time), this very important letter would have been left out of her biography, had she not thus called me and led me to it. There was barely time to get [it] in before the first casting of the proofs. I went with it myself out to the University Press the next morning to see where I could now introduce it in the part of proofs not yet cast—as I couldn't even delay for the mail. Miss Field's waking me,—her urgent and excited and forcible manner and words,—were just as real to me as would have been [those] of some friend in this world coming to my bedside in the night.
On a first reading Miss Whiting's interpretation of this dramatic incident would appear to be the most probable. But a case which offers many points of similarity has been put on record by Dr. Hilprecht, Professor of Assyrian at the University of Pennsylvania. After puzzling over the inscription on two fragments of agate from the temple of Bel, at Nippur, he fell asleep and dreamt that the priest of Bel appeared to him, led him into the treasure chamber of the temple, and then gave him the history of the two fragments and an interpretation of the inscription. This interpretation, the next day he found to be correct. Here there can be little doubt that the revelation made in the dream was but the final result of the dreamer's own processes of unconscious celebration, and the priestly visitant only a puppet in the drama.[1]
It is more difficult in the next case to apply the hypothesis of latent knowledge, though Professor Alexander, who procured the narrative for us, writes
- ↑ Quoted in Proceedings, S. P. R., vol. xii., p. 11.
