EMERGENCE OF OLD IMPEESSIONS. 409 



this is certainly so. When I was five or six years old, I dreamed that I 

 was passing by a large pond of water in a very solitary place. On the 

 opposite side of it there stood a great tree, that looked as if it had been 

 struck by lightning ; and in the pond, at another part, an old fallen trunk, 

 on one of the prone limbs of which there was a turtle sunning himself. 

 On a sudden a wind arose, which forced me into the pond, and in my dy- 

 ing struggles to extricate myself from its green and slimy waters, I awoke, 

 trembling with terror. 



"About eight years subsequently, while recovering from a nearly fatal 

 attack of scarlet fever, this dream presented itself to me, identical in all 

 respects, again. Even up to this time I do not think I had ever seen 

 a living tortoise or turtle, but I indistinctly remembered there was the 

 picture of one in the first spelling-book that had been given me. Per- 

 haps, on account of my critical condition, this second dream impressed me 

 more dreadfully than the first. 



" A dozen years more elapsed. I had become a physician, and was 

 now actively pursuing my professional duties in one of the Southern 

 states. It so fell out that one July afternoon I had to take a long and 

 wearisome ride on horseback. It was Sunday, and extremely hot ; the 

 path was solitary, and not a house for miles. The forest had that in- 

 tense silence which is so characteristic of this part of the day ; all the 

 wild animals and birds seemed to have gone to their retreats, to be rid of 

 the heat of the sun. Suddenly, at one point of the road I came upon a 

 great stagnant water-pool, and, casting my eyes across it, there stood a 

 pine-tree blasted by lightning, and on a log that was nearly even with 

 the surface, a turtle was basking in the sun. The dream of my infancy 

 was upon me ; the bridle fell from my hands ; an unutterable fear over- 

 shadowed me as I slunk away from the accursed place. 



" Though business occasionally afterward would have drawn me that 

 way, I could not summon the resolution to go, and actually have taken 

 roundabout paths. It seemed to me profoundly amazing that the dream 

 that I had had should, after twenty years, be realized without respect to 

 difference of scenery, or climate, or age. A good clergyman of my ac- 

 quaintance took the opportunity of improving the circumstance to my 

 spiritual advantage ; and in his kind enthusiasm, for he knew that I had 

 more than once been brought to the point of death by such fevers, inter- 

 preted my dream that I should die of marsh miasm. 



" Most persons have doubtless observed that they suddenly encounter 

 circumstances or events of a trivial nature in their course of life of which 

 they have an indistinct recollection that they have dreamed before. It 

 seemed for a long time to me that this was a case of that kind, and that 

 it might be set down among the mysterious and unaccountable. How 

 wonderful it is that we so often fail to see the simple explanation of 



