These
understood the change as well as he. When he lay down to prepare
himself for sleep, he no longer sought amusement, but printable and
profitable tales; and after he had dozed off in his box-seat, his
little people continued their evolutions with the same mercantile
designs. All other forms of dream deserted him but two: he still
occasionally reads the most delightful books, he still visits at
times the most delightful places; and it is perhaps worthy of note
that to these same places, and to one in particular, he returns at
intervals of months and years, finding new field-paths, visiting
new neighbours, beholding that happy valley under new effects of
noon and dawn and sunset. But all the rest of the family of
visions is quite lost to him: the common, mangled version of
yesterday's affairs, the raw-head-and-bloody-bones nightmare,
rumoured to be the child of toasted cheese - these and their like
are gone; and, for the most part, whether awake or asleep, he is
simply occupied - he or his little people - in consciously making
stories for the market. This dreamer (like many other persons) has
encountered some trifling vicissitudes of fortune. When the bank
begins to send letters and the butcher to linger at the back gate,
he sets to belabouring his brains after a story, for that is his
readiest money-winner; and, behold! at once the little people begin
to bestir themselves in the same quest, and labour all night long,
and all night long set before him truncheons of tales upon their
lighted theatre.
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