Composition During Sleep.
Condorcet is said to have attained the conclusion of some of his most abstruse, unfinished calculations in his dreams. Franklin makes a similar admission concerning some of his political projects which, in his waking moments, sorely puzzled him. Sir J. Herschel is said to have composed the following lines in a dream:—
"Throw thyself on thy God, nor mock Him with feeble denial;
Sure of His love, and, oh! sure of His mercy at last!
Bitter and deep though the draught, yet drain thou the cup of thy trial,
And in its healing effect, smile at the bitterness past."
Goethe says in his "Memoirs," "The objects which had occupied my attention during the day often reappeared at night in connected dreams. On awakening, a new composition, or a portion of one I had already commenced, presented itself to my mind. In the morning I was accustomed to record my ideas on paper." Coleridge composed his poem of the "Abyssinian Maid" during a dream. Something analogous to this is what Lord Cockburn says in his "Life of Lord Jeffrey." "He had a fancy that though he went to bed with his head stuffed with the names, dates and other details of various causes, they were all in order in the morning; which he accounted for by saying that during sleep 'they all crystallized round their proper centres.'"