for a fraction of a second, and it is at such
moments that the dreamer comes back from his dream
"trailing clouds of glory." From this also come all
those prophetic dreams many of which are well attested.
I have had a recent personal experience of one which
has not yet perhaps entirely justified itself but is
even now remarkable. Upon April 4th of last year,
1917, I awoke with a feeling that some communication
had been made to me of which I had only carried back
one word which was ringing in my head. That word was
"Piave." To the best of my belief I had never heard
the word before. As it sounded like the name of a
place I went into my study the moment I had dressed and
I looked up the index of my Atlas. There was "Piave"
sure enough, and I noted that it was a river in Italy
some forty miles behind the front line, which at that
time was victoriously advancing. I could imagine few
more unlikely things than that the war should roll back
to the Piave, and I could not think how any military
event of consequence could arise there, but none the
less I was so impressed that I drew up a statement
that some such event would occur there, and I had it
signed by my secretary and witnessed by my wife with
the date, April 4th, attached. It is a matter of
history how six months later the whole Italian line
fell back, how it abandoned successive positions upon
rivers, and how it stuck upon this stream which was
said by military critics to be strategically almost
untenable. If nothing more should occur (I write upon
February 20th, 1918), the reference to the name has