CHAPTER X.
DREAMS.
I went to bed early, and tried in vain to sleep.

The events of the day passed continually through my brain, and brought on a nervous headache.
All the blood in my body seemed concentrated in my head, leaving my feet and hands paralyzed with cold.

After tossing about for many hours, I dropped off into a sort of mesmeric sleep, full of confused images, among which the singular face of Dinah North haunted me like the genius of the night-mare.
Dreams are one of the greatest mysteries in the unsolved problem of life.

I have been a dreamer from my cradle, and if any person could explain the phenomena, the practical experience of a long life ought to have invested me with that power.
Most persons, in spite of themselves, or what they consider to be their better judgment, attach a superstitious importance to these visions of the night; nor is the vague belief in the spiritual agency employed in dreams, diminished by the remarkable dreams and their fulfilment, which are recorded in Holy Writ, the verity of which we are taught to believe as an article of faith.
My eyes are scarcely closed in sleep, before I become an actor in scenes of the most ludicrous or terrific nature.

All my mental and physical faculties become intensified, and enjoy the highest state of perfection; as if the soul centered in itself the qualities of its mysterious triune existence.
Beautiful visions float before the sight, such as the waking eye never beheld; and the ear is ravished with music which no earthly skill could produce.