His dreams, too, as befitted a mind
better stocked with particulars, became more circumstantial, and
had more the air and continuity of life. The look of the world
beginning to take hold on his attention, scenery came to play a
part in his sleeping as well as in his waking thoughts, so that he
would take long, uneventful journeys and see strange towns and
beautiful places as he lay in bed. And, what is more significant,
an odd taste that he had for the Georgian costume and for stories
laid in that period of English history, began to rule the features
of his dreams; so that he masqueraded there in a three-cornered hat
and was much engaged with Jacobite conspiracy between the hour for
bed and that for breakfast. About the same time, he began to read
in his dreams - tales, for the most part, and for the most part
after the manner of G. P. R. James, but so incredibly more vivid
and moving than any printed book, that he has ever since been
malcontent with literature.
And then, while he was yet a student, there came to him a dream-
adventure which he has no anxiety to repeat; he began, that is to
say, to dream in sequence and thus to lead a double life - one of
the day, one of the night - one that he had every reason to believe
was the true one, another that he had no means of proving to be
false. I should have said he studied, or was by way of studying,
at Edinburgh College, which (it may be supposed) was how I came to
know him.
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