Angels Ministers | Page 9

bottle; and the eminent physician, preparatory to taking a seat at his
side, bends solicitously over him_.
DOCTOR. Well, my dear lord, how are you to-day? Better? You look
better.
STATESMAN. Yes, I suppose I am better. But my sleep isn't what it
ought to be. I have had a dream, Doctor; and it has upset me.
DOCTOR. A dream?
STATESMAN. You wonder that I should mention it? Of course, I--I
don't believe in dreams. Yet they indicate, sometimes--do they
not?-certain disorders of the mind.
DOCTOR. Generally of the stomach.
STATESMAN. Ah! The same thing, Doctor. There's no getting away
from that in one's old age; when one has lived as well as I have.
DOCTOR. That is why I dieted you.
STATESMAN. Oh, I have nothing on my conscience as to that. My
housekeeper is a dragon. Her fidelity is of the kind that will even risk
dismissal.
DOCTOR. An invaluable person, under the circumstances.
STATESMAN. Yes; a nuisance, but indispensable. No, Doctor. This
dream didn't come from the stomach. It seemed rather to emanate from
that outer darkness which surrounds man's destiny. So real, so horribly
real!
DOCTOR. Better, then, not to brood on it.
STATESMAN. Ah! Could I explain it, then I might get rid of it. In the
ancient religion of my race dreams found their interpretation. But have
they any?
DOCTOR. Medical science is beginning to say "Yes"; that in sleep the
subconscious mind has its reactions.

STATESMAN. Well, I wonder how my "subconscious mind" got hold
of primroses.
DOCTOR. Primroses? Did they form a feature in your dream?
STATESMAN. A feature? No. The whole place was alive with them!
As the victim of inebriety sees snakes, I saw primroses. They were
everywhere: they fawned on me in wreaths and festoons; swarmed over
me like parasites; flew at me like flies; till it seemed that the whole
world had conspired to suffocate me under a sulphurous canopy of
those detestable little atoms. Can you imagine the horror of it, Doctor,
to a sane--a hitherto sane mind like mine?
DOCTOR. Oh! In a dream any figment may excite aversion.
STATESMAN. This wasn't like a dream. It was rather the threat of
some new disease, some brain malady about to descend on me:
possibly delirium tremens. I have not been of abstemious habits, Doctor.
Suppose--?
DOCTOR. Impossible! Dismiss altogether that supposition from your
mind!
STATESMAN. Well, Doctor, I hope--I hope you may be right. For I
assure you that the horror I then conceived for those pale botanical
specimens in their pestiferous and increscent abundance, exceeded
what words can describe. I have felt spiritually devastated ever since, as
though some vast calamity were about to fall not only on my own
intellect, but on that of my country. Well, you shall hear.
(_He draws his trembling bands wearily over his face, and sits thinking
awhile_.)
With all the harsh abruptness of a soul launched into eternity by the
jerk of the hangman's rope, so I found myself precipitated into the
midst of this dream. I was standing on a pillory, set up in Parliament
Square, facing the Abbey. I could see the hands of St. Margaret's clock
pointing to half-past eleven; and away to the left the roof of
Westminster Hall undergoing restoration. Details, Doctor, which gave a
curious reality to a scene otherwise fantastic, unbelievable. There I
stood in a pillory, raised up from earth; and a great crowd had gathered
to look at me. I can only describe it as a primrose crowd. The disease
infected all, but not so badly as it did me. The yellow contagion spread
everywhere; from all the streets around, the botanical deluge continued
to flow in upon me. I felt a pressure at my back; a man had placed a

ladder against it; he mounted and hung a large wreath of primroses
about my neck. The sniggering crowd applauded the indignity. Having
placed a smaller wreath upon my head, he descended.... A mockery of a
May Queen, there I stood!
DOCTOR (_laying a soothing hand on him_). A dream, my dear lord,
only a dream.
STATESMAN. Doctor, imagine my feelings! My sense of ridicule was
keen; but keener my sense of the injustice--not to be allowed to know
why the whole world was thus making mock of me. For this was in the
nature of a public celebration, its malignity was organised and national;
a new fifth of November had been sprung upon the calendar. Around
me I saw the emblematic watchwords of the great party I had once led
to triumph: "Imperium et Libertas," "Peace with Honour," "England
shall reign where'er the sun," and other mottoes of a like kind; and on
them also the floral disease had spread itself. The air grew thick and
heavy with its sick-room odour.