom, but he loved and admired his erratic
friend. He felt that much of what he said was sophistry, wholly or in
part; but there was a charm about the earnest manner, the musical voice,
and the flashing brevity of statement, more pleasing to his ear than
sounder logic from a surer reasoner.

It was nearly dark now in the studio. The artist halted in his march,
and offered to light the gas.

"Not for the world, Julian; I am far too happy in the dark. I was just
thinking what a glorious agitator you would make; you would carry all
before you. I wonder you have never dabbled in politics or socialism.
Now I think of it, I have never heard you mention these things. I
suppose you belong to one or the other of the great parties, however."

"Politics? Party? Good heavens, no! I never meddle with such things; it
is one step lower than I have ever gone."

"But a man must stand somewhere. He that stands nowhere stands upon
nothing."

The artist paused before the open window and stood looking out upon the
dusk of the little scented garden. A faint reflected glimmer from some
far-away lamp dimly illuminated one side of his face, silhouetting his
striking profile sharply against a ground of blackness.

"If y