inscriptions of the mind; accidents of the same sort will also
rend away this veil; but alike, whether veiled or unveiled, the
inscription remains for ever; just as the stars seem to withdraw before
the common light of day, whereas, in fact, we all know that it is the
light which is drawn over them as a veil, and that they are but waiting
to be revealed when the obscuring daylight shall have withdrawn.

In the early stage of my malady the splendours of my dreams were indeed
chiefly architectural; and I beheld such pomp of cities and palaces as
was never yet beheld by the waking eye, unless in the clouds. To
architecture succeeded dreams of lakes and silvery expanses of water.
The waters then changed their character--from translucent lakes shining
like mirrors they now became seas and oceans.

And now came a tremendous change, which, unfolding itself slowly like a
scroll through many months, promised an abiding torment; and, in fact,
it never left me until the winding up of my case. Hitherto the human
face had mixed often in my dreams, but not despotically, nor with any
special power of tormenting. But now that which I have called the
tyranny of the human face began to unfold itself. Perhaps some part of
my London life might be answerable for this. Be that as it may, now it
was that upon the rocking waters of the ocean the human face began to
appear; the sea appeared paved with innumerable faces upturned to the
heavens--faces imploring, wrathful, despairing, surged upwards by
thousands, by myriads, by generations, by centuries; my agitation was
infinite, my mind tossed and surged with the ocean.

_V.--The Monster-Haunted Dreamer_

I know not whether others share in my feelings on this point; but I have
often thought that if I were compelled to forego England and to live in
China, and among Chinese manners and modes of life and scenery, I should
go mad. Southern Asia in general is the seat of awful images and
associations. As the cradle of the human race, it would alone have a dim
and reverential feeling connected with it. But there are other reasons.
No man can pretend that the wild, barbarous, and capricious
superstitions of Africa, or of savage tribes elsewhere, affect him in
the way that he is affected by the ancient, monumental, cruel, and
elaborate religions of Indostan, etc. The mere antiquity of Asiatic
things, of their institutions, histories, modes of faith, etc., is so
impressive that, to me, the vast a