[167] “One day I thought I heard very sweet harmonies in a dream. I awoke, and I found I had resolved the question of fevers: why some are lethal and others not—a question which had troubled me for twenty-five years” (De Somniis, c. iv.).
“In a dream there came to me the suggestion to write this book, divided into exactly twenty-one parts; and I experienced such pleasure in my condition and in the subtlety of these reasonings as I had never experienced before” (De Subtilitate, lib. xviii. p. 915).
[168] “Jewels in sleep are symbolical of sons, of unexpected things, of joy also; because in Italian gioire means ‘to enjoy’ (De Somniis, cap. 21; De Subtilitate, p. 338).
[169] Buttrini, Girolamo Cardano, Savona, 1884.
[170] Bertolotti (I Testamenti di Cardano, 1888) has shown that this legend has no foundation.
[171] “I shall live in the midst of my torments, and among the cares that are my just furies, wild and wandering; I shall fear dark and solitary shades, which will bring before me my first fault; and I shall have in horror and disgust the face of the sun which discovered my misfortunes; I shall fear myself, and, for ever fleeing from myself, I shall never escape.”
[172] Brewster’s Memoirs of Sir I. Newton, vol. ii. p. 100.
[173] Brewster’s Memoirs of Sir I. Newton, vol. ii. p. 94.
[174] Dialogues, i.
[175] Dialogues, ii.