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
ALICE, quickly, 'That isn't our affair, Robert.'
COLONEL. 'Yes; I'll tell you why. Amy has just put on that glove.'
ALICE. 'It isn't hers, dear.'
COLONEL. 'Do you deny that it is yours, Amy?' Amy has no answer to
this. 'Is it unreasonable, Steve, to ask you when my daughter, with
whom you profess to be unacquainted, gave you that token of her
esteem?'
STEVE, helpless, 'Alice.'
COLONEL. 'What has Alice to do with it?'
AMY, to the rescue, 'Nothing, nothing, I swear.'
COLONEL. 'Has there been something going on that I don't understand?
Are you in it, Alice, as well as they? Why has Steve been staring at
you so?'
AMY, knowing so well that she alone can put this matter right,
'Mother, don't answer.'
STEVE. 'If I could see Alice alone for a moment, Colonel--'
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