outly denied it. My belief, however, to this day, is, that she was
concerned in it. My beloved sister became a confirmed idiot, and died
about two years after that dreadful night.

My subsequent wretchedness may be traced to this female, for she had
already instilled into my mind a love for the marvelous and supernatural.
I was not satisfied unless I was reading books that treated of these
subjects; and I desired, like the astrologers of old, to read the stars,
and to be endowed with the power of casting the horoscopes of my
fellow-creatures.

When directed by my guardians to select a profession, I chose that of
medicine, as being most congenial to my taste. I was accordingly placed
with a respectable practitioner, and in due time sent to college, to
perfect myself in my profession. I found my studies dry and wearisome, and
was glad to relieve myself with books more capable of interesting me than
those relating to medical subjects.

I had always attached great importance to dreams, and to the various
coincidences which so frequently occur to us in life. I shall mention a
circumstance or two which occurred about this time, and which made a very
forcible impression upon me. I dreamed one night that an intimate friend
of mine, then residing in India, had been killed by being thrown from his
horse. Not many weeks elapsed, before I received intelligence of his
death, which occurred in the very way I have described. I was so struck
with the coincidence, that I instituted further inquiry, and ascertained
that he had died on the same night, and about the same hour on which I had
dreamed that the unfortunate event took place. I reflected a good deal
upon this occurrence. Was it possible, I asked myself, that his
disinthralled spirit had the power of communicating with other spirits,
though thousands of miles intervened? An event so strange I could not
attribute to mere chance. I felt convinced that the information had been
conveyed by design, although the manner of its accomplishment I could not
comprehend.

A circumstance scarcely less remarkable happened to me only a few days
subsequently. I had wandered a few miles into the country, and at length
found myself upon a rising eminence, commanding a view of a picturesque
little village in the distance. Although I had at no period of my life
been in this part of the country, the scene was not novel to me. I had
seen it before. Every object was perfectly familiar. The mill, with