looking at the like of it all one's life!

Thus with my dream, compared to common, waking, every-day experience;
only instead of being mere flat, silent little images moving on a dozen
square feet of Bristol-board, and appealing to the eye alone, the things
and people in my dream had the same roundness and relief as in life, and
were life-size; one could move among them and behind them, and feel as
if one could touch and clasp and embrace them if one dared. And the ear,
as well as the eye, was made free of this dark chamber of the brain: one
heard their speech and laughter as in life. And that was not all, for
soft breezes fanned the cheek, the sparrows twittered, the sun gave out
its warmth, and the scent of many flowers made the illusion complete.

And then the Duchess of Towers! She had been not only visible and
audible like the rest, but tangible as well, to the fullest extent of
the sensibility that lay in my nerves of touch; when my hands held hers
I felt as though I were drawing all her life into mine.

With the exception of that one figure, all had evidently been as it
_had_ been in _reality_ a few years ago, to the very droning of an
insect, to the very fall of a blossom!

Had I gone mad by any chance? I had possessed the past, as I had longed
to do a few hours before.

What are sight and hearing and touch and the rest?

Five senses in all.

The stars, worlds upon worlds, so many billions of miles away, what are