We bless and curse ourselves. Some dreams are divine, as well as some waking
thoughts. Donne sings of one " Who dreamt devoutlier than most use to pray ."
Dreams are the touchstones of our characters. We are scarcely less afflicted
when we remember some unworthiness in our conduct in a dream, than if it had
been actual, and the intensity of our grief, which is our atonement, measures
inversely the degree by which this is separated from an actual unworthiness. For
in dreams we but act a part which must have been learned and rehearsed in our
waking hours, and no doubt could discover some waking consent thereto. If this
meanness has not its foundation in us, why are we grieved at it? In dreams we
see ourselves naked and acting out our real characters, even more clearly than
we see others awake. But an unwavering and commanding virtue would compel even
its most fantastic and faintest dreams to respect its ever wakeful authority; as
we are accustomed to say carelessly, we should never have dreamed of such a
thing. Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.