s weak as it well could be, I
had three dreams, which made a great impression on me; for in ordinary
health my dreams are supremely ridiculous, if not unpleasant; and in
ordinary conditions of illness, very ugly, and always without the
slightest meaning. But these dreams were all distinct and impressive,
and had much meaning, if I chose to take it.

213. The first[BB] was of a Venetian fisherman, who wanted me to follow
him down into some water which I thought was too deep; but he called me
on, saying he had something to show me; so I followed him; and
presently, through an opening, as if in the arsenal wall, he showed me
the bronze horses of St. Mark's, and said, 'See, the horses are putting
on their harness.'

The second was of a preparation at Rome, in St. Peter's, (or a vast hall
as large as St. Peter's,) for the exhibition of a religious drama. Part
of the play was to be a scene in which demons were to appear in the sky;
and the stage servants were arranging gray fictitious clouds, and
painted fiends, for it, under the direction of the priests. There was a
woman dressed in black, standing at the corner of the stage watching
them, having a likeness in her face to one of my own dead friends; and I
knew somehow that she was not that friend, but a spirit; and she made me
understand, without speaking, that I was to watch, for the play would
turn out other than the priests expected. And I waited; and when the
scene came on, the clouds became real clouds, and the fiends real
fiends, agitating them in slow quivering, wild and terrible, over the
heads of the people and priests. I recollected distinctly, however, when
I woke, only the figure of the black woman mocking the people, and of
one priest in an agony of terror, with the sweat pouring from his brow,
but violently scolding one of the stage servants for having failed in
some ceremony, the omission of which, he thought, had given the devils
their power.

The third dream was the most interesting and personal. Some one came to
me to ask me to help in the deliverance of a company of Italian
prisoners who were to be ransomed for money. I said I had no money. They
answered, Yes, I had some that belonged to me as a brother of St.
Francis, if I would give it up. I said I did not know even that I _was_
a brother of St. Francis; but I thought to myself, that perhaps the
Franciscans of Fesole, whom I had helped to make hay in their field in
1845, had adopted me for one; only I