JET. 22.] A GHOST STORY. 203 



presented so distinctly to my eyes was a dream, I 

 cannot for a moment doubt; yet for years I had had 



no communication with G , nor had there been 



anything to recall him to my recollection ; nothing 

 had taken place during our Swedish travels either 

 connected with G or with India, or with any- 

 thing relating to him, or to any member of his family. 

 I recollected quickly enough our old discussion, and 

 the bargain we had made. I could not discharge 



from my mind the impression that G must have 



died, and that his appearance to me was to be received 

 by me as proof of a future state ; yet all the while I 

 felt convinced that the whole was a dream ; and so 

 painfully vivid, and so unfading was the impression, 

 that I could not bring myself to talk of it, or to make 

 the slightest allusion to it. I finished dressing ; and 

 as we had agreed to make an early start, I was ready 

 by six o'clock, the hour of our early breakfast. 



[Brougham, Oct. 16, 1862. I have just been copy- 

 ing out from my journal the account of this strange 

 dream : Certissima mortis imago ! And now to finish 

 the story, begun above sixty years since. Soon after 

 my return to Edinburgh, there arrived a letter from 



India, announcing G 's death ! and stating that 



he had died on the 1 9th of December ! ! Singular 

 coincidence ! yet when one reflects on the vast num- 

 ber of dreams which night after night pass through 

 our brains, the number of "coincidences between the 

 vision and the event are perhaps fewer and less 

 remarkable than a fair calculation of chances would 



