Another pause followed, during which Charley searched for a chapter to fit the mood. I will not say what chapter he found, for, after all, I doubt if we had any real notion of what it meant. I know, however, that there were words in it which found their way to my conscience; and, let men of science or philosophy say what they will, the rousing of a man’s conscience is the greatest event in his existence. In such a matter, the consciousness of the man himself is the sole witness. A Chinese can expose many of the absurdities and inconsistencies of the English: it is their own Shakspere who must bear witness to their sins and faults, as well as their truths and characteristics. After this we had many conversations about such things, one of which I shall attempt to report by-and-by. Of course, in any such attempt all that can be done is to put the effect into fresh conversational form. What I have just written must at least be more orderly than what passed between us; but the spirit is much the same, and mere fact is of consequence only as it affects truth. CHAPTER XX. A DREAM. The best immediate result of my illness was that I learned to love Charley Osborne dearly. We renewed an affection resembling from afar that of Shakspere for his nameless friend; we anticipated that informing _In Memoriam_. Lest I be accused of infinite arrogance, let me remind my reader that the sun is reflected in a dewdrop as in the ocean. One night I had a strange dream, which is perhaps worth telling for the involution of its consciousness. I thought I was awake in my bed, and Charley asleep in his. I lay looking into the room. It began to waver and change. The night-light enlarged and receded; and the walls trembled and waved. The light had got behind them, and shone through them. ‘Charley! Charley!’ I cried; for I was frightened. ‘I heard him move: but before he reached me, I was lying on a lawn, surrounded by trees, with the moon shining through them from behind. The next moment Charley was by my side. ‘Isn’t it prime?’ he said. ‘It’s all over.’ ‘What do you mean, Charley?’ I asked. ‘I mean that we’re both dead now. It’s not so very bad--is it?’ ‘Nonsense, Charley!’ I returned; ‘_I_‘m not dead. I’m as wide alive as ever I was. Look here.’ So saying, I sprung to my feet, and drew myself up before him. ‘Where’s your worst pain?’ said Charley, with a curious expression in his tone. ‘Here,’ I answered. ‘No; it’s not; it’s in my back. No, it isn’t. It’s nowhere. I haven’t got any pain.’ Charley laughed a low laugh, which sounded as sweet as strange. It was to the laughter of the world ‘as moonlight is to sunlight,’ but not ‘as water is to wine,’ for what it had lost in sound it had gained in smile. ‘Tell me now you’re not dead!’ he exclaimed triumphantly. ‘But,’ I insisted, ‘don’t you see I’m alive? _You_ may be dead for anything I know--but I _am not_--I know that.’ ‘You’re just as dead as I am,’ he said. ‘Look here.’