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favourite Italian poets, Petrarch and Pulci 1 . Above all, 

 he continued to cover many sheets of paper with the 

 written workings of his mind, and obtained consolation 

 from his dreams of immortality. 



Dreams really, not wild waking thoughts, became at 

 that time guides and helpers to him. Being interpreted 

 with admirable ingenuity into such meanings as accorded 

 with his nature, they became prophetic. About four 

 months after his return to Milan from the unsuccessful 

 struggle in Gallarate, Cardan reckoned that he first re- 

 ceived communications of the future in his sleep 1 . Then, 

 as he believed, the dream-power commenced in its full 

 force. Before that time, except in the case of the 

 dream that heralded his marriage, his sleep had scarcely 

 been disturbed with visions worth interpreting. As he 

 got higher up the hill of life such mists increased about 

 him. 



His first dream, of the great series, was of the weary 

 hill of life itself. It was the following 2 . At the close of 

 the year 1534, when all was black about him in his 

 worldly state, and all was looking blacker day by day, 

 Jerome Cardan dreamed in the early dawn that he was 

 running towards the foot of a mountain that stood to the 



1 De Vita Propr. cap. xviii. p. 80. 



2 De Libris Propriis (1557), pp. 21 26. De Libris Propriis. Lib. ult. 

 Op, Tom. i. pp. 100, 101. For the two succeeding dreams and their 

 interpretations. 



