exceptional visions visit me, but only ordinary dreams, incongruous
and insignificant after their kind. Observation, based on an
experience of considerable length, justifies me, I think, in saying
that climate, altitude, and electrical conditions are not without
their influence in the production of the cerebral state necessary
to the exercise of the faculty I have described. Dry air, high
levels, and a crisp, calm, exhilarating atmosphere favor its activity;
while, on the other hand, moisture, proximity to rivers, cloudy
skies, and a depressing, heavy climate, will, for an indefinite
period, suffice to repress it altogether. It is not, therefore,
surprising that the greater number of these dreams, and, especially,
the most vivid, detailed and idyllic, have occurred to me while
on the continent. At my own residence on the banks of the Severn,
in a humid, low-lying tract of country, I very seldom experience
such manifestations, and sometimes, after a prolonged sojourn at
home, am tempted to fancy that the dreaming gift has left me never
to return. But the results of a visit to Paris or to Switzerland
always speedily reassure me; the necessary magnetic or psychic
tension never fails to reassert itself; and before many weeks have
elapsed my Diary is once more rich with the record of my
nightly visions.

Some of these phantasmagoria have furnished me with the framework, and
even details, of stories which from time to time I have contributed
to various magazines. A ghost story,* published some years ago in
a London magazine, and much commented on because of its peculiarly
weird and startling character, had this origin; so had a fairy tale,**
which appeared in a Christmas Annual last year, and which has recently
been re-issued in German by the editor of a foreign periodical. Many
of my more