"It is said that a dream produced a powerful effect on Hone's mind.He dreamt that he was introduced into a room where he was an entirestranger, and saw himself seated at a table, and on going towards thewindow his attention was somehow or other attracted to the window-shutter, and particularly to a knot in the wood, which was of singularappearance; and on waking the whole scene, and especially the knot inthe shutter, left a most vivid impression on his mind. Some timeafterwards, on going, I think, into the country, he was at some houseshown into a chamber where he had never been before, and whichinstantly struck him as being the identical chamber of his dream. Heturned directly to the window, where the same knot in the shuttercaught his eye. This incident, to his investigating spirit, induced atrain of reflection which overthrew his cherished theories ofmaterialism, and resulted in conviction that there were spiritualagencies as susceptible of proof as any facts of physical science; andthis appears to have been one of the links in that mysterious chain ofevents by which, according to the inscrutable purposes of the Divinewill, man is sometimes compelled to bow to an unseen and divine power,and ultimately to believe and live.""Another of the Christian friends from whom, in his later years,William Hone received so much kindness, has also furnishedrecollections of him." . . . Two or three anecdotes which he related are all I cancontribute towards a piece of mental history which, if preserved,would have been highly interesting. The first in point of time as tohis taste of mind, was a circumstance which shook his confidence in_materialism_, though it did not lead to his conversion. It was oneof those mental phenomena which he saw to be _inexplicable_ by thedoctrines he then held."It was as follows: He was called in the course of business into apart of London quite new to him, and as he walked along the street henoticed to himself that he had never been there; but on being showninto a room in a house where he had to wait some time, he immediatelyfancied that it was all familiar, that he had seen it before, 'and ifso,' said he to himself, 'there is a very peculiar knot in thisshutter'. He opened the shutter and found the knot. 'Now then,'thought he, 'here is something I cannot explain on my principles!'"Indeed the occurrence is not very explicable on any principles, as adetail not visible without search was sought and verified, and that bya habitual mocker at anything out of the common way. For example,Hone published a comic explanation, correct or not, of the famousStockwell mystery.Supposing Hone's story to be true, it naturally conducts us to yetmore unfamiliar, and therefore less credible dreams, in which theunknown past, present, or future is correctly revealed.
