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always blowing in my dream. At length, I lost that feeble hold upon
reality, and was engaged with two dear friends, but who they were
I don't know, at the siege of some town in a roar of cannonnading
The thunder of the cannon was so loud and incessant, that I could
not hear something I much desired to hear, until I made a great
exertion and awoke. It was broad day - eight or nine o'clock;
the storm raging, in lieu of the batteries'; and someone knocking
and calling at my door.
That the mood is important is obvious from the very first line since
the words "dark gloom" and "solitary" hint that David's feelings when
he returns to his room and is all alone, are none too pleasant. He
tries to escape from it in his sleep but in his dream he has to look
the same gloom in the eyes which has been denoted by the words that
describe the wheather, it is "always blowing" in the dream, and the
noise, the thunder of the cannon is "loud and incessant".
Everything is confusing in the dream, he is "in a variety of scenes",
has only a "feeble" hold upon reality and does not know who the two
friends are however "dear" they may be, with whom he is at the siege
of some town. The dream troubles David a good deal, he can not hear
something he "much desires" to hear and he has to make "a great
exertion" to awake.
He awakes to the same noise as he has just escaped in his dream: a
"storm raging" - the mood lingers all the time. In this way the dream
fits in the whole chapter, it is the natural result of a restless
evening in an atmosphere full of worries, full of impending danger.
The dream only prolongs the same mood in a slightly altered form.
The elements mentioned, the confusion, the exertion David has to make,
all help to be build up towards the ending of the chapter, the ship-
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wreck in which Steerforth dies.
One other dream concerning David's relationship with Steerforth is
mentioned in this novel. It is in Chapter 19, much earlier in the
book, Davis is much younger and less critical as yet. He looks up to
Steerforth, which we sense in the Gothic elements and in the weather,
again a thunderstorm. Steerforth still has a powerful influence over
David:
"Here, among pillows enough for six, I soon fell asleep in a bliss
ful condition and dreamed of ancient Rome, Steerforth and friend
ship, until the early morning coaches, rumbling out of the arch
way underneath, made me dream of thunder and the gods."
