Over every form, and threat, and punishment, and dim sightless
incarceration, brooded a sense of eternity and infinity that drove me
into an oppression as of madness. Into these dreams only it was, with
one or two slight exceptions, that any circumstances of physical horror
entered. All before had been moral and spiritual terrors. But here the
main agents were ugly birds, or snakes, or crocodiles; especially the
last. The cursed crocodile became to me the object of more horror than
almost all the rest. I was compelled to live with him, and (as was
always the case almost in my dreams) for centuries. I escaped sometimes,
and found myself in Chinese houses, with cane tables, &c. All the feet
of the tables, sofas, &c., soon became instinct with life: the abominable
head of the crocodile, and his leering eyes, looked out at me, multiplied
into a thousand repetitions; and I stood loathing and fascinated. And so
often did this hideous reptile haunt my dreams that many times the very
same dream was broken up in the very same way: I heard gentle voices
speaking to me (I hear everything when I am sleeping), and instantly I
awoke. It was broad noon, and my children were standing, hand in hand,
at my bedside--come to show me their coloured shoes, or new frocks, or to
let me see them dressed for going out.
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