ough, in my
triumph, to offer an explanatory chat to my reader.

This is a history of Dreams; and there will be those who will sneer at
such a history, as the work of a dreamer. So indeed it is; and you, my
courteous reader, are a dreamer too!

You would perhaps like to find your speculations about wealth, marriage,
or influence called by some better name than Dreams. You would like to
see the history of them--if written at all--baptized at the font of your
own vanity, with some such title as--life's cares, or life's work. If
there had been a philosophic naming to my observations, you might have
reckoned them good; as it is, you count them all bald and palpable
fiction.

But is it so? I care not how matter-of-fact you may be, you have in your
own life at some time proved the very truth of what I have set down; and
the chances are, that even now, gray as you may be, and economic as you
may be, and devotional as you pretend to be, you light up your Sabbath
reflections with just such dreams of wealth, of per centages, or of
family, as you will find scattered over these pages.

I am not to be put aside with any talk about stocks, and duties, and
respectability: all these, though very eminent matters, are but so many
types in the volume of your thought; and your eager resolves about them
are but so many ambitious waves breaking up from that great sea of
dreamy speculation that has spread over your soul from its first start
into the realm of Consciousness.

No man's brain is so dull, and no man's eye so blind, that they cannot
catch food for dreams. Each little episode of life is full, had we but
the perception of its fulness. There is no such thing as blank in the
world of thought. Every action and emotion have their development
growing and gaining on the soul. Every affection has its tears and
smiles. Nay, the very material world is full of meaning, and by
suggesting thought is making us what we are and what we will be.

The sparrow that is twittering on the edge of my balcony is calling up
to me this moment a world of memories that reach over half my lifetime,
and a world of hope that stretches farther than any flight of sparrows.
The rose-tree which shades his mottled coat is full of buds and
blossoms; and each bud and blossom is a token of promise that has
issues covering life, and reaching beyond death. The quiet sunshine
beyond the flower and beyond the sparrow,--glistening upon the leaves,
and playing in delici