A lady narrated the following dream immediately on awakening: 'I had
murdered a woman from some moral or political motive--I forget what--and
had come in great agony to my husband with her shoes and watch-chain. He
promised to help me, and while I was wondering what could be done for
the benefit of the woman's family, some one came in and announced that a
lecture was about to be given on the beauty of nakedness. I then went,
with several prim and respectable ladies of my acquaintance [the names
were given], into a crowded hall. The lecturer who--so far as appearance
is concerned--was a well-known Member of Parliament, then entered and
gave a most eloquent address on Whitman, nakedness, ugly figures, etc.
He especially emphasised the fact that the reason people are shocked at
nakedness is that they usually only see unbeautiful bodies which repel
them because they are unlike their ideals. Then he put out his hand, and
a naked woman entered the room. Her loveliness was extreme; her form was
perfectly rounded, but without suggestion of voluptuousness, though she
was not an animated statue, but had all the characters of humanity; she
walked with undulating thighs, head slightly drooping, and hair falling
down and framing a face that expressed wonderful spiritual beauty and
innocence. The lecturer led her round, saying, "This is beauty; now, if
you can look at this and be ashamed----" and he waved his arm. She went
away, and a beautiful Apollo-like youth, slender but athletic, entered the
room, also completely naked. He walked round the room alone, with an air
of majestic virility. I applauded, clapping my hands, but a shiver went
through the ladies present; their skin became like goose-flesh, and their
lips quivered with horror as though they were about to be outraged. The
youth went out, and the lecturer continued. At the climax of his oratory,
the Apollo-like youth entered, dressed as a common soldier, with no
appearance of beauty, and in a rough tone said: "'Ere! I want a shilling
for this job." (And I sighed to myself: "It is always so.") No one had a
shilling, and the lecturer proceeded to explain to the man that what he
had done was for the sake of art and beauty, and for the moral good of
the world. "What do I care for that?" he returned, "I want a drink." Then
a lady among the audience produced a collar, wrote on it a testimonial
expressing the gratitude of those present for the man's services on this
occasion, and handed it to me to present to him. "Damn it," he said, "this
is only worth twopence halfpenny; I want my shilling!" Then I awoke.'
The idea of murder with which this dream began seems to suggest that it
may have had its origin in some slight visceral disturbance of which
the subject was unconscious, but nothing had occurred to suggest the
details of the episode. The interesting feature about it is the presence
throughout of moral notions and sentiments substantially true to the
dreamer's waking ideas.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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