and I do not remember ever to have seen him angry.  All that surrounded him was in the fashion of the olden time.  I never perceived any alteration in his wainscoted room.  His library contained, besides law-works, only the earliest books of travels, sea-voyages, and discoveries of countries.  Altogether I can call to mind no situation more adapted than his to awaken the feeling of uninterrupted peace and eternal duration.

But the reverence we entertained for this venerable old man was raised to the highest degree by a conviction that he possessed the gift of prophecy, especially in matters that pertained to himself and his destiny.  It is true he revealed himself to no one distinctly and minutely, except to my grandmother; yet we were all aware that he was informed of what was going to happen by significant dreams.  He assured his wife, for instance, at a time when he was still a junior councillor, that, on the first vacancy, he would obtain the place left open on the bench of the Schoeffen; and soon afterwards, when one of those officers actually died of apoplexy, my grandfather gave orders that his house should be quietly got ready prepared on the day of electing and balloting, to receive his guests and congratulators.  Sure enough, the decisive gold ball was drawn in his favor.  The simple dream by which he had learned this, he confided to his wife as follows:  He had seen himself in the ordinary full assembly of councilmen, where all went on just as usual.  Suddenly the late Schoeff rose from his seat, descended the steps, pressed him in the most complimentary manner to take the vacant place, and then departed by the door.

Something similar occurred on the death of the Schultheiss.  They make no delay in supplying this place; as they always have to fear that the emperor will, at some time, resume his ancient right of nominating the officer.  On this occasion, the messenger of the court came at midnight to summon an extraordinary session for the next morning; and, as the light in his lantern was about to expire, he asked for a candle’s end to help him on his way.  “Give him a whole one,” said my grandfather to the ladies:  “he takes the trouble all on my account.”  This expression anticipated the result,—­he was made Schultheiss.  And what rendered the circumstance particularly remarkable was, that, although his representative was the third and last to draw at the ballot, the two silver balls first came out, leaving the golden ball at the bottom of the bag for him.

Perfectly prosaic, simple, and without a trace of the fantastic or miraculous, were the other dreams, of which we were informed.  Moreover, I remember that once, as a boy, I was turning over his books and memoranda, and found, among some other remarks which related to gardening, such sentences as these:  “To-night N. N. came to me, and said,”—­the name and revelation being written in cipher; or, “This night I saw,”—­all the rest being again in cipher, except the conjunctions and similar words, from which nothing could be learned.