
In this witty, rambling meditation, a restless narrator drifts through a London street‑corner conversation about the value of a “ghost of sixpence”—a playful paradox that blurs money, imagination, and the intangible. The dialogue spirals from the economics of phantoms to the nature of dreams, invoking Johnson, Boswell, and the restless specters that haunt both waking thought and sleeping reverie. As the talk unravels, the essayist invites listeners to consider how many unseen visitors we entertain in a single night, hinting at an invisible economy of ideas.
Soon after, a solitary stroll through the maze of Holborn leads to an unexpected encounter with a stark, black‑bound volume titled “Dreams,” its cover adorned with stark white faces—a young beauty and a witchly figure—prompting further rumination on the layers of illusion that dress our inner lives. The piece balances erudite allusion with a conversational tone, making the abstract feel like a walk through foggy streets. Listeners will find themselves drawn into a lively, philosophical wander, where every turn suggests that even the most ordinary moments may conceal a legion of unseen narratives.
Language
en
Duration
~3 hours (199K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Produced by Chuck Greif, MFR and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
Release date
2016-09-29
Rights
Public domain in the USA.
1846–1898
A lively Irish storyteller of the late Victorian era, he wrote novels, short stories, and essays that carried readers from Irish settings to the bustling world of London journalism. His best-known novel, The Mystery of Killard, helped secure his place among 19th-century popular writers.
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