Perhaps the most universal dream of all is that disgraceful dream of appearing in public places, and in society, with very little or nothing on. This dream spares neither age nor sex, I believe, and I dare say the innocency of wordless infancy is abused by it, and dotage pursued to the tomb. I have not the least doubt Adam and Eve had it in Eden; though up to the moment the fig-leaf came in, it is difficult to imagine just what plight they found themselves in that seemed improper; probably there was some plight. The most amusing thing about this dream is the sort of defensive process that goes on in the mind, in search of self-justification or explanation. Is there not some peculiar circumstance or special condition, in whose virtue it is wholly right and proper for one to come to a fashionable assembly clad simply in a towel, or to go about the street in nothing but a pair of kid gloves, or of pyjamas at the most? This, or something like it, the mind of the dreamer struggles to establish, with a good deal of anxious appeal to the bystanders and a final sense of the hopelessness of the cause. One may easily laugh off this sort of dream in the morning, but there are other shameful dreams, whose inculpation projects itself far into the day, and whose infamy often lingers about one till lunch-time. Every one, nearly, has had them, but it is not the kind of dream that any one is fond of telling: the gross vanity of the most besotted dream-teller keeps that sort back. During the forenoon, at least, the victim goes about with the dim question whether he is not really that kind of man harassing him, and a sort of remote fear that he may be. I fancy that as to his nature and as to his mind, he is so, and that but for the supernal criticism, but for his soul, he might be that kind of man in very act and deed. The dreams we sometimes have about other people are not without a curious suggestion; and the superstitious (of those superstitious who like to invent their own superstitions) might very well imagine that the persons dreamed of had a witting complicity in their facts, as well as the dreamer. This is a conjecture that must of course not be forced to any conclusion. One must not go to one of these persons and ask, however much one would like to ask, “Sir, have you no recollection of such and such a thing, at such and such a time and place, which happened to us in my dream?” Any such person would be fully justified in not answering the question. It would be, of all interviewing, the most intolerable species. Yet a singular interest, a curiosity not altogether indefensible, will attach to these persons in the dreamer’s mind, and he will not be without the sense, ever after, that he and they have a secret in common. This is dreadful, but the only thing that I can think to do about it is to urge people to keep out of other people’s dreams by every means in their power. IV.