One hundred years ago
SIR, — As to mental exercises in dreams, this happened to me one morning, not very many years ago. I found myself at Eton again, at my desk, in Mrs Holt's (my dame's house), writing a copy of verses on Spring. The lines were written easily enough, I thought, when suddenly I stopped to criticise an expression, and this change in the mental attitude woke me at once. I had the last two lines on my lips, and there was no harm in them. I have no reason to doubt that the former ones, which slipped away, without much loss to mankind, down the abyss of Space, were just as good or as moderate as the two remembered ones, which ran as follows:—
Tmicat omnis ager renovato fore rosarum, Et passim herbosa nube virescit humus.'
I have a notion that 'flos rosae' would be a more dainty expression ('the flower of the rose') in Latin than `rosarum,' but that is no great matter. The odd thing was, that not only the lines, but the criticism, stood the test of waking. I do not say that there is any merit in the two Latin lines, but simply that the old Eton mechanism, which had ground out ten thousand Latin verses between 1823 and 1829, went to work in my dream without having rusted.
FRANCIS HASTINGS DOYLE.
Board Room, Customs, 7 November. Spectator, 12 November 1881
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