truck into your dream. Real sounds often mix with the illusions
of sleep. I am surprised that a dream should make such an impression on
a young lady so free from superstition as you are.' She continued to
jest on the subject, and slightly annoyed me by her persistence in
believing it a dream, when I was perfectly sure of having been wide
awake. To settle the question, I summoned a messenger and sent him to
inquire how Rosa did. He returned with the answer that she died that
morning at five o'clock."

I wrote the story as Miss Hosmer told it to me, and after I had shown
it to her, I asked if she had any objection, to its being published,
without suppression of names. She replied, "You have reported the story
of Rosa correctly. Make what use you please of it. You cannot think it
more interesting, or unaccountable, than I do myself."

A remarkable instance of communication between spirits at the moment of
death is recorded in the Life of the Rev. Joseph S. Buckminster, written
by his sister. When he was dying in Boston, their father was dying in
Vermont, ignorant of his son's illness. Early in the morning, he said to
his wife, "My son Joseph is dead." She told him he had been dreaming.
He calmly replied, "I have not slept, nor dreamed. He is dead." When
letters arrived from Boston, they announced that the spirit of the son
had departed from his body the same night that the father received an
impression of it.

Such incidents suggest curious psychological inquiries, which I think
have attracted less attention than they deserve. It is common to explain
all such phenomena as "optical illusions" produced by "disordered
nerves." But _is_ that any explanation? _How_ do certain states of the
nerves produce visions as distinct as material forms? In the two cases I
have mentioned, there was no disorder of the nerves, no derangement of
health, no disquietude of mind. Similar accounts come to us from all
nations, and from the remotest periods of time; and I doubt whether
there ever was a universal superstition that had not some great,
unchangeable truth for its basis. Some secret laws of our being are
wrapt up in these occasional mysteries, and in the course of the world's
progress we may perhaps become familiar with the explanation, and
find genuine philosophy under the mask of superstition. When any
well-authenticated incidents of this kind are related, it is a very
common inquiry, "What are such visions sent _for_?" The question