mportant, they can most speedily rid themselves of
the preposterous delusion that all dreams alike, whether they issue from
the ivory gate or the gate of horn, are equally to be held in reverence.
A quantitative estimate of the value of dreams is one of those things
for which psychical science still sighs in vain.

Chapter IV.

Some Historical and Other Cases.

Of the premonitions of history there are many, too familiar to need more
than a passing allusion here. The leading case is, of course, the dream
of Pilate's wife, which, if it had been attended to, might have averted
the crucifixion. But there again foreknowledge was impotent against
fate. Calphurnia, Caesar's wife, in like manner strove in vain to avert
the doom of her lord. There is no story more trite than that which tells
of the apparition which warned Brutus that Caesar would make Philippi his
trysting-place. In these cases the dreams occurred to those closely
associated with the doomed. One of the best known of dream presentiments
in English history occurred to a person who had no connection with the
victim. The assassination of Mr. Perceval in the Lobby of the House of
Commons was foreseen in the minutest detail by John Williams, a Cornish
mine manager, eight or nine days before the assassination took place.
Three times over he dreamed that he saw a small man, dressed in a blue
coat and white waistcoat, enter the Lobby of the House of Commons, when
immediately another person, dressed in a snuff-coloured coat, took a
pistol from under his coat and shot the little man in his left breast.
On asking who the sufferer was he was informed that it was Mr. Perceval,
Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was so much impressed by the dream that
he consulted his friends as to whether he should not go up to London and
warn Mr. Perceval. Unfortunately they dissuaded him, and on May 13th the
news arrived that Mr. Perceval had been killed on the 11th. Some time
afterwards, when he saw a picture of the scene of the assassination, it
reproduced all the details of the thrice-dreamed vision. There does not
seem to have been any connection between Mr. Williams and Mr. Perceval,
nor does there seem to have been any reason why it should have been
revealed to him rather than to any one else.

_The Inner Light of the Quakers._

The Quakers, whether it is because they allow their Unconscious
Personality to have more say in their lives than others who do not
practise quieti