my
future life, and when my case seemed to grow more desperate day by day, I
beheld in a dream the figure of myself running towards the base of a
mountain which stood upon my right hand, in company with a vast crowd of
people of every station and age and sex--women, men, old men, boys,
infants, poor men and rich men, clad in raiment of every sort. I inquired
whither we were all running, whereupon one of the multitude answered that
we were all hastening on to death. I was greatly terrified at these words,
when I perceived a mountain on my left hand. Then, having turned myself
round so that it stood on my right side, I grasped the vines (which, here
in the midst of the mountains and as far as the place wherein I stood,
were covered with dry leaves, and bare of grapes, as we commonly see them
in autumn) and began to ascend. At first I found this difficult, for the
reason that the mountain was very steep round the base, but having
surmounted this I made my way upward easily. When I had come to the summit
it seemed that I was like to pass beyond the dictates of my own will.
Steep naked rocks appeared on every side, and I narrowly escaped falling
down from a great height into a gloomy chasm. So dreadful is all this that
now, what though forty years have rolled away, the memory thereof still
saddens and terrifies me. Then, having turned towards the right where I
could see naught but a plain covered with heath, I took that path out of
fear, and, as I wended thither in reckless mood, I found that I had come
to the entrance of a rude hut, thatched with straw and reeds and rushes,
and that I held by my right hand a boy about twelve years of age and clad
in a grey garment. Then at this very moment I was aroused from sleep, and
my dream vanished.

"In this vision was clearly displayed the deathless name which was to be
mine, my life of heavy and ceaseless work, my imprisonment, my seasons of
grievous terror and sadness, and my abiding-place foreshadowed as
inhospitable, by the sharp stones I beheld: barren, by the want of trees
and of all serviceable plants; but destined to be, nevertheless, in the
end happy, and righteous, and easy. This dream told also of my lasting
fame in the future, seeing that the vine yields a harvest every year. As
to the boy, if he were indeed my good spirit, the omen was lucky, for I
held him very close. If he were meant to foreshadow my grandson it would
be less fortunate. That cottage in the desert was my