USE OF DREAMS. 351 



opinion. I knew a man who had an ill-tem- 

 pered wife of the Xantippe class; he never, 

 he assured me, dreamt of her, but occasionally 

 of a new attachment to a creature charming 

 in body and mind. And, since I have become 

 an angler, it has not been after enjoying the 

 sport that it has recurred to me in sleep, but, 

 on the contrary, when for an unusually long 

 time I have been so situated as to have been 

 deprived of it. 



PISCATOE. I like your optimism ; and be- 

 lieving there is " good in everything," either 

 manifest or latent, I will not exclude dreams ; 

 they may be for higher ends than those you 

 allude to ; they may be useful as connecting 

 the material with the immaterial, the pal- 

 pable and sensuous with the purely ideal, 

 the present with the past, without regard to 

 common time ; and so to excite reflection on 

 the higher spiritual nature of man and spe- 

 culation on his destiny, associated with that 

 most comforting and to be cherished aspiration 

 of the non omnis monar. And now, as the 

 night is well advanced, and you have to leave 

 early to-morrow morning, let us say good night. 

 I shall be up " to speed the parting guest," 



