M. Mélinand writes in a candid spirit, and yet we think his article is calculated to encourage a somewhat unhealthy type of mysticism. We do not see how it is possible to take too serious a view of the life we live in the present. Whether we view it tragically or not must depend in large measure upon our individual experiences; and happy are they into whose lives tragedy does not enter. The very fact that M. Mélinand would dissuade us from taking life tragically shows that he recognizes that life--our waking life--can be brought under the rule of right reason. He does not advise us not to take our dreams tragically, for he knows that the dream state is one not susceptible of rational regulation, and this, we think, might very properly be accounted a third very important difference between dream and reality. The true advice to give to those whose happiness we have at heart is, not to look upon life as a kind of dream, but to take it seriously, to study its laws, and to accept the burdens and duties it imposes. It may be remarked that dreams give very little trouble, as a rule, to those whose waking hours are well spent, and whose minds and bodies are kept in a condition of healthful balance. We can indeed in the waking state take measures to reduce our dreams to a minimum, and to provide that at least they shall not be of a distressing character. Such being the case, it seems idle, to say the least, to speculate, as many besides M. Mélinand have done, on the possible reality of dreams. What Bottom said of his dream, "Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream," might be applied without much risk of error to dreams generally; unless the exposition takes the direction of endeavoring to explain what antecedent mental or physical condition, or what circumstances acting upon the sleeper, may have given rise to the dream in a given case.