The Inventions of the Idiot

by John Kendrick Bangs

"With that encouragement, then," said the Idiot, "I will endeavor to lay before you my crowning invention. Dreamaline, as its name may suggest, should be a patent medicine, by taking which man should become oblivious to care."

"What's the matter with champagne for that?" interrupted the Genial Old Gentleman who occasionally imbibes.

"Champagne has some good points," said the Idiot. "But there are two drawbacks—the effects and the price. Both of these drawbacks, so far from making us oblivious to our cares, add to them. The superiority of Dreamaline over champagne, or even over beer, which is comparatively cheap, is that one dose of Dreamaline, costing one cent, will do more for the patient than one case of champagne or one keg of beer; it is not intoxicating or ruinous to the purse. Furthermore, it is more potent for good, since, under its genial influences, man can do that to which he aspires, or, what is perhaps better yet, merely imagine that he is doing that to which he aspires, and so avoid the disappointment which I am told always comes with ambition achieved.

"Take, for instance, the literary man. We know of many cases in which the literary man has stimulated his imagination by means of drugs, and while under the influence has penned the most marvellous tales. That man sacrifices himself for the delectation of others. In order to write something for the world to rave over, he takes a dose which makes him rave, and which ultimately kills him. Dreamaline will make this entirely unnecessary. Instead of the writers taking hasheesh, the reader takes Dreamaline. Instead of one man having to smoke opium for millions, the millions take Dreamaline for themselves as individuals. I would have the scientists, then, the chemists, study the subject carefully, decide what quality it is in hasheesh that makes a writer conceive of these horrible situations, put this into a nostrum, and sell it to those who like horrible situations, and let them dream their own stories."

"Very interesting," said the Bibliomaniac, "but all readers do not like horrible situations. We are not all morbid."

"For which we should be devoutly thankful," said the Idiot. "But your point is not well taken. On each bottle of what I should call 'Literary Dreamaline,' to distinguish it from 'Art Dreamaline,' 'Scientific Dreamaline,' and so on, I should have printed explicit directions showing consumers how the dose should be modified to meet the consumer's taste. One man likes a De Maupassant story. Let him take his Dreamaline straight, lie down and dream. He'd get his De Maupassant story with a vengeance. Another likes the modern story in realism—a story in which a prize might be offered to the reader who finds a situation, an incident in the three hundred odd pages of the book he reads. This man could take a spoonful of Dreamaline and dilute it to his taste. A drop of Dreamaline, which taken raw would give a man a dream like Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, put into a hogshead of pure water would enable the man who took a spoonful of it before going to bed to fall asleep and walk through a three-volume novel by Henry James. Thus every man could get what he wanted at small expense. Dreamaline for readers sold at a dollar a quart would give every consumer as big and varied a library as he wished, and would be a great saving to the eyes. People would have more time for other pleasures if by taking a dose of Dreamaline before retiring they could get all their literature in their sleeping hours. Then every bottle would pay for itself ten times over if on awakening the next morning the consumer would write out the story he had dreamed and publish it for the benefit of those who were afraid to take the medicine."

"You wouldn't make much money out of it, though," said the Poet. "If one bottle sufficed for a library you wouldn't find much of a demand."

"That could be got around in two ways," said the Idiot. "We could copyright every bottle of Dreamaline and require the consumers to pay us a royalty on every book inspired by it, or we could ourselves take what I would call Financial Dreamaline, one dose of which would make a man feel like a millionaire. Life is only feeling after all. If you feel like a millionaire you are as happy as a millionaire—happier, in fact, because in reality you do not have to wear your thumbs out cutting coupons on the first of every month. Then I should have Art Dreamaline. You could have it arranged so that by a certain dose you could have old masters all over your house; by another dose you could get a collection of modern French paintings, and by swallowing a whole bottle you could dream that your walls were lined with mysteries that would drive the Impressionists crazy with envy. In Scientific Dreamaline you would get ideas for invention that would revolutionize the world."

"How about the poets and the humorists?" asked the Poet.

"They'd be easy," said the Idiot. "I wouldn't have any hasheesh in the mixture for them. Welsh rarebit would do, and you'd get poems so mysterious and jokes so uproarious that the whole world would soon be filled with wonder and with laughter. In short, Dreamaline would go into every walk of life. Music, letters, art, poetry, finance. Every man according to his bent or his tastes could partake. Every man could make with it his own little world in which he was himself the prime mover, and so harmless would it be that when next morning he awoke he would be as tranquil and as happy as a babe. I hope, gentlemen, to see the day when Dreamaline is an established fact, when we cannot enter a household in the land that does not have hanging on its walls, after the manner of those glass fire hand-grenades, a wire rack holding a row of bottles labelled Art, Letters, Music, and so on, instead of libraries, picture-galleries, music-rooms, and laboratories. The rich and the poor alike may have it. The child who loves to have stories told to him will cry for it; the poor wanderer who loves opera and cannot afford even to pass the opera-house in a cable-car, can go into a drug-store, and for a cent, begged of a kind-hearted pedestrian on the street, purchase a sufficient quantity to imagine himself a box-holder; the ambitious statesman can through its influences enjoy the sensation of thinking himself President of the United States. Not a man, woman, or child lives but would find it a boon, and as harmless as a Graham cracker. That, gentlemen, is my crowning invention, and until I see it realized I invent no more. Good-morning."