said never to have acted better than when he gave himself up to this hallucination. Painters, also, frequently have the power to summon before their mind's eye the features of those whose portrait they are painting; Blake, for instance, was able actually to finish likenesses from images he saw sitting in the chair where the real persons had been seated. While visions are quite common, delusions of the other senses are less frequent. The insane alone hear strange conversations. Hallucinations of the taste cause patients to enjoy delightful dishes, or to partake of spoiled meat and other unpalatable viands, which have no existence. Sweet smells and incense are often perceived, bad odors much less frequently. The touch is of all senses the least likely to be deceived; still deranged people occasionally feel a slight touch as a severe blow, and persons suffering from certain diseases are convinced that ants, spiders, or other insects are running over their bodies. The favorite season of visions is night--mainly the hour about midnight--and in the whole year, the time of Advent, but also the nights from Christmas to New Year. This is, of course, not a feature of supernatural life, but the simple effect of the greater quiet and the more thoughtful, inward life, which these seasons are apt to bring to busy men. The reality of our surroundings disappears with the setting sun, and in deep night we are rendered almost wholly independent of the influence exercised in the day by friends, family, and even furniture. All standards of measurement, moreover, disappear, and we lose the correct estimate of both space and time. Turning our thoughts at such times with greater energy and perseverance inward, our imagination has free scope, and countless images appear before our mind's eye which are not subject to the laws of real life. Darkness, stillness, and solitude, the three great features of midnight seasons, all favor the full activity of our fancy, and set criticism at defiance by denying us all means of comparison with real sounds or sights. At the same time, it is asserted, that under such circumstances men are also better qualified to perceive manifestations which, during the _turba_ of daily life, are carelessly ignored or really imperceptible to the common senses. So long as the intercourse with the world and its exigencies occupy all our thoughts, and self-interest makes us look fixedly only at some one great purpose of life, we are deaf and blind to all that does not clearly belong to this world. But when these demands are no longer made upon us, and especially when, as in the time of Advent, our thoughts are somewhat drawn from earthly natures, and our eyes are lifted heavenward, then we are enabled to give free scope to our instincts, or, if we prefer the real name, to the additional sense by which we perceive intangible things. A comparison has often been drawn between the ability to see visions and our power to distinguish the stars.