“If I understand you right,” said Mirzoza, “as I think I do, a dream is a piece of patchwork, the patches of which are more in number, more regularly fitted, according as the dreamer has a more lively turn of thought, a more rapid imagination, and a more faithful memory. Might not madness also consist in this? And when an inhabitant of the Petites Maisons cries out that he sees lightning, hears the rattling of thunder, and that gulfs gape under his feet; or when Ariadne at her glass smiles at herself, finds her eyes sparkling, her complexion charming, her teeth white, and her mouth little; might not one justly say, that these two disordered brains, deceived by very distant affinities, look on imaginary objects as present and real?”

“You have hit it off, madam: yes, a due examination of mad folks will convince anybody, that their condition is but a continual dream.”