1849: Alice, Duchess of Mallard
Private papers
Last night, or sometime around there—precise time matters little in dreams—I found myself quite unexpectedly in a most curious room. It was a chamber filled with hats—hats of every sort and shape one could imagine, and a few that one could not. Some were tall and feathered; others were modest bonnets with secrets tucked in their ribbons. Each hat seemed to pulse with a quiet eagerness, a desperate longing to be worn, to become part of someone’s story.
As I wandered, uncertain which to choose, a gentle voice beckoned from the shadows. It belonged to a milliner, a lady of grace and infinite patience, who regarded me with a knowing smile as though she had been expecting me all along. She spoke softly about the tales each hat carried, the lives they had touched and the new adventures they yearned to embark upon.
Her presence was comforting, and with her delicate touch, she offered to help me find the perfect one—an act less about adornment and more about becoming. As she lifted a hat trimmed with peacock feathers, I felt a thrill, as though a door to countless possibilities had swung open.
Upon waking, the vividness of the dream lingered, as did the sense that hats, much like people, long not merely to be seen but to be truly known. Dreams, I find, are often like exquisite hats—often strange, occasionally inconvenient but undeniably transformative.
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