“Bosh!” exclaimed the lawyer. “That’s all fantastic piffle! I can cite you an example from my own experience which is as interesting as it is instructive. I was very sick and confined to bed. Suddenly I awoke, my heart palpitating, and heard a loud voice screaming these words right into my ears: ‘You will live fourteen days more! Take advantage of this period!’ Just fourteen days later I was sailing on the ocean. A frightful sirocco wind was tossing our little steamer from right to left and from left to right so violently that we could not retain our upright positions. And suddenly my prophecy--which I had almost completely forgotten--came back to me. But I remained very cool, like a scientist who is on the eve of making a great discovery and risking his life to do so. As you see I did not die, and the ship came safely into port. But had I accidentally perished, and if my prophetic dream--the outward projection of my unconscious fear--my unpleasant hallucination had been known to the people about me--the matter would have been construed as a new confirmation of the truth of premonitions. We have so many premonitions that are never fulfilled that the few that happen accidentally to come true do not really matter. Lots of things in life are that way. We speak of our ‘hard luck’ because we forget the times when we have been lucky. Luck rushes by so swiftly! Bad luck creeps, oh, so slowly! And, coming down to facts, I do not know of a single instance of an undoubted fulfillment of a prophecy. For I must confess that all these American and Berlin prophets who have recently given such striking proofs of their ‘second sight’ do not impress me. They have not uttered a single prophecy precisely and accurately, and oracular speeches delivered in general terms are as elastic as a rubber band, and can be applied to almost anything. A great conflagration, a destructive earthquake, or a cruel war will rarely disappoint a prophet. Somewhere or other in this wide world there is a conflagration some time during the year, the earth rocks somewhere, and somewhere machine guns are being fired. I therefore do not believe that our friend will be trampled to death by frightened horses. At the most what will happen will be that his pegasus, growing tired of being abused by him, will suddenly throw him down.”