After being occupied with correcting the proofs of my volume on _Pessimism_, I dreamt that my book was handed to me by my publisher, fully illustrated with coloured pictures.

The frontispiece represented the fantastic figure of a man gesticulating in front of a ship, from which he appeared to have just stepped.

My publisher told me it was meant for Hamlet, and I immediately reflected that this character had been selected as a concrete example of the pessimistic tendency.

I may add that, on awaking, I was distinctly aware of having felt puzzled when dreaming, and of having striven to read a meaning into the dream.
The _rationale_ of this dream seems to me to be somewhat as follows.

The image of the completed volume represented, of course, a recurring anticipatory image of waking life.