“You know I don’t believe in dreams and visions; but lately I had a sad night of broken sleep, in which the future career of that boy seemed to pass before me. He first appeared as a little child, just beginning to ascend a high hill. Not long after he set out, the two guides who started with him disappeared one after the other. He went on alone, and as the road was open and plain, and as friends met him at every turn, he got along very well. At times he took on the air and bearing of a soldier, and then of a statesman, assuming to lead and control others. As he neared the top of the hill, the way grew more steep and difficult, and his companions became alienated from him, refusing to help him or be led by him. Baffled in his designs, and angered at his ill-success, he began to lay about him with violence, leading some astray, and pulling down others at every attempt to rise. Soon he himself began to slip and slide down the rough and perilous sides of the hill; now regaining his foothold for a little, then losing it again, until at length he stumbled and fell headlong down, down, into a black and yawning gulf at the base! “At this, I woke in distress, and was glad enough to find it was only a dream. Now, you may make as much or as little of this as you please. I think the disturbed state of our country, along with my own indifferent health, must have occasioned it. A letter from his mother, to-day, assures me that her little Aaron is a lively, prattlesome fellow, filling his parents’ hearts with joy. “Your loving sister, “SARAH.” Though “only a dream,” this vision of the night prefigured a sad reality, for within two years both of the “guides” had gone, President Burr in September, 1757, his wife in the same month of the next year, 1758. Passing now down to our own day, the Rev. Walter Colton, sometime alcalde of Monterey, tells us, in his reminiscences of the gold excitement of 1849, that he dreamed of finding gold at a certain spot, had faith enough in his dream to seek for it in that place, and was rewarded by finding it there. A mass of similar testimony might be adduced. One piece coming from a brave soldier, who will not be accused of harboring womanish fears, will bear repeating here. We again quote from that most interesting volume, “Forty-one Years in India.” Lord Roberts, its author, is speaking of his father, then a man close upon seventy.