Algernon Blackwood

“ The dream is gone, and the more vigorous the effort, the more complete the disappearance. The remnant, moreover, soon vanishes as well: memory focuses it each time with less success; it grows blurred, confused, then artificial: a counterpart, half-invented, is erected in its place; and each attempt at recovery conceals the original more and more, while giving body to the substitute that mocks it. In the end the mind retains chiefly the emotion that filled it upon waking, and with that memory it must remain content. ”

“ The sense that it has been alone remains. It has become the memory of an exquisite Memory.
And, since so little of the actual dream is caught, it would seem to be this accompanying emotion that lights the heart so strangely with the sense of elusive and enchanting glamour. ”

“ They stopped, as such men will, talking a moment, with a bravish appearance of good-fellowship⁠—less than a moment, indeed, for it was the merest half turn of the heel in passing, just enough to show the semi-smile of good manners, so that each might produce the impression⁠—“You are the cad, not I: the fault is yours!°’ McCallister met the hated and the hating eyes, and looked deep into them. The same instant⁠—the two hostile personalities facing one another upon that patch of deserted pavement at 8:45 a.m.⁠—there flashed marvellously into his mind the emotion of the vanished dream. ”

“ To remember a state so perfect, yet so impossible of achievement, would involve a disappointment with the routine of normal difficulties that must border upon despair.⁠ ⁠... To deal satisfactorily with such delicate splendours, one should be, presumably, either fanatic or poet, the latter’s hint, perhaps, remaining the sweetest hint we have: “Some say that dreams of a remoter world visit the soul in sleep⁠ ⁠...”⁠—and McCallister, at any rate, felt rather pleased that Shelley’s line recurred to him during the day that followed his own particular experience. ”

“ With the latest evening paper in his pocket, still unread, he groped his way homewards, conscious perhaps, more than anything else, that the day had been of the red-letter kind because he had been to tea in the Enchanted Square. This memory wove itself softly, sweetly, in and out among his tired thoughts, when, at a certain crossing, the distressing accident occurred beneath his very eyes. A child was knocked down and killed by a passing taxicab. ”

“ Certain people, it would appear, are favoured with occasional dreams of so vivid a character that they leave on the mind an impression that lasts for hours, often, it may be, for the whole of the following day, while the dream itself is forgotten almost entirely upon waking. ”

“ Every instinct in him leaped to render help⁠—to prevent was already out of the question, alas⁠—and the impotent desire to save, succeeded instantly by pity, sympathy, and pain, combined to arrest both his muscles and his breath. ”

“ Upon their occurrence is possibly based that kind and ancient fantasy that persuades a few the spirit travels while the body sleeps, that things are then shown to it which the brain might scarce discover for itself ”