“No, sir; I should be inclined to say that I forgot as fast as I read; that, as I read, I seemed to know the thing I read, but the process of forgetting kept pace for pace alongside the process of reading.” “I quite agree with you.--Now I wonder whether you will agree with me in what I am going to suggest next!” “I can't tell that, sir,” said Richard--somewhat unnecessarily; but Wingfold was pleased to find him cautious. “I think,” the parson continued, “that what I want in order to be able afterward to recollect a thing, is to be not merely conscious of the thing when it comes, but at the same moment conscious of myself. To remember, I must be self-conscious as well as thing-conscious.” “There I cannot quite follow you.” “When I learn the meaning of a word, I know the word; but when I say to myself, 'I know the word,' there comes a reflection of the word back from the mirror of my mind, making a second impression, and after that I am at least not so likely to forget it.” “I think I can follow you so far,” said Richard. “When, then,” pursued the parson, “I think about the impression that the word makes upon me, how it is affecting me with the knowledge of itself, then I am what I should call self-conscious of the word--conscious not only that I know the word, but that I know the phenomena of knowing the word--conscious of what I am as regards my knowing of the word.” “I understand so far, sir--at least I think I do.” “Then you will allow that a word with its reflection and mental impact thus operated upon by the mind is not so likely to be forgotten as one understood only in the first immediate way?” “Certainly, sir.” “Well, then--mind I am only suggesting; I am not proclaiming a fact, still less laying down a law; I am not half sure enough about it for that--so it is with our dreams. We see, or hear, and are conscious that we do, in our dreams; our consciousness shines through our sleeping features to the eyes that love us; but when we wake we have forgotten everything. There was thought there, but not thought that could be remembered. When, however, you have once said to yourself in a dream, 'I think I am dreaming;' you always, I venture to suspect, remember that experience when you wake from it!” “I daresay you do, sir. But there are many dreams we never suspect to be dreams while we are dreaming them, which yet we remember all the same when we come awake!” “Yes, surely; and many people have such memories as hold every word and every fact presented to them. But I was not meaning to discuss the phenomena of sleep; I only meant to support my simile that to see the world before the sun is up, is like looking on the sleeping face of a friend. There is thought in the sleeping face of your friend, and thought in the twilight face of nature; but the face awake with thought, is the world awake with sunlight.”