l your head like Judaea in memory of that transcendant woe, and in
testimony that, indeed, it surpassed all utterance of words. Immediately
you see that the apparition of the Brocken veils _his_ head, after the
model of Judaea weeping under her palm-tree, as if he also had a human
heart, and that _he_ also, in childhood, having suffered an affliction
which was ineffable, wished by these mute symbols to breathe a sigh
towards heaven in memory of that affliction, and by way of record,
though many a year after, that it was indeed unutterable by words.

This trial is decisive. You are now satisfied that the apparition is but
a reflex of yourself; and, in uttering your secret feelings to _him_,
you make this phantom the dark symbolic mirror for reflecting to the
daylight what else must be hidden for ever.

Such a relation does the Dark Interpreter, whom immediately the reader
will learn to know as an intruder into my dreams, bear to my own mind.
He is originally a mere reflex of my inner nature. But as the apparition
of the Brocken sometimes is disturbed by storms or by driving showers,
so as to dissemble his real origin, in like manner the Interpreter
sometimes swerves out of my orbit, and mixes a little with alien
natures. I do not always know him in these cases as my own parhelion.
What he says, generally is but that which _I_ have said in daylight, and
in meditation deep enough to sculpture itself on my heart. But
sometimes, as his face alters, his words alter; and they do not always
seem such as I have used, or _could_ use. No man can account for all
things that occur in dreams. Generally I believe this--that he is a
faithful representative of myself; but he also is at times subject to
the action of the god _Phantasus_, who rules in dreams.

Hailstone choruses[19] besides, and storms, enter my dreams. Hailstones
and fire that run along the ground, sleet and blinding hurricanes,
revelations of glory insufferable pursued by volleying darkness--these
are powers able to disturb any features that originally were but shadow,
and to send drifting the anchors of any vessel that rides upon deeps so
treacherous as those of dreams. Understand, however, the Interpreter to
bear generally the office of a tragic chorus at Athens. The Greek chorus
is perhaps not quite understood by critics, any more than the Dark
Interpreter by myself. But the leading function of both must be supposed
this--not to tell you any thing absolutely new, _t