Essays on things

by William Lyon Phelps

One of the worst dreams I had in childhood was when I was being attacked by wild beasts, and suddenly my mother appeared on the scene. I shrieked to her for help, and she looked at me with calm indifference. That was the worst dream I ever had, and you may be sure it went by contraries.

I suppose the only way we can distinguish dreams from what is called actual life is that in dreams the law of causation is suspended. There is no order in events, and no principle of sufficient reason to account for them. Things change in an impossible manner. Apart from this, dreams are as real as life while they last.

I often have prolonged dreams that are not only fully as real as waking experiences, but are orderly and sensible, and sometimes delightful. Many years ago I dreamed that I was walking the streets of a Russian city with Count Tolstoi. It was one of the most agreeable and most inspiring days of my life, and I have always regretted it never happened. We walked together for hours and discussed modern literature. He said a great many wise and brilliant things, all of which I have, alas, forgotten. The only feature of that dream unlike reality was that Tolstoi had shaved off his beard.

Wilkie Collins, in Armadale, suggested that every dream we have is a repetition of an experience that has actually happened to us during the preceding twenty-four hours. I read that novel in my boyhood and was impressed by that explanation of dreams, and for several months I wrote down my dreams and found that every one was suggested by something that had happened to me during the preceding day.

The only thing I am certain of in dreams is that they do not in any way forecast the future. When I was a child I dreamed I saw heaven and Jesus sitting on a cloud. He called to me, “Willie Phelps, come here.” The next day I told my father and mother about it, and to my surprise they were exceedingly alarmed.

XXVIII
EATING BREAKFAST

In the daily life of the average person the longest interval between eating is that between the evening meal and breakfast; the very name for the morning repast accurately describes its nature. It should therefore, be taken seriously, which means that there should not only be enough to eat, but that plenty of time should be allowed to eat it.

I am aware that there are many men of excellent character who eat almost nothing for breakfast, and that there are some saints who eat no breakfast at all. In character and personal habits, I have never met a man more saintly than Henry Ford. I refer both to the asceticism of his physical life and to the purity of the motives that inspire his conduct. He eats no breakfast at all, not a morsel of food. He rises very early, goes outdoors, runs a mile or two and then works with absolute concentration till one o’clock, when he has the first meal of the day. I asked him if he never felt any desire for food during so long a morning; he replied that it was necessary for him in his vast undertakings to have a mind entirely fresh and clear, and that he found he could do better work on an empty stomach and with a brain unclouded by food.

I suppose every man must be a law unto himself. It does not seem to me that I could live happily without breakfast, yet I am sure that it is better to omit the meal altogether than to eat it in the hurry and fever in which many Americans devour it. Far too many prefer to lie in bed half an hour longer than to use that precious half hour in the consumption of food.

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