Be this true or false, I find that, on reading over the scanty notes above alluded to, written at Bermuda more than six-and-twenty years ago, I am made conscious of a feeling a good deal akin to that which belongs to dreaming. Many objects long forgotten, are brought back to my thoughts with perfect distinctness; and these, again, suggest others, more or less distinctly, of which I possess no written record. At times a whole crowd of these recollections stand forward, almost as palpably as if they had occurred yesterday. I hear the well-known voices of my old messmates—see their long-forgotten faces—and can mark, in my memory’s eye, their very gait, and many minute and peculiar habits. In the next minute, however, all this is so much clouded over, that by no effort of the imagination, assisted even by the journal, can I bring back the picture as it stood before me only a moment before. It sometimes also happens in this curious retrospect, that a strange confusion of dates and circumstances takes place, with a vague remembrance of hopes, and fears, and wishes, painful anticipations, and bitter passing thoughts, all long since gone. But these day dreams of the past sometimes come rushing back on the fancy, all at once, in so confused a manner, that they look exceedingly like what is often experienced in sleep. Is there, in fact, any other difference, except that, in the case of slumber, we have no control over this intellectual experiment, and, in the other, we have the power of varying it at pleasure? When awake we can steer the mental vessel with more or less precision—when asleep our rudder is carried away, and we must drift about at the capricious bidding of our senses, over a confused sea of recollections. It may be asked, what is the use of working out these speculations? To which I would answer, that it may often be highly useful, in the practice of life, for people to trace their thoughts back, in order to see what have been the causes, as well as the effects, of their former resolutions. It is not only interesting, but may be very important, to observe how far determinations of a virtuous nature had an effectual influence in fortifying us against the soft insinuations, or the rude assaults of temptation; or how materially any original defect or subsequent omission in such resolutions may have brought us under the cutting lash of self-reproach.