To my architecture succeeded dreams of lakes and silvery expanses of
water: these haunted me so much that I feared (though possibly it will
appear ludicrous to a medical man) that some dropsical state or tendency
of the brain might thus be making itself (to use a metaphysical word)
_objective_; and the sentient organ _project_ itself as its own object.
For two months I suffered greatly in my head, a part of my bodily
structure which had hitherto been so clear from all touch or taint of
weakness (physically I mean) that I used to say of it, as the last Lord
Orford said of his stomach, that it seemed likely to survive the rest of
my person. Till now I had never felt a headache even, or any the
slightest pain, except rheumatic pains caused by my own folly. However,
I got over this attack, though it must have been verging on something
very dangerous.
The waters now changed their character--from translucent lakes shining
like mirrors they now became seas and oceans. And now came a tremendous
change, which, unfolding itself slowly like a scroll through many months,
promised an abiding torment; and in fact it never left me until the
winding up of my case. Hitherto the human face had mixed often in my
dreams, but not despotically nor with any special power of tormenting.
But now that which I have called the tyranny of the human face began to
unfold itself.
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