n of substance as the air;
And more inconstant than the wind, who woos
Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
Turning his face to the dew-dropping south.

Il est naturel que nos idees les plus vives et les plus familieres se
retracent pendant le sommeil.

I had a most curious dream about Min that very night.

Probably this was owing to the reactionary mental relief I experienced
after all my doubts and jealousies--you know, "joie fait peur"
sometimes. It might also have resulted from the stronger impression
which my last interview with her had made upon my mind, coupled with all
the sweet hopes and darling imaginings that had sprung suddenly into
existence, when her rose-red lips told me in liquid accents that she
loved me. How deliciously the words had sounded! I seemed to hear them
now once more; and, that kiss of ecstasy--I almost felt it again in all
its passionate intensity!

But, the physiology of dreams, and their origin and connection with our
day life, are subjects that have never been clearly explained,
frequently investigated though they have been by intellects that have
groped to the bottom of almost every phenomenal possibility in the
finite world. We have not yet succeeded in piercing through the thick
veil that hides from our gaze the unseen, ideal, and spiritual cosmos
that surrounds, with its ghostly atmosphere, the more material universe
in which we move and breathe and have our being. We are oblivious, in
most cases, of that thought-peopled, encircling essence; although, it
influences our motives and actions, perhaps, in a greater degree than we
may be willing to allow.

I shall not attempt to solve the workings of the varied phantasmagoria
that flitted across the horizon of my brain that night, curious as they
were; nor, will I try to track out how, and in what way, they retraced
the events of the past, and prognosticated the possibilities of the
future. The task in either direction would be as hopeless as it is
uninteresting; consequently, I will abandon it to the attention of more
inquiring psychological minds than my own, hurrying on to tell what it
was that I dreamt.

My vision was a threefold one--a series of dreams within dreams.

First, I thought that I was on a wide, whitened Alpine plain. It was
night. In front of me, towered on high the rugged peaks of the
Matterhorn, imposing in their grandeur; further on, in the ill