they are no more-which have just been given. Why should such an elaborate machinery be used, and again, can it be proved by example what effect criticism actually has upon the dream thought, or in other words, what is there to conceal? The answer to the first question is that the dreamer can only use the instruments he has got, and thought is not one of them. Dreams mostly come through Eye-gate, like the fantasy about the psalm. There appeared to be no effort in combining visual material to glorify the dreamer even then. The adult only has a wider range. As we shall shortly see, metaphors which are almost effaced in thought come alive in the dream, and proverbs with their edge long blunted by use become, as it were, galvanized into charades. This only leads to the second and vital question, what is the interpretation of the charades? The answer should lead us deep into Stevenson's life and interests, for only vital matters are likely to disturb sleep. But if dreams are woven of memories in order to further wishes, it is hard to penetrate far without questioning the dreamer himself, nor may we pry. One dream of Stevenson's seems to be made for our purpose, for he sent it to the Society for Psychical Research as a curiosity, and fortunately he mentioned the immediate circumstances. The rest of the material for interpretation may be supplied from what is known of his life. The dream1 is as follows:

"Case D. In the afternoon there sprang up a storm of wind with monstrous clouds of dust; my room looked on a steep hill of trees whose boughs were all blowing in the same direction; the world seemed to pass by my windows like a mill-race. By this turmoil and movement I was confused, but not distressed, and surprised not to be distressed; for even in good health a high wind has often a painful influence on my nerves. In the midst of this I dozed off asleep. I had just been reading Scott's 'Life of Dryden,' had been struck with the fact that Dryden had translated some of the Latin hymns, and had wondered that I had never remarked them in his works. As soon as I was asleep I dreamed a reason why the sound of the wind and the sight of the flying dust had not distressed me. There was no wind, it seemed, no dust; it was

1Myers, Human Personality, I, 303; letter dated July 14th, 1892.

only Dryden singing his translated hymns in one direction, and all those who had blamed and attacked him after the Revolution singing them in another. This point of the two directions is very singular and insane. In part it meant that Dryden was continuously flying past yet never passing my window in the direction of the wind and dust, and all his detractors similarly flying past yet not passing towards the other side. But it applied, besides this, both to the words and to the music in a manner wholly insusceptible of expression.

"That was a dream; and yet how exactly it reproduces the method of my other fellow while I was awake. Here is an explanation for a state of mind or body sought, and found, in a tissue of rabid, complicated, and inexpressible folly."

It may be added that Stevenson was feverish at the time, and that he was in Sydney. Though he says that it occurred 'the other day', the evidence seems to show that he had last been in Sydney eighteen months before; to be precise, the dream probably took place on a Sunday in February, 1891. The chronological point, though not vital, will be found to have some significance.

The most striking feature of this dream is the 'insane' character of the opposing winds. But if there was 'no wind', as Stevenson says, where is the contradiction? Counterblasts are familiar in seventeenth century pamphleteering, and the dream is apt to express metaphor in image, as we have seen. The great storm outside suggested this way of expressing opposition, which was indeed congenial to Stevenson: for three of his poems are called Blast, Counterblast, and Counterblast Ironical. What determined the use of this image, however, must have been the passage of Scott over which Stevenson dozed. It contained two metaphors, in relief, as it were, because they were quotations, and capable of fusing easily with the impression of the storm. At the Revolution, Dryden as a recent convert to Roman Catholicism, suffered much from the triumphant Protestants. "Nor," says Scott, "was the 'pelting of this pitiless storm' of abusive raillery the worst evil to which our author was subjected. The religion which he professed rendered him incapable of holding any office under

the new Government." But Dryden was undaunted, wrote a fine play, and ended the preface to it with the lines,

"Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito."1

These two quotations which I have italicized stand in relief in Scott's text, and were taken into the dream because of their affinity with the vivid experience of the storm. Dryden went into the teeth of the storm.

We must now ask why Stevenson's Brownies troubled to dramatize the dead quarrels of Dryden and the sectaries. The day dream about the psalm has taught us to regard psalm and pictures alike as material for self-glorification. It is not otherwise with the adult, though his ambitions are more determinate. On this model we may suppose that the passage in Scott touched some near interest of Stevenson's, or it would not have been worth dreaming. In the dream Dryden faces his Protestant assailants with the hymns, a Catholic weapon and a literary as well. Now Scott suggests that Dryden chose Veni Creator Spiritus because the hymn was a favourite of St. Francis Xavier, and Dryden's first pious work as a Roman Catholic was to translate a life of Xavier. The hymns in the dream are thus closely linked with sectarian controversy and with Francis Xavier. What chord in Stevenson's mind would respond to that? Not a year before he had championed another Roman missionary against Protestant assailants in the person of Father Damien. Both were pioneers, both had worked in the East at great risk to themselves; both, shall we say, had the honour of being treated by an eminent literary hand. This train of thought about Damien may well have begun outside the immediate context which inspired the dream. For Scott precedes his account of Dryden's work of piety by a vindication of his honour in turning Roman Catholic. So Stevenson's father in romance too defends a Roman Catholic against Protestant charges. One external condition helped the revival of memories about Damien. Stevenson was visiting Sydney, and it was in Sydney only the previous March that he had read Dr. Hyde's attack on Damien, and written and printed his famous reply. His indignation

1 'Do thou not yield to ills, but go more dauntless against them.'

was still recent, and he was in the place of all others most likely to revive it. All the evidence, then, points to the Damien controversy as the interest of Stevenson which fused with the parallel episode in Dryden's life.

But why was the personal matter submerged under the symbols of Dryden's controversy? Late impressions tend to become the language of the dream, it is true, but we must show why it was not necessary or even advantageous for the dreamer to appear in person. The reason is twofold. Even the Damien incident is not the centre of the dream; the reference to it subserves a further purpose; and the suppression of direct reminiscence enables the dreamer to gratify his wish while eluding the critical self. The apparent purpose of the dream is to explain why the storm did not alarm. It does so by representing Dryden opposing the wind. We know what this means from the infantile day dream. As the child identified himself with Saul, so the artist identifies himself with a great literary figure.1 The dream also explained that the wind was no wind, but Dryden and his hymns opposing the sectaries. This transition from physical to moral courage is easily mediated by Scott's quotation about Dryden withstanding the "pitiless pelting of the storm." That terrified Dryden no more than the Damien controversy shook Stevenson's courage. What the dream does prove, then, is that Stevenson, like Dryden, was undaunted by difficulties. This is what the reminiscence of Damien and the identification with Dryden effects. But the dream is a wish, not a reminiscence, and it uses recollections only to make terms with the present or future. If this is true, the knot of associations with sectarian

2

1Stevenson signs one of his letters "Prometheus-Heine in minimis.” In a dream the qualification inserted through self-consciousness would probably disappear, and there would be nothing to express likeness. That is done by the mechanism of identification.

2 "I knew," wrote Stevenson, "I was writing a libel; I thought he would bring an action; I made sure I should be ruined; I asked leave of my gallant family, and the sense that I was signing away all I possessed kept me up to high-water mark, and made me feel every insult heroic." The sense of the financial risk he ran in defending Damien is noteworthy.

controversy serves to identify Stevenson with Dryden and to give him confidence for some further struggle. We must seek there for the nerve of the dream.

The attacks on Dryden were irritating and venomous, but he had graver cares. As we have seen from Scott, the especial burden he had to bear after the Revolution was financial, for he could no longer hold office under a Protestant Government. He was thrown back on his own literary efforts. His first work after the Revolution was the tragedy of Don Sebastian, and the proud Latin motto, contra audentior ito, expressed his determination not to yield. This might appeal to any brother of the pen, but it bore a special meaning for Stevenson at that time. For he had left Samoa tired and worried about money. His last letter to Mr. Colvin declared, "since The Master [of Ballantrae] nothing has come to raise any coins. I believe the springs are dry at home,' and now I am worked out, and can no more at all. A holiday is required." But the holiday only laid him helpless with fever. There was no trial more constant in Stevenson's life, none which he met with more unflagging courage. Two years later he wrote to George Meredith. "For fourteen years I have not had a day's real health; I have wakened sick and gone to bed weary; and I have done my work unflinchingly... I was made for a contest, and the Powers have so willed that my battlefield should be this dingy inglorious one of the bed and the physic bottle." The dream was the assertion of this mood at a moment of greatest weakness, and Dryden with Dryden's motto was the model which encouraged him. The dream therefore fits his general character and the particular situation in which he found himself.

We are now in a position to see why the dream symbols are so appropriate. The hymns were literary weapons, and Dryden was an artist. Tired and in need of money, Stevenson must stand to the contest like his predecessor. He must make his Counterblast. As the poem of that name says of the braver kind of men,

Did Veni, Creator Spiritus simply mean to the dreamer, 'Come, creative spirit'?