Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents
LETTER I June 19th, 1780.--Shall I tell you my dreams?--To give an account of my time is doing, I assure you, but little better. Never did there exist a more ideal being. A frequent mist hovers before my eyes, and, through its medium, I see objects so faint and hazy, that both their colours and forms are apt to delude me. This is a rare confession, say the wise, for a traveller to make: pretty accounts will such a one give of outlandish countries: his correspondents must reap great benefit, no doubt, from such purblind observations. But stop, my good friends; patience a moment!--I really have not the vanity of pretending to make a single remark, during the whole of my journey: if--be contented with my visionary way of gazing, I am perfectly pleased; and shall write away as freely as Mr. A., Mr. B., Mr. C., and a million others whose letters are the admiration of the politest circles. All through Kent did I doze as usual; now and then I opened my eyes to take in an idea or two of the green, woody country through which I
fancy a picture of you knocking out a tragedy with the right hand on one
machine, while your left hand is fashioning a farce-comedy on another."
"He might do as a great many modern writers do," said Ward; "go in for
the Paper-doll Drama. Cut the whole thing out with a pair of scissors.
As the poet might have said if he'd been clever enough:
_Oh, bring me the scissors_,
_And bring me the glue_,
_And a couple of dozen old plays_.
_I'll cut out and paste_
_A drama for you_
_That'll run for quite sixty-two days_.
_Oh, bring me a dress_
_Made of satin and lace_,
_And a book--say Joe Miller's--of wit_;
_And I'll make the old dramatists_
_Blue in the face_
_With the play that I'll turn out for it_.
_So bring me the scissors_,
_And bring me the paste_,
_And a dozen fine old comedies_;
_A fine line of dresses_,
_And popular taste_
LETTER I June 19th, 1780.--Shall I tell you my dreams?--To give an account of my time is doing, I assure you, but little better. Never did there exist a more ideal being. A frequent mist hovers before my eyes, and, through its medium, I see objects so faint and hazy, that both their colours and forms are apt to delude me. This is a rare confession, say the wise, for a traveller to make: pretty accounts will such a one give of outlandish countries: his correspondents must reap great benefit, no doubt, from such purblind observations. But stop, my good friends; patience a moment!--I really have not the vanity of pretending to make a single remark, during the whole of my journey: if--be contented with my visionary way of gazing, I am perfectly pleased; and shall write away as freely as Mr. A., Mr. B., Mr. C., and a million others whose letters are the admiration of the politest circles. All through Kent did I doze as usual; now and then I opened my eyes to take in an idea or two of the green, woody country through which I