The man who walks in his
sleep says it is not a club. So say all of his kind with which he
herds. They gather together and solemnly and gloatingly make and
repeat certain noises that sound like "discretion," "acumen,"
"initiative," "enterprise." These noises are especially gratifying
when they are made backward. They mean the same things, but they
sound different. And in either case, forward or backward, the spirit
of the dream is not disturbed.
When a man strikes a foul blow in the prize-ring the fight is
immediately stopped, he is declared the loser, and he is hissed by
the audience as he leaves the ring. But when a man who walks in his
sleep strikes a foul blow he is immediately declared the victor and
awarded the prize; and amid acclamations he forthwith turns his prize
into a seat in the United States Senate, into a grotesque palace on
Fifth Avenue, and into endowed churches, universities and libraries,
to say nothing of subsidized newspapers, to proclaim his greatness.
The red animal in the somnambulist will out.
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