Page:The cream of the jest; a comedy of evasions (IA creamofjestcomed00caberich).pdf/158

 It is not necessary to defend his course of reasoning; to the contrary, its fallacy is no less apparent than its conduciveness to unbusinesslike conclusions. But it is highly necessary to tell you that, according to Felix Kennaston's account, now, turn by turn, he was in Horvendile's person rapt by nearly every passion, every emotion, the human race has ever known. True, throughout these dramas into which chance plunged him, in that he knew always he was dreaming, he was at once performer and spectator; but he played with the born actor's zest—feeling his part, as people say—and permitting the passion he portrayed to possess him almost completely.

Almost completely, be it repeated; for there was invariably a sufficient sense of knowing he was only dreaming to prevent entire abandonment to the raw emotion. Kennaston preferred it thus. He preferred in this more comely way to play with human passions, rather than, as seemed the vulgar use, to consent to become their battered play-*thing.

It pleased him, too, to be able to have done with such sensations and emotions as did not in