From the brain of a dreamer who dreamed there more than a hundred years ago there issued a ghost--the most monstrous and terrifying that ever looked from the pages of fantastic literature--for a century considered only a gloomy fancy of a wonderful imagination, but now revealed in the light of the world revolution as a hideous prophecy of the terror and agony of the great war. Perchance the prophecy was an accident. It may be that there was nothing miraculous--no inspired vision back of the dream; and still it may be that some yet undiscovered force of mind and soul mirrored in the brain of that bright dreamer the troubled future of the world and caused its expression in the mental creation of a monster. In reviewing this ghost of accidental or miraculous prophecy, as the case may be, it is well to remember that this country of landmarks and memories has ever held a charm for the restless spirits of genius. The hill of Geneva is cathedral-crowned. Its unique and historic river, born of snow and ice and reborn of a crystal lake, divides the city like a stream of blue and trembling light, and the lands that sustain its countryside are a succession of orchards, gardens, and vineyards. The beautiful Lake of Geneva, touching the city with its western extremity, stretches eastward for more than forty miles. Great spirits of many centuries have gathered about this place of dreams to sing their songs to all the future or work out their messages to mankind--poets, philosophers, painters, sculptors, theologians, astronomers, and scientists. There Calvin lived and taught and died. There Rousseau was born to be the siren of free thought, and from that base of dreams went forth to lead his life of wonderful, dissolute, and brilliant vagabondage. And so the list of the great whose lives have touched this charmed and charming place could be extended on and on; but let us leave this to the research of the interested, while we pass to the immortals who are linked with our strange story. In the eventful summer of 1816, while all Europe was being adjusted to the new sensation of living without fear of the great Napoleon, then just settled in his cage at St. Helena; when Germany, at last free from his dominating genius, was already beginning to steel the national heart for a career of supermilitarism, there came to the lonesome shore of this famous lake Lord Byron, the poet Shelley, and Mary Godwin (afterwards Mary Shelley).