My subsequent wretchedness may be traced to this female, for she had already instilled into my mind a love for the marvelous and supernatural. I was not satisfied unless I was reading books that treated of these subjects; and I desired, like the astrologers of old, to read the stars, and to be endowed with the power of casting the horoscopes of my fellow-creatures. When directed by my guardians to select a profession, I chose that of medicine, as being most congenial to my taste. I was accordingly placed with a respectable practitioner, and in due time sent to college, to perfect myself in my profession. I found my studies dry and wearisome, and was glad to relieve myself with books more capable of interesting me than those relating to medical subjects. I had always attached great importance to dreams, and to the various coincidences which so frequently occur to us in life. I shall mention a circumstance or two which occurred about this time, and which made a very forcible impression upon me. I dreamed one night that an intimate friend of mine, then residing in India, had been killed by being thrown from his horse. Not many weeks elapsed, before I received intelligence of his death, which occurred in the very way I have described. I was so struck with the coincidence, that I instituted further inquiry, and ascertained that he had died on the same night, and about the same hour on which I had dreamed that the unfortunate event took place. I reflected a good deal upon this occurrence. Was it possible, I asked myself, that his disinthralled spirit had the power of communicating with other spirits, though thousands of miles intervened? An event so strange I could not attribute to mere chance. I felt convinced that the information had been conveyed by design, although the manner of its accomplishment I could not comprehend. A circumstance scarcely less remarkable happened to me only a few days subsequently. I had wandered a few miles into the country, and at length found myself upon a rising eminence, commanding a view of a picturesque little village in the distance. Although I had at no period of my life been in this part of the country, the scene was not novel to me. I had seen it before. Every object was perfectly familiar. The mill, with its revolving wheel—the neat cottages, with small gardens in front—and the little stream of water that gently trickled past.