“On a fair day, I went into the town of Waldshut, accompanied by two young foresters who are still alive. It was evening, and, tired with our walk, we went into an inn called the Vine. We took our supper with a numerous company at the public table; when it happened that they made themselves merry over the peculiarities and simplicity of the Swiss, in connexion with the belief in Mesmerism, Lavater’s physiognomical system, and the like. One of my companions, whose national pride was touched by their raillery, begged me to make some reply, particularly in answer to a young man of superior appearance, who sat opposite, and had indulged in unrestrained ridicule. It happened that the events of this very person’s life had just previously passed before my mind. I turned to him with the question, whether he would reply to me with truth and candour, if I narrated to him the most secret passages of his history, he being as little known to me as I to him? That would, I suggested, go something beyond Lavater’s physiognomical skill. He promised, if I told the truth, to admit it openly. Then I narrated the events with which my dream-vision had furnished me, and the table learnt the history of the young tradesman’s life, of his school years, his peccadilloes, and, finally, of a little act of roguery committed by him on the strong box of his employer. I described the uninhabited room with its white walls, where, to the right of the brown door, there had stood upon the table the small black money-chest, &c. A dead silence reigned in the company during this recital, interrupted only when I occasionally asked if I spoke the truth. The man, much struck, admitted the correctness of each circumstance—even, which I could not expect, of the last. Touched with his frankness, I reached my hand to him across the table, and closed my narrative. He asked my name, which I gave him. We sat up late in the night conversing. He may be alive yet. “Now I can well imagine how a lively imagination could picture, romance-fashion, from the obvious character of a person, how he would conduct himself under given circumstances. But whence came to me the involuntary knowledge of accessory details, which were without any sort of interest, and respected people who for the most part were utterly indifferent to me, with whom I neither had, nor wished to have, the slightest association? Or was it in each case mere coincidence? Or had the listener, to whom I described his history, each time other images in his mind than the accessory ones of my story, but, in surprise at the essential resemblance of my story to the truth, lost sight of the points of difference? Yet I have, in consideration of this possible source of error, several times taken pains to describe the most trivial circumstances that my dream-vision has shown me.