--do they not?-certain
disorders of the mind.

DOCTOR. Generally of the stomach.

STATESMAN. Ah! The same thing, Doctor. There's no getting away from that
in one's old age; when one has lived as well as I have.

DOCTOR. That is why I dieted you.

STATESMAN. Oh, I have nothing on my conscience as to that. My housekeeper
is a dragon. Her fidelity is of the kind that will even risk dismissal.

DOCTOR. An invaluable person, under the circumstances.

STATESMAN. Yes; a nuisance, but indispensable. No, Doctor. This dream
didn't come from the stomach. It seemed rather to emanate from that outer
darkness which surrounds man's destiny. So real, so horribly real!

DOCTOR. Better, then, not to brood on it.

STATESMAN. Ah! Could I explain it, then I might get rid of it. In the
ancient religion of my race dreams found their interpretation. But have
they any?

DOCTOR. Medical science is beginning to say "Yes"; that in sleep the
subconscious mind has its reactions.

STATESMAN. Well, I wonder how my "subconscious mind" got hold of
primroses.

DOCTOR. Primroses? Did they form a feature in your dream?

STATESMAN. A feature? No. The whole place was alive with them! As the
victim of inebriety sees snakes, I saw primroses. They were everywhere:
they fawned on me in wreaths and festoons; swarmed over me like parasites;
flew at me like flies; till it seemed that the whole world had conspired
to suffocate me under a sulphurous canopy of those detestable little
atoms. Can you imagine the horror of it, Doctor, to a sane--a hitherto
sane mind like mine?

DOCTOR. Oh! In a dream any figment may excite aversion.

STATESMAN. This wasn't like a dream. It was rather the threat of some new
disease, some brain malady about to descend on me: possibly delirium
tremens. I have not been of abstemious habits, Doctor. Suppose--?

DOCTOR. Impossible! Dismiss altogether that supposition from your mind!

STATESMAN. Well, Doctor, I hope--I hope you may be right. For I assure you
that the horror I then conceived for those pale botanical specimens in
their pestiferous and increscent abundance, exceeded what words can
describe. I have felt spiritually devastated ever since, as though some
vast calamity were about to fall not only on my own intellect, but on that
of my country. Well, you shall hear.

(_He draws his trembling bands wearily over his face, and sits thinking
awhile_.)

With all the harsh abruptness of a soul launched into eternity by