M MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. II. 



yet the possibility of my death being a violent and sudden one, 

 preventing the arrangement of such things as this, has induced 

 me to preface this book, that those into whose possession it may 

 designedly or accidentally come, may perfectly understand the 

 cause of its being written. 



" Several evenings ago I had a curious dream, different from 

 any preceding one, both as to kind and degree. I awoke in the 

 middle of the night surrounded by deep darkness and utter 

 stillness. I had the most distinct sensation of having been 

 dreaming, although the precise nature of the dream I could not 

 recollect. I felt a strange indescribable sensation of great hap- 

 piness, evidently a continuation of the feelings which had pos- 

 sessed me immediately before awaking, and there was no evident 

 cause to excite such lively feelings of delight. I had the sen- 

 sation of being alone in some great hall or boundless valley, in 

 a state of the utmost loneliness and stillness imaginable, yet 

 pervaded with a feeling of intense happiness, and that happiness 

 calm and deep, in no way partaking of the character of idle 

 mirth or careless levity, but accompanied with a feeling of the 

 deepest solemnity and reverential awe felt for some invisible 

 being of great power, to whom I had some obscure idea I was 

 indebted for the feelings of pleasure ; but my thoughts were so 

 intent on reflecting on the curious condition of happiness, that 

 I turned my attention very slightly to the cause of their occur- 

 rence. I awoke, but this feeling of deep happiness did not 

 immediately disappear, not indeed till it had been much the 

 subject of reflection and analysis. 



" I have no remembrance of having such a dream before. 

 My dreams are for the most part, in health, ludicrous, in dis- 

 ease, frightful ; but in no way resembling the dream in question. 

 It may be plausibly accounted for. On the preceding evening 

 I had been reading, with feelings of great admiration, the 

 ' Confessions of an Opium-Eater,' and in addition enjoying the 

 conversation of a highly intellectual and imaginative friend, and 

 retired to bed under feelings of great excitement, more especially 

 my imagination called into play ; and it may be supposed that 

 such a state of mind easily produced the effects in question, i.e., 

 the dream. This would go to prove the truth of Dr. Macnish's 



