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 THE 
 
 OK, 
 
 GHOSTS AND GHOST SEERS. 
 
 CATHERINE CROWE. 
 
 AUTHORESS OP 
 
 "SUSAN HOPLEY," "LILLY DAWS OX," 
 " ARISTODEMUS," Sec. &c. 
 
 ' Thou cem'st in such a questionable shape, 
 
 That I will speak to thee!" 
 
 HAMLET. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 T. C. NEWBY, 72, MORTIMER ST., CAVENDISH S<j. 
 
 1848.
 
 LONDON : 
 MARTIN AND STEPHENS, PRINTERS, 7 
 
 THEOBALD'S ROAD. 
 
 GREEN STREET,
 
 INDEX. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 Page 
 I. Introduction 1 
 
 II. The Dweller in the Temple . . . . 24 
 III. Waking and Sleeping, and how the Dweller 
 
 in the Temple sometimes looks abroad . 4 1 
 
 IV. Allegorical Dreams, Presentiments, &c. . . 95 
 
 V. Warnings 107 
 
 VI. Double Dreaming and Trance, Wraiths, &c. . 165 
 VII. Wraiths . . . . . . .222 
 
 VIII. Doppelgangers, or Doubles . . . . 258 
 
 IX. Apparitions . . ... . .300 
 
 X. The Future that awaits us . . 361 
 
 20O401?
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 IN my late novel of " Lilly Dawson," I an- 
 nounced my intention of publishing a work 
 to be called " The Night Side of Nature ;" 
 this is it. 
 
 The term " Night Side of Nature " I borrow 
 from the Germans, who derive it from the 
 astronomers, the latter denominating that side 
 of a planet which is turned from the sun, its 
 night side. We are in this condition for a 
 certain number of hours out of every twenty- 
 four; and as, during this interval, external 
 objects loom upon us but strangely and im- 
 perfectly, the Germans draw a parallel betwixt
 
 vi'ii PREFACE. 
 
 If I could only induce a lew capable persons, 
 instead of laughing at these things, to look at 
 them, my object would be attained, and I 
 should think my time well spent.
 
 THE 
 
 NIGHT SIDE OF NATURE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ' ; Know ye not that ye are the Temple of God, and that 
 the Spirit of God dwelleth in you ?" 
 
 1. Cor., 3c., 16 v. 
 
 MOST persons are aware that the Greeks and 
 Romans entertained certain notions regarding 
 the state of the soul, or the immortal part of 
 man, after the death of the body, which have 
 been generally held to be purely mytho- 
 logical. Many of them, doubtless, are so; 
 and of these I am not about to treat ; but 
 amongst their conceptions, there are some 
 which, as they coincide with the opinions of 
 many of the most enlightened persons of the 
 VOL. i. B
 
 2 INTRODUCTION'. 
 
 present age, it may be desirable to consider 
 more closely. I allude here particularly to 
 their belief in the tripartite kingdom of the 
 dead. According to this system, there were 
 the Elysian fields, a region in which a certain 
 sort of happiness was enjoyed ; and Tartarus, 
 the place of punishment for the wicked ; each 
 of which were, comparatively, but thinly in- 
 habited. But there was, also, a mid-region, 
 peopled with innumerable hosts of wandering 
 and mournful spirits, who, although under- 
 going no torments, are represented as inces- 
 santly bewailing their condition, pining for 
 the life they once enjoyed in the body, longing 
 jitter the things of the earth, and occupying 
 themselves with the same pursuits and objects, 
 as had formerly constituted their business or 
 their pleasure. Old habits are still dear to 
 them, and they cannot snap the link that 
 binds them to the earth. 
 
 Now, although we cannot believe in the 
 existence of Charon, the three-headed dog, or 
 Alecto, the serpent-haired fury, it may be 
 worth while to consider whether the per- 
 suasion of the ancients with regard to that 
 which concerns us all so nearly, namely, the 
 destiny that awaits us when we have shaken 
 off this mortal coil, may not have some foun-
 
 INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 dation in truth : whether it might not be a 
 remnant of a tradition transmitted from the 
 earliest inhabitants of the earth, wrested by 
 observation from nature, if not communicated 
 from a higher source : and, also, whether cir- 
 cumstances of constant recurrence in all ages 
 and in all nations, frequently observed and re- 
 corded by persons utterly ignorant of classical 
 lore, and unacquainted, indeed, with the 
 dogmas of any creed but their own, do not, 
 as well as various passages in the Scriptures, 
 afford a striking confirmation of this theory of 
 a future life ; whilst it, on the other hand, offers 
 a natural and convenient explanation of their 
 mystery. 
 
 To minds which can admit nothing but what 
 can be explained and demonstrated, an investi- 
 gation of this sort must appear perfectly idle ; 
 for whilst, on the one hand, the most acute 
 intellect or the most powerful logic can throw 
 little light on the subject, it is, at the same 
 time though I have a confident hope that this 
 will not always be the case equally irreducible 
 within the present bounds of science ; mean- 
 while, experience, observation, and intuition, 
 must be our principal, if not our only guides. 
 Because, in the seventeenth century, credulity 
 outran reason and discretion ; the eighteenth
 
 4 INTRODUCTION*. 
 
 century, by a natural re-action, threw itself 
 into an opposite extreme. Whoever closely 
 observes the signs of the times, will be aware 
 that another change is approaching. The 
 contemptuous scepticism of the last age is 
 yielding to a more humble spirit of enquiry ; 
 and there is a large class of persons amongst 
 the most enlightened of the present, who are 
 beginning to believe, that much which they 
 had been taught to reject as fable, has been, in 
 reality, ill- understood truth. Somewhat of the 
 mystery of our own being, and of the mysteries 
 that compass us about, are beginning to loom 
 upon us as yet, it is true, but obscurely; and,in 
 the endeavour to follow out the clue they offer, 
 we have but a feeble light to guide us. We 
 must grope our way through the dim path 
 before us, ever in danger of being led into error, 
 whilst we may confidently reckon on being 
 pursued by the shafts of ridicule that weapon 
 so easy to wield, so potent to the weak, so 
 weak to the wise which has delayed the 
 births of so many truths, but never stifled one. 
 The pharisaical scepticism which denies with- 
 out investigation, is quite as perilous, and 
 much more contemptible than the blind cre- 
 dulity which accepts all that it is taught 
 without enquiry; it is, indeed, but another
 
 INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 form of ignorance assuming to be knowledge. 
 And by investigation, I do not mean the hasty, 
 captious, angry notice of an unwelcome fact, 
 that too frequently claims the right of pro- 
 nouncing on a question ; but the slow, modest, 
 pains-taking examination, that is content to 
 wait upon nature, and humbly follow out her 
 disclosures, however opposed to pre-conceived 
 theories or mortifying to human pride. If 
 scientific men could but comprehend how they 
 discredit the science, they really profess, by 
 their despotic arrogance, and exclusive scep- 
 ticism, they would surely, for the sake of that 
 very science they love, affect more liberality 
 and candour. This reflection, however, natu- 
 rally suggests another, namely, do they really 
 love science, or is it not too frequently with 
 them but the means to an end ? Were the love 
 of science genuine, I suspect it would produce 
 very different fruits to that which we see borne 
 by the tree of knowledge, as it flourishes at 
 present; and this suspicion is exceedingly 
 strengthened by the recollection, that amongst 
 the numerous students and professors of 
 science I have at different times encountered, 
 the real worshippers and genuine lovers of it, 
 for its own sake, have all been men of the most 
 single, candid, unprejudiced, and enquiring 
 B 5
 
 C . INTRODUCTION. 
 
 minds, willing to listen to all new suggestions, 
 and investigate all new facts ; not bold and 
 self-sufficient, but humble and reverent suitors, 
 aware of their own ignorance and un worthiness, 
 and that they are yet but in the primer of nature's 
 works, they do not permit themselves to pro- 
 nounce upon her disclosures, or set limits to 
 her decrees. They are content to admit that 
 things new and unsuspected-may yet be true; that 
 their own knowledge of facts being extremely 
 circumscribed, the systems attempted to be 
 established on such, uncertain data, must needs 
 be very imperfect, and frequently altogether 
 erroneous ; and that it is therefore their duty, 
 as it ought to be'their pleasure, to welcome as 
 a stranger every gleam of light that appears in 
 the horizon, let it loom from whatever quarter 
 it may. 
 
 But, alas ! Poor science has few such lovers ! 
 Les beaux y eux de sa cassette, I fear, are much 
 more frequently the objects of attraction than 
 her own fair face. 
 
 The belief in a God, and in the immortality 
 of what we call the soul, is common, to all 
 nations ; but our own intellect does not enable 
 us to form any conception of either one or the 
 other. All the information we have on these 
 subjects is comprised in such hints as the Scrip-
 
 INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 tares here and there give us ; whatever other 
 conclusions we draw, must be the result of ob- 
 servation and experience. Unless founded 
 upon these, the opinion of the most learned 
 theologian, or the most profound student of 
 science that ever lived, is worth no more than 
 that of any other person. They know nothing 
 whatever about these mysteries; and all a 
 priori reasoning on them is utterly valueless. 
 The only way, therefore, of attaining any 
 glimpses of the truth in an enquiry of this 
 nature, where our intellect can serve us so 
 little, is to enter-on it with the conviction that, 
 knowing nothing, we are not entitled to reject 
 any evidence that may be offered to us, till it 
 ' has been thoroughly sifted, and proved to be 
 fallacious. That the facts presented to our 
 notice appear to us absurd, and altogether 
 inconsistent with the notions our intellects 
 would have enabled us to form, should have 
 no weight whatever in the investigation. Our 
 intellects are no measure of God Almighty's 
 designs ; and, I must say, that I do think one 
 of the most irreverent, dangerous, and sinful 
 things man or woman can be guilty of, is 
 to reject with scorn and laughter any intima- 
 'tion which, however strangely it may strike 
 upon our minds, and however adverse it may
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 be to our opinions, may possibly be showing 
 us the way to one of God's truthsv Not know- 
 ing all the conditions, and wanting so many 
 links of the chain, it is impossible for us to 
 pronounce on what is probable and consistent, 
 and what is not ; and, this being the case, I 
 think the time is ripe for drawing attention to 
 certain phenomena, which, under whatever 
 aspect we may consider them, are, beyond 
 doubt, exceedingly interesting and curious; 
 whilst, if the view many persons are disposed 
 to take of them be the correct one, they are 
 much more than this. I wish, also, to make 
 the English public acquainted with the ideas 
 entertained on these subjects by a large pro- 
 portion of German minds of the highest order. 
 It is a distinctive characteristic of the thinkers 
 of that country, that, in the first place, they do 
 think independently and courageously; and, 
 in the second, that they never shrink from 
 promulgating the opinions they have been led 
 to form, however new, strange, heterodox, or 
 even absurd, they may appear to others. They 
 do not succumb, as people do in this country, 
 to the fear of ridicule ; nor are they in danger 
 of the odium that here pursues those who 
 deviate from established notions ; and, the con- 
 sequence is, that, though many fallacious
 
 INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 theories and untenable propositions may be 
 advanced, a great deal of new truth is struck 
 out from the collision ; and in the result, as 
 must always be the case, what is true lives and 
 is established, and what is false dies and is 
 forgotten. But here, in Britain, our critics and 
 colleges are in such haste to strangle and 
 put down every new discovery that does not 
 emanate from themselves, or which is not a ful- 
 filling of the ideas of the day, but which, being 
 somewhat opposed to them, promises to be 
 troublesome from requiring new thought to 
 render it intelligible that one might be in- 
 duced to suppose them divested of all confi- 
 dence in this inviolable law ; whilst the more 
 important, and the higher the results involved 
 may be, the more angry they are with those 
 who advocate them. They do not quarrel 
 with a new metal or a new plant, and even a 
 new comet or a new island, stands a fair chance 
 of being well received ; the introduction of a 
 planet appears, from late events, to be more diffi- 
 cult; whilst phrenology and mesmerism testify, 
 that any discovery tending to throw lighten what 
 most deeply concerns us, namely, our own 
 being, must be prepared to encounter a storm 
 of angry persecution. And one of the evils of 
 this hasty and precipitate opposition is, that
 
 10 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the passions and interests of the opposers be- 
 come involved in the dispute ; instead of in- 
 vestigators, they become partisans ; having 
 declared against it in the outset, it is important 
 to their petty interests that the thing shall 
 not be true ; and they determine that it Khali 
 not, if they can help it. Hence, these hasty, 
 angry investigations of new facts, and the 
 triumph with which failures are recorded ; 
 and hence the wilful overlooking of the 
 axiom, that a thousand negatives cannot over- 
 throw the evidence of one affirmative ex- 
 periment. I always distrust those who have 
 declared themselves strongly in the beginning 
 of a controversy. Opinions which however 
 rashly avowed, may have been honest at first, 
 may have been changed for many a long day 
 before they are retracted. In the mean time, 
 the march of truth is obstructed, and its 
 triumph is delayed ; timid minds are alarmed ; 
 those who dare not, or cannot, think for 
 themselves, are subdued ; there is much need- 
 less suffering incurred, and much good lost ; 
 but the truth goes quietly on its way, and 
 reaches the goal at last. 
 
 With respect to the subjects I am here going 
 to treat of, it is not simply the result of my 
 own reflections and convictions that I am about
 
 INTRODUCTION. 11 
 
 to offer. On the contrary, I intend to fortify 
 ray position by the opinions of many other 
 writers; the chief of whom will, for the reasons 
 above given, namely, that it is they who have 
 principally attended to the question, be 
 Germans. I am fully aware that in this country 
 a very considerable number of persons lean to 
 some of these opinions, and I think I might 
 venture to assert that I have the majority on 
 my side, as far as regards ghosts for it is 
 beyond a doubt that many more are disposed 
 to believe than to confess and those who do 
 confess, are not few. The deep interest with 
 which any narration of spiritual appearances 
 bearing the stamp, or apparent stamp, of authen- 
 ticty is listened to in every society, is one proof 
 that, though the fear of ridicule may suppress, 
 it cannot extinguish that intuitive persuasion, of 
 which almost every one is more or less conscious. 
 I avow that, in writing this book, I have a 
 higher aim than merely to afford amusement. 
 I wish to engage the earnest attention of my 
 readers ; because I am satisfied that the 
 opinions I am about to advocate, seriously en- 
 tertained, would produce very beneficial results. 
 We are all educated in the belief of a future 
 state, but how vague and ineffective this belief 
 is with the majority of persons, we too well
 
 12 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 know ; for although, as I have said above, the 
 number of those who are what is called believers 
 in ghosts, and similar phenomena, is very large ; 
 it is a belief that they allow to sit extremely 
 lightly on their minds. Although they feel 
 that the evidence from within and from with- 
 out is too strong to be altogether set aside, 
 they have never permitted themselves to weigh 
 the significance of the facts. They are afraid of 
 that bugbear, Superstition a title of oppro- 
 brium which it is very convenient to attach to 
 whatever we do not believe ourselves. They 
 forget that nobody has a right to call any be- 
 lief superstitious, till he can prove that it is 
 unfounded. Now, no one that lives can assert 
 that the re-appearance of the dead is impos- 
 sible ; all ke has a right to say is, that he does 
 not believe it; and the interrogation that 
 should immediately follow this declaration is, 
 " Have you devoted your life to sifting all the 
 evidence that has been adduced on the other 
 side, from the earliest periods of history and 
 tradition ?" and even though the answer were 
 in the affirmative, and that the investigation 
 had been conscientiously pursued, it would be 
 still a bold enquirer that would think himself 
 entitled to say, the question was no longer 
 open. But the rashness and levity with which
 
 INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 mankind make professions of believing and 
 disbelieving, are, all things considered, pheno- 
 mena much more extraordinary than the most 
 extraordinary ghost-story that was ever related. 
 The truth is, that not one person in a thousand, 
 in the proper sense of the word, believes any- 
 thing; they only fancy they believe, because 
 they have never seriously considered the mean- 
 ing of the word and all that it involves. That 
 which the human mind cannot conceive of, is apt 
 to slip from its grasp like water from the hand ; 
 and life out of the flesh falls under this category. 
 The observation of any phenomena, therefore, 
 which enabled us to master the idea, must 
 necessarily be extremely beneficial ; and it must 
 be remembered, that one single thoroughly 
 well-established instance of the re-appearance 
 of a deceased person, would not only have this 
 effect, but that it would afford a demonstrative 
 proof of the deepest of all our intuitions, 
 namely, that a future life awaits us. 
 
 Not to mention the modern Germans of emi- 
 nence, who have devoted themselves to this 
 investigation, there have been men remarkable 
 for intellect in all countries, who have con- 
 sidered the subject worthy of enquiry. 
 Amongst the rest, Plato, Pliny, and Lucien ; 
 and in our own country, that good old divine, 
 
 VOL. i. c
 
 14 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Dr. Henry Moore, Dr. Johnson, Addison, Isaac 
 Taylor, and many others. It may be objected 
 that the eternally quoted case of Nicolai, the 
 bookseller at Berlin, and Dr. Ferriar's " Theory 
 of Apparitions," had not then settled the 
 question ; but nobody doubts that Nicolai's 
 was a case of disease ; and he was well aware 
 of it himself, as it appears to me, everybody so 
 afflicted, is. I was acquainted with a poor 
 woman, in Edinborough, who suffered from 
 this malady, brought on, I believe, by drinking; 
 but she was perfectly conscious of the nature 
 of the illusions ; and that temperance and a 
 doctor were the proper exorcists to lay the 
 spirits. With respect to Dr. Ferriar's book, a 
 more shallow one was assuredly never allowed 
 to settle any question; and his own theory 
 cannot, without the most violent straining, and 
 the assistance of what he calls coincidences, 
 meet even half the cases he himself adduces. 
 That such a disease, as he describes, exists, 
 nobody doubts ; but I maintain that there are 
 hundreds of cases on record, for which the 
 explanation does not suffice ; and if they have 
 been instances of spectral illusion, all that 
 remains to be said, is, that a fundamental re- 
 construction of the theory on/that subject is 
 demanded.
 
 INTR0DCCTION. 15 
 
 La Place says, in his " Essay on Proba- 
 bilities," that " any case, however apparently 
 incredible, if it be a recurrent case, is as 
 much entitled under the laws of induction, to 
 a fair valuation, as if it had been more pro- 
 bable before hand." Now, no one will deny 
 that the case in question possesses this claim to 
 investigation. Determined scepticsmay,indeed, 
 deny that there exists any well-authenticated 
 instance of an apparition ; but that, at present, 
 can only be a mere matter of opinion ; since 
 many persons as competent to judge as them- 
 selves, maintain the contrary ; and in the mean 
 time, I arraign their right to make this objec- 
 tion till they have qualified themselves to do 
 so, by a long course of patient and honest 
 enquiry ; always remembering that every 
 instance of error or imposition discovered and 
 adduced, has no positive value whatever in the 
 argument, but as regards that single instance ; 
 though it may enforce upon us the necessity of 
 strong evidence and careful investigation. 
 With respect to the evidence, past and present, 
 I must be allowed here to remark on the 
 extreme difficulty of producing it. Not to 
 mention the acknowledged carelessness of 
 observers and the alleged incapacity of per- 
 sons to distinguish betwixt reality and illusion,
 
 16 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 there is an exceeding shyness in most people, 
 who, either have seen, or fancied they have 
 seen, an apparition, to speak of it at all, except 
 to some intimate friend ; so that one gets most 
 of the stories second-hand ; whilst even those 
 who are less chary of their communications, 
 are imperative against their name and autho- 
 rity being given to the public. Besides this, 
 there is a great tendency in most people, after 
 the impression is over, to think they may have 
 been deceived ; and where there is no commu- 
 nication or other circumstance rendering this 
 conviction impossible, it is not difficult to 
 acquire it, or at least so much of it as leaves 
 the case valueless. The seer is glad to find 
 this refuge from the unpleasant feelings engen- 
 dered ; whilst surrounding friends, sometimes 
 from genuine scepticism, and sometimes from 
 good-nature, almost invariably lean to this 
 explanation of the mystery. In consequence 
 of these difficulties and those attending the 
 very nature of the phenomena, I freely admit 
 that the facts I shall adduce, as they now 
 stand, can have no scientific value ; they can- 
 not in short enter into the region of science at 
 all, still less into that of philosophy. Whatever 
 conclusions we may be led to form, cannot be 
 founded on pure induction. We must confine
 
 INTRODUCTION. 1 7 
 
 ourselves wholly within the region of opinion . 
 if we venture beyond which, we shall 
 assuredly founder. In the beginning, all 
 sciences have been but a collection of facts, 
 afterwards to be examined, compared, and 
 weighed by intelligent minds. To the vulgar, 
 who do riot see the universal law which 
 governs the universe, everything out of the 
 ordinary course of events, is a prodigy ; but to 
 the enlightened mind there are no progidies ; 
 for it perceives that both in the moral and the 
 physical world, there is a chain of uninter- 
 rupted connexion ; and that the most strange 
 and even apparently contradictory or super- 
 natural fact or event will be found, on due 
 investigation, to be strictly dependant on its 
 antecedents. It is possible, that there may be 
 a link wanting, and that our investigations 
 may, consequently, be fruitless ; but the link 
 is assuredly there, although our imperfect 
 knowledge and limited vision cannot find it 
 
 And it is here the proper place to observe, 
 that, in undertaking to treat of the phenomena 
 in question, I do not propose to consider them 
 as supernatural ; on the contrary, I am per- 
 suaded that the time will come, when they will 
 be reduced strictly within the bounds of 
 science. It was the tendency of the last age 
 c 5
 
 18 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 to reject and deny every thing they did not 
 understand ; I hope it is the growing tendency 
 of the present one, to examine what we do not 
 understand. Equally disposed with our pre- 
 decessors of the eighteenth century to reject 
 the supernatural, and to believe the order of 
 nature inviolable, we are disposed to extend the 
 bounds of nature and science, till they com- 
 prise within their limits all the phenomena, 
 ordinary and extraordinary, by which we are 
 surrounded. Scarcely a month passes, that 
 we do not hear of some new and important 
 discovery in science ; it is a domain in which 
 nothing is stable ; and every year overthrows 
 some of the hasty and premature theories of 
 the preceding ones ; and this will continue 
 to be the case as long as scientific men occupy 
 themselves each with his own subject, with- 
 out studying the great and primal truths 
 what the French call Les verites meres which 
 link the whole together. Meantime, there is 
 a continual unsettling. Truth, if it do not 
 emanate from an acknowledged authority, is 
 generally rejected; and error, if it do, is as 
 often accepted ; whilst, whoever disputes the 
 received theory, w r hatever it be we mean 
 especially that adopted by the professors of 
 colleges does it at his peril. But there is
 
 INTRODUCTION. 19 
 
 a day yet brooding in the bosom of time, when 
 the sciences will be no longer isolated ; when 
 we shall no longer deny, but be able to 
 account for phenomena apparently prodigious ; 
 or have the modesty, ;if we cannot explain 
 them, to admit that the difficulty arises solely 
 from our own incapacity. The system of cen- 
 tralization in statistics, seems to be of doubtful 
 advantage ; but a greater degree of centraliza- 
 tion appears to be very much needed in the 
 domain of science. Some improvement in 
 this respect might do wonders, particularly if 
 reinforced with a slight infusion of patience 
 and humility into the minds of scientific men ; 
 together with the recollection that facts and 
 phenomena which do not depend on our will, 
 must be waited for that we must be at their 
 command, for they will not be at ours. 
 
 But to return once more to our own subject. 
 If we do believe that a future life awaits us, 
 there can be nothing more natural than the 
 desire to obtain some information as to what 
 manner of life that is to be for which any one 
 of us may, before this time to-morrow, have 
 exchanged his present mode of being. That 
 there does not exist a greater interest with 
 regard to this question in the mind of man, 
 arises, partlv,from the vague intangible kind of
 
 20 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 belief he entertains of the fact ; partly, from 
 his absorption in worldly affairs, and the hard 
 and indigestible food upon which his clerical 
 shepherds pasture him for, under dogmatic 
 theology, religion seems to have withered away 
 to the mere husk of spiritualism and partly, 
 also from the apparent impossibility of pur- 
 suing the enquiry to any purpose. As I said 
 before, observation and experience can alone 
 guide us in such an enquiry ; for though most 
 people have a more or less intuitive sense of 
 their own immortality, intuition is silent as to 
 the mode of it ; and the question I am anxious 
 here to discuss with my readers, is, whether 
 we have any facts to observe, or any ex- 
 perience from which, on this most interesting 
 of all subjects, a conclusion may be drawn. 
 Great as the difficulty is of producing evi- 
 dence, it will, I think, be pretty generally ad- 
 mitted, that, although each individual case, as 
 jt stands alone, may be comparatively value- 
 less, the amount of recurrent cases forms a 
 body of evidence, that on any other subject 
 would scarcely be rejected ; and since, if the 
 facts are accepted, they imperatively demand 
 an explanation for, assuredly, the present 
 theory of spectral illusions cannot comprise 
 them our enquiry, let it terminate in what-
 
 INTRODUCTION. 21 
 
 ever conclusion it may, cannot be useless or 
 uninteresting. Various views of the pheno- 
 meua in question may be taken ; and although 
 I shall offer my own opinions and the theories 
 and opinions of others, I insist upon none ; I 
 do not write to dogmatise, but to suggest re- 
 flection and enquiry. The books of Dr. 
 Ferriar, Dr. Hibbert, and Dr. Thatcher, the 
 American, are all written to support one 
 exclusive theory ; and they only give such 
 cases as serve to sustain it. They maintain 
 that the whole phenomena are referrible to 
 nervous or sanguineous derangement, and are 
 mere subjective illusions ; and whatever in- 
 stance cannot be covered by this theory, they 
 reject as false, or treat as a case of extra- 
 ordinary coincidence. In short, they arrange 
 the facts to their theory, not their theory to the 
 facts. Their books cannot, therefore, claim to 
 be considered as anything more than essays on 
 a special disease ; they have no pretence what- 
 ever to the character of investigations. The 
 question, consequently, remains as much an 
 open one as before they treated it ; whilst we 
 have the advantage of their experience and 
 information, with regard to the peculiar 
 malady that forms the subject of their works.
 
 22 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 On that subject it is not my intention to 
 enter ; it is a strictly medical one, and every 
 information may be obtained respecting it in 
 the above-named treatises, and others, ema- 
 nating from the faculty. 
 
 The subjects I do intend to treat of are the 
 various kinds of prophetic dreams, presen- 
 timents, second-sight, and apparitions; and, 
 in short, all that class of phenomena, which 
 appears to throw some light on our physical 
 nature, and on the probable state of the soul 
 after death. In this discussion I shall make 
 free use of my German authorities, Doctors 
 Kerner, Stilling, Werner, Eschenmayer, Enne- 
 moser, Passavent, Schubert, Von Meyer, &c. 
 &c. ; and I here make a general acknowledge- 
 ment to that effect, because it would embarrass 
 my book too much to be constantly giving 
 names and references ; although when I quote 
 their words literally, I shall make a point of 
 doing so ; and because, also, that as I have 
 been both thinking and reading much on these 
 subjects for a considerable time past, I am, in 
 fact, no longer in a condition to appropriate 
 either to them or to myself, each his own. 
 This, however, is a matter of very little con- 
 sequence, as I am not desirous of claiming
 
 INTRODUCTION. 23 
 
 any ideas as mine that can be found else- 
 where. It is enough for me, if I succeed in 
 making a tolerably clear exposition of the 
 subject, and can induce other people to reflect 
 upon it.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE DWELLER IN THE TEMPLE. 
 
 IT is almost needless to observe, that the 
 Scriptures repeatedly speak of man as a 
 tripartite being, consisting of spirit, soul, and 
 body ; and that, according to St. Paul, we have 
 two bodies a natural body, and a spiritual 
 body ; the former being designed as our means of 
 communication with the external world an 
 instrument to be used and controlled by our 
 nobler parts. It is this view of it, carried to a 
 fanaticism, which has led to the various and ex- 
 traordinary mortifications recorded of ascetics. 
 As is remarked by the Rev. Hare Townshend,
 
 THE DWELLER IN THE TEMPLE. 25 
 
 in a late edition of his book on Mesmerism, in 
 this fleshly body consists our organic life ; in 
 the body which we are to retain through 
 eternity, consists our fundamental life. May 
 not the first, he says, " be a temporary de- 
 velopment of the last, just as leaves, flowers 
 and fruits, are the temporary developments of 
 a tree. And in the same manner that these 
 pass and drop away, yet leave the principle of 
 reproduction behind, so may our present 
 organs be detached from us by death, and yet 
 the ground of our existence be spared to us 
 continuously." 
 
 Without entering into the subtle disputes of 
 philosophers, with regard to the spirit, a sub- 
 ject on which there is a standing controversy 
 betwixt the disciples of Hegel, and those of 
 other teachers, I need only observe that the 
 Scriptures seem to indicate what some of the 
 heathen sages taught, that the spirit that 
 dwells within us is the spirit of God, incorpo- 
 rated in us for a period, for certain ends of bis 
 own, to be thereby wrought out. What those 
 ends are, it does not belong to my present 
 subject to consider. In this spirit so imparted 
 to us, dwells, says Eschenmayer, the con- 
 science, which keeps watch over the body and 
 the soul, saying, "Thus shall thou do!" 
 
 VOL. i. D
 
 26 THE DWELLER 
 
 And it is to this Christ addresses himself when 
 he bids his disciples become perfect, like their 
 Father in Heaven. The soul is subject to the 
 spirit ; and its functions are, to will, or choose, 
 to think, and to feel, and to become thereby 
 cognizant of the true, the beautiful, and the 
 good ; comprehending the highest principle, 
 the highest ideal, and the most perfect happi- 
 ness. The Ego, or /, is the resultant of the 
 three forces, Pneuma, Psyche, Soina spirit, 
 soul, and body. 
 
 In the sptrit or soul, or rather in both con- 
 joined, dwells, also, the power of spiritual 
 seeing, or intuitive knowing ; for, as there is a 
 spiritual body, there is a spiritual eye, and a 
 spiritual ear, and so forth ; or, to speak more 
 correctly, all these sensuous functions are com- 
 prised in one universal sense, which does not 
 need the aid of the bodily organs ; but, on the 
 contrary, is Ynost efficient when most freed 
 from them. It remains to be seen whether, 
 or in what degree, such separation can tuke 
 place during life ; complete it cannot be till 
 death ; but whoever believes sincerely that 
 the divine spirit dwells within him, can, I 
 should think, find no difficulty in conceiving 
 that, although from the temporary conditions 
 
 to which pt trahitis is subjected, this universal 
 0u
 
 IN THE TEMPLE. 27 
 
 faculty is limited and obscured, it must still 
 retain its indefeisible attribute. 
 
 We may naturally conclude that the most 
 perfect state of man on earth consists in the 
 most perfect unity of the spirit and the soul ; 
 and to those who in this life have attained 
 the nearest to that unity, will the entire assi- 
 milation of the two, after they are separated 
 from the body, be the easiest ; whilst to those 
 who have lived only their intellectual and 
 external life, this union must be extremely 
 difficult, the soul having chosen its part with 
 the body and divorced itself, as much as in it 
 lay, from the spirit. The voice of conscience 
 is then scarcely heard ; and the soul, degraded 
 and debased, can no longer perform its func- 
 tions of discerning the true, the beautiful, and 
 the gocd. 
 
 On these distinct functions of the soul and 
 spirit, however, it is not my intention to in- 
 sist; since, it appears to me, a subject on 
 which we are not yet in a condition to dog- 
 matise. We know rather more about our 
 bodies, by means of which the soul and spirit 
 are united and bnnight into contact with the 
 material world, and which are constructed 
 wholly with a view to the conditions of that 
 world ; such as time, space, solidity, extension,
 
 28 THE DWELLER 
 
 &c. &c. But we must conceive of God as 
 necessarily independent of these conditions. 
 To Him, all times and all places must be 
 for ever present; and it is thus that he is 
 omniscient and omnipresent ; and since we are 
 placed by the spirit in immediate relation with 
 God and the spiritual world, just as we are 
 placed by th< body in immediate relation with 
 the material world, we may, in the first place, 
 form a notion of the possibility that some faint 
 gleams of these inherent attributes may, at 
 times, shoot up through the clay in which the 
 spirit has taken up its temporary abode ; and 
 we may also admit, that through the connexion 
 which exists betwixt us and the spiritual 
 world, it is not impossible but that we may, at 
 times, and under certain conditions, become 
 cognizant of, and enter into more immediate 
 relation with it. This is the only postulate I 
 ask ; for, as I said before, I do not wish to 
 enforce opinions, but to suggest probabilities, 
 or at least possibilities, and thus arouse 
 reflection and enquiry. 
 
 With respect to the term invisible world, I 
 beg to remind my readers, that what we call 
 seeing, is merely the function of an organ con- 
 structed for that purpose, in relation to the 
 external world ; and so limited are its powers, 
 that we are surrounded by many things in that
 
 IN THE TEMPLE. 29 
 
 world which we cannot see without the aid of 
 artificial appliances, and many other things 
 which we cannot see even with them ; the 
 atmosphere in which we live, for example, 
 which, although its weight and mechanical 
 forces are the subjects of accurate calculation, 
 is entirely imperceptible to our visual organs. 
 Thus, the fact that we do not commonly see 
 them, forms no legitimate objection to the 
 hypothesis of our being surrounded by a world 
 of spirits, or of that world being inter-diffused 
 amongst us. Supposing the question to be 
 decided, that we do sometimes become cog- 
 nizant of them, which, however, I admit it is 
 not ; since, whether the apparitions are sub- 
 jective or objective, that is, whether they are 
 the mere phenomena of disease, or real out- 
 standing appearances, is the enquiry I desire 
 to promote but, I say, supposing that ques- 
 tion were decided in the affirmative, the next 
 that arises is, how, or by what means do we 
 see them ; or, if they address us, hear them ? 
 If that universal sense which appears to me to 
 be inseparable from the idea of spirit, be once 
 admitted, I think there can be no difficulty 
 in answering this question ; and if it be ob- 
 jected that we are conscious of no such sense, 
 I answer that, both in dreams and in certain 
 D 5
 
 30 THE DWELLEE 
 
 abnormal states of the body, it is frequently 
 manifested. In order to render this more clear, 
 and, at the same time, to give an interesting 
 instance of this sort of phenomenon, I will 
 transcribe a passage from a letter of St. Au- 
 gustine to his friend Evadius (Epistola 169. 
 Antwerp edition.) 
 
 " I will relate to you a circumstance," he 
 writes, " which will furnish you matter for 
 reflection. Our brother Sennadius, well known 
 to us all as an eminent physician, and whom 
 we especially love, who is now at Carthage, 
 after having distinguished himself at Rome,and 
 with whose piety and active benevolence you 
 are well acquainted, could yet, nevertheless, 
 as he has lately narrated to us, by any means 
 bring himself to believe in a life after death. 
 Now, God, doubtless, not willing that his soul 
 should perish, there appeared to him, one night 
 in a dream, a radiant youth of noble aspect, 
 who bade him follow him ; and as Sennadius 
 obeyed, they came to a city where, on the right 
 side, he heard a chorus of the most heavenly 
 voices. As he desired to know whence this 
 divine harmony proceeded, the youth told him 
 that what he heard were the songs of the 
 blessed ; whereupon he awoke, and thought 
 no more of his dream than people usually do.
 
 IN THE TEMPLE. SI 
 
 On another night, however, behold ! the youth 
 appears to him again and asks if he knows 
 him ; and Sennadius related to him all the 
 particulars of his former dream, which he well 
 remembered. * Then,' said the youth, ' was it 
 whilst sleeping or waking that you saw these 
 things?' ' I was sleeping,' answered Sennadius. 
 ' Y ou are right,' returned the youth, ' it was in 
 your sleep that you saw these things ; and 
 know, oh Sennadius, that what you see now 
 is also in your sleep. But if this be so, tell 
 me where then is your body ?' ' In my bed- 
 chamber,' answered Sennadius. * But know 
 you not,' continued the stranger, ' that your 
 eyes, which form a part of your body, are 
 closed and inactive ?' 1 1 know it,' answered 
 he. ' Then, 1 said the youth, ' with what eyes 
 see you these things ?' And Sennadius could 
 not answer him ; and as he hesitated the youth 
 spoke again, and explained to him the motive 
 of his questions. * As the eyes of your body,' 
 said he, ' which lies now on your bed and 
 sleeps, are inactive and useless, and yet you 
 have eyes wherewith you see me and these 
 things I have shown unto you, so after death 
 when these bodily organs fail you, you wil 
 have a vital power, whereby you will live ; and 
 a sensitive faculty, whereby you will perceive.
 
 32 THE DWELLER 
 
 Doubt, therefore, no longer that there is a life 
 after death.' And thus," said this excellent 
 man, " was I convinced, and all doubts re- 
 moved." 
 
 I confess there appears to me a beauty and 
 a logical truth in this dream, that I think 
 might convince more than the dreamer. 
 
 It is by the hypothesis of this universal 
 sense, latent within us ; an hypothesis which, 
 whoever believes that we are immortal spirits, 
 incorporated for a season in a material body, 
 can scarcely reject, that I seek to explain those 
 perceptions which are not comprised within 
 the functions of our bodily organs. It seems 
 to me to be the key to all, or nearly all, of 
 them, as far as our own part in the phenomena 
 extends. But, supposing this admitted, there 
 would then remain the difficulty of accounting 
 for the partial and capricious glimpses we get 
 of it ; whilst that department of the mystery 
 which regards apparitions, except such as are 
 the pure result of disease, we must grope our 
 way, with very little light to guide us, as to 
 the conditions and motives which might pos- 
 sibly bring them into any immediate relation 
 with us. 
 
 To any one who has been fortunate enough 
 to witness one genuine case of clairvoyance
 
 IN THE TEMPLE. 33 
 
 I think the conception of this universal sense 
 will not be difficult ; however, the mode of its 
 exercise may remain utterly incomprehensible. 
 As I have said above to the great spirit and 
 fountain of life, all things, both in space and 
 time, must be present. However impossible 
 it is to our finite minds to conceive this, we 
 must believe it. It may, in some slight 
 degree, facilitate the conception to remember, 
 that action, once begun, never ceases an im- 
 pulse given is transmitted on for ever ; a sound 
 breathed reverberates in eternity ; and thus 
 the past is always present, although for the 
 purpose of fitting us for this mortal life, our 
 ordinary senses are so constituted as to be 
 unperceptive of these phenomena. With 
 respect to what we call the future, it is more 
 difficult still for us to conceive it as present ; 
 nor, as far ar I know, can we borrow from the 
 sciences the same assistance as mechanical 
 discoveries have just furnished me with in re- 
 gard to the past. How a spirit sees that which 
 has not yet, to our senses, 1 taken place, seems, 
 certainly, inexplicable. Foreseeing it is not 
 inexplicable ; we foresee many things by argu- 
 ing on given premises, although, from our own 
 finite views, we are always liable to be mis- 
 taken. Louis Lambert says, "Such events
 
 34 THE DWELLER 
 
 as are the product of humanity, and the result 
 of its intelligence, have their own causes, in 
 which they lie latent, just as our actions are 
 accomplished in our thoughts previous to any 
 outward demonstration of them ; presentiments 
 and prophecies consist in the intuitive percep- 
 tion of these causes." This explanation[which 
 is quite conformable with that of Cicero, may 
 aid us in some degree, as regards a certain 
 small class of phenomena ; but there is some- 
 thing involved in the question much more 
 subtle than this. Our dreams can give us the 
 only idea of it ; for there we do actually see 
 and hear, not only that which never was, 
 but that which never will be. Actions 
 and events, words and sounds, persons 
 and places, are as clearly and vividly pre- 
 sent to us, as if they were actually what 
 they seem; and I should think that most 
 people must be somewhat puzzled to decide 
 in regard to certain scenes and circumstances 
 that live in their memory, whether the images 
 are the result of their waking or sleeping 
 experience. Although by no means a dreamer, 
 and without the most remote approximation to 
 any faculty of presentiment, I know this is the 
 case with myself. I remember, also, a very 
 curious effect being produced upon me, when
 
 IN THE TEMPLE. 35 
 
 I was abroad, soms years ago, from eating- the 
 unwholesome bread to which we were reduced, 
 in consequence of a scarcity. Some five or six 
 times a day I was seized with a sort of 
 vertigo, during which I seemed to pass through 
 certain scenes, and was conscious of certain 
 words, which appeared to me to have a strange 
 connexion, either with some former period of 
 my life, or else some previous state of existence ; 
 the words and the scenes were on each occasion 
 precisely the same. I was always aware of 
 that ; and I always made the strongest efforts 
 to grasp and retain them in my memory ; but 
 I could not. I only knew that the thing had 
 been; the words and the scenes were gone. I 
 seemed to pass momentarily into another sphere 
 and back again. This was purely the result 
 of disorder ; but, like a dream, it shows how 
 we may be perceptive of that which is not, 
 and which never may be ; rendering it, there- 
 fore, possible to conceive that a spirit may be 
 equally perceptive of that which shall be. 
 I am very far from meaning to imply that these 
 examples remove the difficulty ; they do not 
 explain the thing ; they only show somewhat 
 the mode of it. But it must be remembered 
 that when physiologists pretend to settle the 
 whole question of apparitions by the theory of
 
 36 THE DWELLER 
 
 spectral illusions, they are exactly in the same 
 predicament. They can supply examples of 
 similar phenomena ; hut how a person, per- 
 fectly in his senses, should receive the spectral 
 visits, not only of friends, but strangers, when 
 he is thinking of no such matter ; or, by what 
 process, mental or optical, the figures are con- 
 jured up, remains as much a mystery as before 
 a line was written on the subject. 
 
 All people and all ages have believed, more 
 or less, in prophetic dreams, presentiments, 
 and apparitions ; and all histories have fur- 
 nished examples of them. That the truths 
 may be frequently distorted and mingled with 
 fable, is no argument against those traditions; 
 if it were, all history must be rejected on the 
 same plea. Both the Old and New Testament 
 furnish numerous examples of these pheno- 
 mena; and although Christ and the Apostles 
 reproved all the superstitions of the age, these 
 persuasions are not included in their repre- 
 hensions. 
 
 Neither is the comparitive rarity of these 
 phenomena any argument against their possi- 
 bility. There are many strange things which 
 occur still more rarely, but which we do not 
 look upon as supernatural or miraculous. Of 
 nature's ordinary laws, we yet know but little ;
 
 IN THE TEMPLE. 37 
 
 of their aberrations and perturbations still less. 
 How should we, when the world is a miracle 
 and life a dream, of which we know neither 
 the beginning nor the end ! We do not even 
 know that we see anything as it is ; or rather, 
 we know that we do not. We see things but 
 as our visual organs represent them to us ; and 
 were those organs differently constructed, the 
 aspect of the world, would to us, be changed. 
 How, then, can we pretend to decide upon 
 what is and what is not ? 
 
 Nothing could be more perplexing to any one 
 who read them with attention, than the trials 
 for witchcraft of the seventeenth century 
 Many of the feats of the ancient thatimatur- 
 gists and wonder-workers of the temples, 
 might have been nearly as much so ; but these 
 were got rid of by the easy expedient of pro- 
 nouncing them fables and impostures ; but, 
 during the witch mania, so many persons 
 proved their faith in their own miraculous 
 powers by the sacrifice of their lives, that it 
 was scarcely possible to doubt their having 
 some foundation for their own persuasion, 
 though what that foundation could be, till 
 the late discoveries in animal magnetism, 
 it was difficult to conceive ; but here we have 
 a new page opened to us, which concerns both 
 
 VOL. I E
 
 38 
 
 the history of the world and the history of 
 man, as an individual ; and we begin to see, 
 that that which the ignorant thought super- 
 natural, and the wise impossible, has been 
 both natural and true. Whilst the scientific 
 men of Great Britain, and several of oar 
 journalists, have been denying and ridiculing 
 the reports of these phenomena, the most 
 eminent physicians of Germany have been 
 quietly studying and investigating them ; and 
 giving to the world, in their works, the results 
 of their experience. Amongst the rest, Dr. 
 Joseph Ennemoser, of Berlin, has presented 
 to us in his two books on " Magic," and on 
 " The Connexion of Magnetism with Nature 
 and Religion," the fruits of his thirty years' 
 study of this subject ; during the course of 
 which he has had repeated opportunities of 
 investigating all the phenomena, and of making 
 himself perfectly familiar with even the most 
 rare and perplexing. To any one who has 
 studied these works, the mysteries of the 
 temples and of the witch trials, are mysteries 
 no longer ; and he writes with the professed 
 design, not to make science mystical, but to 
 bring the mysterious within the bounds of 
 science. The phenomena, as he justly says, 
 are as old as the human race. Animal mag-
 
 IN THE TEMPLE. 39 
 
 netism is no new development, no new dis- 
 covery. Inseparable from life, although, like 
 many other vital phenomena, so subtle in its 
 influences, that only in abnormal cases it 
 attracts attention, it has exhibited itself more 
 or less in all ages, and in all countries. But 
 its value as a medical agent is only now be- 
 ginning to dawn on the civilized world, whilst 
 its importance, in a higher point of view, is yet 
 perceived but by few. Every human being 
 who has ever withdrawn himself from the 
 strife, and the turmoil, and the distraction, of 
 the world without, in order to look within, 
 must have found himself perplexed by a thou- 
 sand questions with regard to his own being, 
 which he would find no one able to solve. 
 In the study of animal magnetism, he will 
 first obtain some gleams of a light which will 
 show him that he is indeed the child of God ! 
 and that, though a dweller on the earth, and 
 fallen, some traces of his divine descent, and 
 of his unbroken connexion with a higher order 
 of being, still remain to comfort and encourage 
 him. He will find that there exists in his 
 species the germs of faculties that are never 
 fully unfolded here on earth, and which have 
 no reference to this state of being. They exist 
 in all men ; but in most cases are so faintly
 
 40 THK DWELLER IN THE TEMPLE. 
 
 elicited as not to be observable ; and when they 
 do shoot up here and there, they are denied, 
 disowned, misinterpreted, and maligned. It 
 is true, that their development is often the 
 symptom and effect of disease, which seems to 
 change the relations of our material and im- 
 material parts. It is true, that some of the 
 phenomena resulting from these faculties are 
 simulated by disease, as in the case of spectral 
 illusions ; and it is true, that imposture and 
 folly intrude their unhallowed footsteps into 
 this domain of science, as into that of all 
 others ; but there is a deep and holy well 
 of truth to be discovered in this neglected 
 bye-path of nature, by those who seek it, 
 from which they may draw the purest con- 
 solations for the present, the most ennobling 
 hopes for the future, and the most valuable 
 aid in penetrating through the letter, into 
 the spirit of the Scriptures. 
 
 I confess it makes me sorrowful when I 
 hear men laughing, scorning, and denying this 
 their brithright ; and I cannot but grieve to 
 think how closely and heavily their clay must 
 be wrapt about them, and how the external 
 and sensuous life must have prevailed over the 
 internal, when no gleam from within breaks 
 through to show them that these thinge are 
 true.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 WAKING AND SLEEPING ; 
 
 AND HOW THE DWELLER IN THE TEMPLE 
 SOMETIMES LOOKS ABROAD. 
 
 To begin with the most simple or rather, I 
 should say, the most ordinary, class of phe- 
 nomena for we can scarcely call that simple, 
 the mystery of which we have never been able 
 to penetrate I mean dreaming everybody's 
 experience will suffice to satisfy them, that 
 their ordinary dreams take place in a state of 
 imperfect sleep; and that this imperfect sleep 
 may be caused by any bodily or mental 
 derangement whatever ; or even from an ill- 
 made bed, or too much or too little covering ; 
 and it is not difficult to conceive that the 
 strange, confused, and disjointed visions we 
 are subject to on these occasions, may proceed 
 
 E5
 
 42 WAKING AND SLEEPING, ETC. 
 
 from some parts of the brain being less at rest 
 than the others ; so that, assuming- phrenology 
 to be fact, one organ is not in a state to correct 
 the impressions of another. Of such vain 
 and insignificant visions, I need scarcely say 
 it is not my intention to treat ; but, at the same 
 time, I must observe, that when we have 
 admitted the above explanation, as far as it 
 goes, we have not, even in regard to them, 
 made much progress towards removing the 
 difficulty. If dreaming resembled thinking 
 the explanations might be quite satisfactory ; 
 but the truth is, that dreaming is not thinking, 
 as we think in our waking state ; but is more 
 analogous to thinking in delirium or acute 
 mania, or in that chronic condition which gives 
 rise to sensuous illusions. In our ordinary 
 normal state, conceiving of places or persons 
 does not enable us to see them or hold com- 
 munion with them ; nor do we fancy that we 
 do either. It is true that I have heard some 
 painters say, that by closing their eyes and 
 concentrating their thoughts on an object, they 
 can bring it more or less vividly before them ; 
 and Blake professed actually to see his sitters 
 when they where not present ; but whatever 
 interpretations we may put upou this curious 
 faculty, his case was clearly abnormal, and con-
 
 WAKING AND SLEEPING, ETC. 43 
 
 nected with some personal peculiarity, either 
 physical or psychical ; and, after making the 
 most of it, it must be admitted that it can 
 enter into no sort of comparison with that we 
 possess in sleep, when, in our most ordinary 
 dreams, untrammelled by time or space, we 
 visit the uttermost ends of the earth, fly in the 
 air, swim in the sea, listen to beautiful music 
 and eloquent orations, behold the most charm- 
 ing-, as well as the most loathsome objects ; 
 and not only see, but converse with our 
 friends, absent or present, dead or alive. 
 Every one, I think, will grant that there is the 
 widest possible difference betwixt conceiving 
 of these things when awake, and dreaming 
 them. When we dream, we do, we see, we 
 say, we hear, &c. &c., that is, we believe at the 
 time that we do so ; and what more can be 
 said of us when we are awake, than that we 
 believe we are doing, seeing, saying, hearing, 
 &c. It is by external circumstances, and the 
 results of our actions, that we are able to 
 decide whether we have actually done a thing 
 or seen a place, or only dreamt that we have 
 done so ; and as I have said above, after some 
 lapse of time, we are not always able to dis- 
 tinguish between the two. Whilst dreaming, 
 we frequently ask ourselves whether we are
 
 44 WAKING AND SLEEPING, ETC. 
 
 awake or asleep ; and nothing is more common 
 than to hear people say, " Well, I think I did, 
 or heard, so and so ; but I am not sure 
 whether it was so, or whether I dreamt it." 
 Thus, therefore, the very lowest order of 
 dreaming, the most disjointed and perplexed, 
 is far removed from the most vivid presen- 
 tations of our waking thoughts ; and it is in 
 this respect, I think, that the explanations of 
 the phenomena hitherto offered by phrenolo- 
 gists, and the metaphysicians of this country, 
 are inadequate and unsatisfactory ; whilst, as 
 regards the analogy betwixt the visions of sleep 
 and delirium, whatever similarity there may be 
 in the effects, we cannot suppose the cause to 
 be identical : since, in delirium, the images 
 and delusions are the result of excessive action 
 of the brain, which we must conclude to be the 
 very reverse of its condition in sleep. Pinel 
 certainly has hazarded an opinion that sleep 
 is occasioned by an efflux of blood to the head, 
 and consequent compression of the brain a 
 theory which would have greater weight were 
 sleep more strictly periodical than it is ; but 
 which, at present, it seems impossible to recon- 
 cile with many established facts. 
 
 Some of the German physiologists and 
 psychologists have taken a deeper view of this
 
 WAKING AND SLEEPING, ETC. 45 
 
 question of dreamingfrom considering it in con- 
 nexion with the phenomena of animal magnet- 
 ism; and although their theories differ in some 
 respects, they all unite in looking towards that 
 department of nature for instruction. Whilst 
 one section of these enquirers, the Exegetical 
 Society of Stockholm included, calls in the aid 
 of supernatural agency, another, amongst 
 whom Dr. Joseph Ennemoser, of Berlin, 
 appears to he one of the most eminent, main- 
 tains that the explanation of the mystery is to 
 be chiefly sought in the great and universal 
 law of polarity, which extends not only 
 beyond the limits of this earth, but beyond 
 the limits of this system, which must neces- 
 sarily be in connexion with all others ; so that 
 there is thus an eternal and never-ceasing 
 inter-action, of which, from the multiplicity 
 and contrariety of the influences we are insen- 
 sible, just as we are insensible of the pressure 
 of the atmoshere, from its impinging on us 
 equally on all sides. 
 
 Waking and sleeping are the day and night 
 sides of organic life, during which alterna- 
 tions an animal is placed in different relations 
 to the external world, and to these alternations 
 all organisms are subject. The completeness 
 and independence of each individual organism,
 
 46 WAKING AND SLEEPING, ETC. 
 
 is in exact ratio to the number and complete- 
 ness of the organs it developes ; and thus the 
 locomotive animal has the advantage of the 
 plant or the zoophyte, whilst, of the animal 
 kingdom, man is the most complete and inde- 
 pendent ; and, although still a member of the 
 universal whole, and therefore incapable of 
 isolating himself, yet better able than any 
 other organism to ward off external influences, 
 and comprise his world within himself. But, 
 according to Dr. Ennemoser, one of the conse- 
 quences of this very completeness, is a weak 
 and insignificant development of instinct ; and 
 thus the healthy, waking, conscious man, is, of 
 all organisms, the least sensible to the impres- 
 sions of this universal intercommunication and 
 polarity; although, at the same time, par- 
 taking of the nature of the plant and the 
 animal, he is subject, like the first, to all man- 
 ner of atmospheric, telluric, and periodic in- 
 fluences; and frequently exhibits, like the 
 second, peculiar instinctive appetites and de- 
 sires, and, in some individual organizations, 
 very marked antipathies and susceptibilities 
 with regard to certain objects and influences, 
 even when not placed in any evident relation 
 with them. 
 
 According to this theory, sleep is a retro-
 
 WAKING AND SLEEPING, ETC. 47 
 
 grade step a retreating into a lower sphere ; 
 in which condition, the sensuous functions 
 being in abeyance, the instincts somewhat 
 resume their sway. " In sleep and in sick- 
 ness," he says, " the higher animals and man 
 fall in a physico-organical point of view, from 
 their individual independence, or power of 
 self-sustainment ; and their polar relation, that 
 is, their relation, to the healthy and waking 
 man, becomes changed from a positive to a 
 negative one ; all men, in regard to each other, 
 as well as all nature, being the subjects of this 
 polarity. It is to be remembered, that this 
 theory of Dr. Ennemoser's was promulgated 
 before the discoveries of Baron von Reichen- 
 back in magnetism were made public, and the 
 susceptibility to magnetic influences in the 
 animal organism, which the experiments of 
 the latter go to establish, is certainly in its 
 favour ; but whilst it pretends to explain the 
 condition of the sleepers, and may possibly be 
 of some service in our investigations into the 
 mystery of dreaming, it leaves us as much in 
 the dark as ever, with respect to the cause of 
 our falling into this negative state ; an enquiry 
 in which little progress seems to have been 
 hitherto made. 
 
 With respect to dreaming, Dr. Ennemoser
 
 48 WAKING AND SLEEPING, ETC. 
 
 rejects the physiological theory, which main- 
 tains, that in sleep, magnetic or otherwise, the 
 activity of the brain is transferred to the gan- 
 glionic system, and that the former falls into 
 a subordinate relation. " Dreaming," he says, 
 " is the gradual awakening of activity in the 
 organs of imagination, whereby the presenta- 
 tion of sensuous objects to the spirit, which 
 had been discontinued in profound sleep, is 
 resumed. Dreaming," he adds, " also arises 
 from the secret activity of the spirit in the 
 innermost sensuous organs of the brain, busy- 
 ing the fancy with subjective sensuous images, 
 the objective conscious day -life giving place to 
 the creative dominion of the poetical genius, 
 to which night becomes day, and universal 
 nature its theatre of action ; and thus the su- 
 persensuous or transcendent nature of the 
 spirit becomes more manifest in dreaming 
 than in the waking state. But, in considering 
 these phenomena, man must be viewed both 
 in his psychical and physical relations, and as 
 equally subject to spiritual as to natural opera- 
 tions and influences ; since, during the con- 
 tinuance of life, neither soul nor body can act 
 quite independently of the other ; for, although 
 it be the immortal spirit which perceives, it is 
 through the instrumentality of the sensuous
 
 WAKING AND SLEEPING, ETC. 49 
 
 organs that it does so ; for of absolute spirit 
 without body, we can form no conception." 
 
 What is here meant seems to be, that the, 
 brain becomes the world to the spirit, before 
 the impressions from the external world, do 
 actually come streaming through by means of 
 the external sensuous organs. The inner 
 spiritual light illumines, till the outward, 
 physical light overpowers and extinguishes it. 
 But in this state, the brain, which is the store- 
 house of acquired knowledge, is not in a con- 
 dition to apply its acquisitions effectively ; 
 whilst the intuitive knowledge of the spirit, if 
 the sleep be imperfect, is clouded by its 
 interference. 
 
 Other physiologists, however, believe, from 
 the numerous and well attested cases of the 
 transference of the senses, in disease, to the 
 pit of the stomach, that the activity of the 
 brain in sleep is transferred to the epigastric 
 region. The instances of this phenomenon, 
 as related by Dr. Petetin and others, having 
 been frequently published, I need not here 
 quote. But, as Dr. Passavant observes, it is 
 well known that the functions of the nerves 
 differ in some animals ; and that one set can 
 supply the place of another ; as in those cases 
 
 VOL. i. F
 
 50 WAKING AND SLEEPING, ETC. 
 
 where theri is a great susceptibility to light, 
 though no eyes can be discovered. 
 
 These physiologists believe, that, even during 
 the most profouud sleep, the spirit retains 
 its activity, a proposition which, indeed, we 
 cannot doubt ; " it wakes, though the senses 
 sleep, retreating into its infinite depths, like 
 the sun at night ; living on its spiritual life 
 undisturbed, whilst the body sinks into a state 
 of vegetative tranquillity. Nor does it follow 
 that the soul is unconscious in sleep, because 
 in waking we have frequently lost all memory 
 of its consciousness ; since, by the repose of 
 the sensuous organs, the bridge betwixt waking 
 and sleeping is removed, and the recol- 
 lections of one state are not carried into the 
 other." 
 
 It will occur here to every one, how often 
 in the instant of waking we are not only con- 
 scious that we have been dreaming, but are 
 also conscious of the subject of the dream, 
 which we try in vain to grasp, but which 
 eludes us, and is gone for ever the moment 
 we have passed into a state of complete 
 wakeiulness. 
 
 Now, with respect to this so called dreaming 
 in profound sleep, it is a thing no one can well 
 doubt, who thoroughly believes that his body
 
 WAKING AND SLEEPING, ETC. 5l 
 
 is a temple built for the dwelling of an im- 
 mortal spirit; for we cannot conceive of spirit 
 sleeping-, or needing that restoration which we 
 know to be the condition of earthly organisms. 
 If, therefore, the spirit wakes, may we not 
 suppose that the more it is disentangled from 
 the obstructions of the body, the more clear 
 will be its perceptions ; and that, therefore, 
 in the profound natural sleep of the sensuous 
 organs we may be in a state of clear-seeing. 
 All who have attended to the subject are aware, 
 that the clear-seeing of magnetic patients 
 depends on the depth of their sleep ; whatever 
 circumstance, internal or external, tends to in- 
 terrupt this profound repose of the sensuous 
 organs, inevitably obscures their perception*. 
 Again, with respect to the not carrying 
 with us the recollections of one state into the 
 other, should not this lead us to suspect, that 
 sleeping and waking are two different spheres 
 of existence ; partaking of the nature of that 
 double life, of which the records of human 
 physiology have presented us with various in- 
 stances, wherein a patient finds himself utterly 
 divested of all recollection of past events and 
 acquired knowledge, and has to begin life 
 and education anew, till another transition 
 takes place, wherein he recovers what he had
 
 52 DREAM fXG, ETC. 
 
 lost, whilst he at the same time loses all he 
 had lately gained, which he only recovers, 
 once more, by another transition, restoring to 
 him his lately acquired knowledge, but again 
 obliterating his original stock, thus alternately 
 passing from one state to the other, and dis- 
 closing a double life ; an educated man in one 
 condition, a child learning his alphabet in 
 the next. 
 
 Where the transition from one state to 
 another is complete, memory is entirely lost ; 
 but there are cases in which the change, being 
 either gradual or modified, the recollections of 
 one life are carried more or less into the other. 
 We know this to be the case with magnetic 
 sleepers, as it is with ordinary dreamers ; and 
 most persons have met with instances of the 
 dream of one night being continued in the 
 next. Treviranus mentions the case of a stu- 
 dent who regularly began to talk the moment 
 he fell asleep, the subject of his discourse 
 being a dream, which he always took up at 
 the exact point at which he had left it the 
 previous morning. Of this dream he had 
 never the slightest recollection in his waking 
 state. A daughter of Sir George Mackenzie's, 
 who died at an early age, was endowed with 
 a remarkable genius for music, and was an
 
 DREAMING, ETC. 63 
 
 accomplished organist. This young lady 
 dreamt, during an illness, that she was at a 
 party, where she had heard a new piece of 
 music, which made so great an impression on 
 her by its novelty and beauty, that, on awaking, 
 she besought her attendants to bring her some 
 paper, that she might write it down before 
 she had forgotten it, an indulgence which, 
 apprehensive of excitement, her medical 
 attendant unfortunately forbad; for, apart from 
 the additional psychological interest that would 
 have been attached to the fact, the effects of 
 compliance, judging from what ensued, would 
 probably have been soothing, rather than other- 
 wise. About ten days afterwards, she had a 
 second dream, wherein she again found herself 
 at a party, where she descried on the desk 
 of a pianoforte, in a corner of the room, an 
 open book, in which, with astonished delight, 
 she recognised the same piece of music, which 
 she immediately proceeded to play, and then 
 awoke. The piece was not of a short or fugi- 
 tive character, but in the style of an overture. 
 The question, of course, remains, as to whether 
 she was composing the music in her sleep, or 
 by an act of clairvoyance, was perceiving some 
 that actually existed. Either is possible, for, 
 although she might have been incapable of 
 F 5
 
 54 DREAMING, ETC. 
 
 composing so elaborate a piece in her waking 
 state, there are many instances on record of 
 persons performing intellectual feats in dreams, 
 to which they were unequal when awake. A 
 very eminent person assured me, that he had 
 once composed some lines in his sleep, I think it 
 was a sonnet, which far exceeded any of his 
 waking performances of that description. 
 
 Somewhat analagous to this sort of double 
 life, is the case of the young girl mentioned by 
 Dr. Abercrombie and others, whose employ- 
 ment was keeping cattle, and who slept for 
 some time, much to her own annoyance, in the 
 room adjoining one occupied by an itinerant 
 musician. The man, who played exceedingly 
 well, being an enthusiast in his art, fre- 
 quently practised the greater part of the 
 night, performing on his violin very compli- 
 cated, and difficult compositions,whilst the girl, 
 so far from discovering any pleasure in his 
 performances, complained bitterly of being 
 kept awake by the noise. Some time after 
 this, she fell ill and was removed to the house 
 of a charitable lady, who undertook the charge 
 of her ; and here, by and by, the family were 
 amazed by frequently hearing the most exqui- 
 site music in the night, which they at length 
 discovered to proceed from the girl. The
 
 DREAMING, ETC. 55 
 
 sounds were those of a violin, and the tuning 
 and other preliminary processes were accu- 
 rately imitated. She went through long and 
 elaborate pieces, and afterwards was heard imi- 
 tating, in the same way, the sounds of a piano- 
 forte that was in the house. She also talked 
 very cleverly on the subjects of religion and 
 politics, and discussed, with great judgment, 
 the characters and conduct of persons, public 
 and private. Awake, she knew nothing of these 
 things ; but was, on the contrary, stupid, heavy, 
 and had no taste whatever for music. Phreno- 
 logy would probably interpret this phenomenon 
 by saying, that the lower elements of the 
 cerebral spinal axis, as organs of sensation, 
 &c. &c., being asleep, the cluster of the higher 
 organs requisite for the above combinations, 
 were not only awake, but rendered more active 
 from the repose of the others : but to me it 
 appears, that we here see the inherent faculties 
 of the spirit manifesting themselves, whilst 
 the body slept. The same faculties must have 
 existed when it was in a waking state ; but the 
 impressions and manifestations were then 
 dependant on the activity and perfection of the 
 sensuous organs, which seem to have been of 
 an inferior order ; and, consequently, no rays
 
 56 DREAMING, ETC. 
 
 of this in-dwelling genius could pierce the 
 coarse integument in which it was lodged. 
 
 Similar unexpected faculties have been not 
 unfrequently manifested by the dying; and we 
 may conclude to a certain degree from the 
 same cause ; namely, that the incipient death 
 of the body is leaving the spirit more unob- 
 structed. Dr. Steinbech mentions the case of 
 a clergyman, who, being summoned to ad- 
 minister the last sacraments to a dying 
 peasant, found him, to his surprise, praying 
 aloud in Greek and Hebrew, a mystery which 
 could be no otherwise explained, than by the 
 circumstance of his having, when a child, fre- 
 quently heard the then minister of the parish 
 praying in those languages. He had, how- 
 ever, never understood the prayers, nor indeed 
 paid any attention to them ; still less had he 
 been aware that they lived in his memory. It 
 would give much additional interest to this 
 story had Dr. Steinbech mentioned how far 
 the man, now, whilst uttering the words, 
 understood their meaning ; whether he was 
 aware of what he was saying, or was only re- 
 peating the words by rote. 
 
 With regard to the extraordinary faculty of 
 memory manifested in these and similar cases, I
 
 DREAMING, ETC. 57 
 
 shall have some obervations to make in a sub- 
 sequent part of this book. 
 
 Parallel instances are those of idiots, who, 
 either in a somnambulic state, or immediately 
 previous to death, have spoken as if inspired. 
 At St. Jean de Maurienne, in Savoy, there 
 was a dumb Cretin, who, having- fallen into 
 a natural state of somnambulism, not only was 
 found to speak with ease, but also to the pur- 
 pose ; a faculty which disappeared, however, 
 whenever he awoke. Dumb persons have like- 
 wise been known to speak when at the point 
 of death. 
 
 The possibility of suggesting dreams to 
 some sleepers by whispering in the ear, is a 
 well known fact ; but this can, doubtless, only 
 be practicable where the sensuous organs are 
 partly awake. Then, as with magnetic 
 patients in a state of incomplete sleep, we have 
 only reverie and imagination in place of clear- 
 seeing. 
 
 The next class of dreams are those which 
 partake of the nature of second sight, or pro- 
 phecy, and of these there are various kinds ; 
 some being plain and literal in their premo- 
 nitions, others allegorical and obscure ; whilst 
 some also regard the most unimportant, and 
 others the most grave events of our lives. A
 
 58 DREAMING, ETC. 
 
 gentleman engaged in business in the south 
 of Scotland, for example, dreams that on en- 
 tering his office in the morning, he sees seated 
 on a certain stool, a person formerly in his ser- 
 vice as clerk, of whom he had neither heard 
 or thought for some time. He enquires the 
 motive of the visit, and is told that such and 
 such circumstances having brought the 
 stranger to that part of the country, he could 
 not forbear visiting his old quarters, express- 
 ing, at the same time, a vrish to spend a few 
 days in his former occupation, &c. &c. The 
 gentleman, being struck with the vividness of 
 the illusion, relates his dream at breakfast, and, 
 to his surprise, on going to his office, there sits 
 the man, and the dialogue that ensues is pre- 
 cisely that of the dream. I have heard of 
 numerous instances of this kind of dream, 
 where no previous expectation nor excitement 
 of mind could be found to account for them, 
 and where the fulfilment was too exact and 
 literal, in all particulars, to admit of their 
 being explained away by the ready resource 
 of " an extraordinary coincidence." There 
 are, also, on record, both in this country and 
 others, many perfectly well authenticated cases 
 of people obtaining prizes in the lottery, 
 through having dreamt of the fortunate num-
 
 DREAMING, ETC. 59 
 
 bers. As many numbers, however, may have 
 been dreamt of that were not drawn prizes, we 
 can derive no conclusion from this circumstance. 
 A very remarkable instance of this kind of 
 dreaming occurred a few years since to Mr. 
 A. F., an eminent Scotch advocate, whilst 
 staying in the neighbourhood of Lock Fyne, 
 who dreamt one night that he saw a number 
 of people in the street following a man to the 
 scaffold. He discovered the features of the 
 criminal in the cart distinctly ; and, for some 
 reason or other, which he could not account 
 for, felt an extraordinary interest in his fate ; 
 insomuch that he joined the throng, and ac- 
 companied him to the place that was to ter- 
 minate his earthly career. This interest was 
 the more unaccountable, that the man had an 
 exceedingly unprepossessing countenance, but 
 it was, nevertheless, so vivid, as to induce the 
 dreamer to ascend the scaffold, and address 
 him, with a view to enable him to escape the 
 impending catastrophe. Suddenly, however, 
 whilst he was talking to him, the whole scene 
 dissolved away, and the sleeper awoke. Being 
 a good deal struck with the life-like reality of 
 the vision, and the impression made on his 
 mind by the features of this man, he related 
 the circumstance to his friends, at breakfast,
 
 60 DREAMING, ETC. 
 
 adding that he should know him anywhere, if 
 he saw him. A few jests being made on the 
 subject, the thing was forgotten. 
 
 On the afternoon of the same day, the advo- 
 cate was informed that two men wanted to 
 speak to him, and, on going into the hall, he 
 was struck with amazement at perceiving that 
 one of them was the hero of his dream ! 
 
 " We are accused of a murder," said they, 
 " and we wish to consult you. Three of us 
 went out last night, in a boat ; an accident 
 has happened ; our comrade is drowned, and 
 they want to make us accountable for him. 11 
 The advocate then put some interrogations to 
 them, arid the result produced in his mind, 
 by their answers, was a conviction of their 
 guilt. Probably the recollection of his dream 
 rendered the effects of this conviction more 
 palpable ; for, one addressing the other, said, 
 in Gaelic, " We have come to the wrong man; 
 he is against us." 
 
 " There is a higher power than I against 
 you," returned the gentleman ; " and the only 
 advice I can give you is, if you are guilty, fly 
 immediately." Upon this, they went away ; 
 and the next thing he heard was, that they 
 were taken into custody, on suspicion of the 
 murder.
 
 DREAMING, ETC. 61 
 
 The account of the affair was, that, as they 
 said, the three had gone out together on the 
 preceding evening, and that in the morning, 
 the body of one of them had been found on 
 the shore, with a cut across his forehead. The 
 father and friend of the victim had waited on 
 the banks of the lake till the boat came in, and 
 then demanded their companion ; of whom, 
 however, they professed themselves unable to 
 give any account. Upon this, the old man led 
 them to his cottage for the purpose of showing 
 them the body of his son. One entered, and, 
 at the sight of it, burst into a passion of tears : 
 the other refused to do so, saying his business 
 called him immediately home, and went sulkily 
 away. This last was the man seen in the 
 dream. 
 
 After a fortnight's incarceration, the former 
 of these was liberated ; and he then declared 
 to the advocate his intention of bringing an 
 action of damages for false imprisonment. 
 He was advised not to do it. " Leave well 
 alone," said the lawyer ; " and if you'll take 
 my advice, make off while you can." The man, 
 however, refused to fly : he declared that he 
 really did not know what had occasioned the 
 death of his comrade. The latter had been at 
 one end of the boat, and he at the other ; when 
 
 VOL. i. G
 
 62 DRKAMING. ETC. 
 
 he looked round, he was gone ; but whether 
 he had fallen overboard, and cut his head as he 
 fell, or whether he had been struck and pushed 
 into the water, he did not know. The advocate 
 became finally satisfied of this man's inno- 
 cence ; but the authorities, thinking it absurd 
 to try one and not the other, again laid hands 
 on him ; and it fell to Mr. A. F. to be the 
 defender of both. The difficulty was, not to 
 separate their cases in his pleading ; for, how- 
 ever morally convinced of the different ground 
 on which they stood, his duty, professionally, 
 was to obtain the acquittal of both ; in which 
 he finally succeeded, as regarded the charge of 
 murder. They were, therefore, sentenced to 
 two years' imprisonment ; and, so far as the 
 dream is concerned, here ends the story. 
 There remains, however, a curious sequel to it. 
 A few years afterwards, the same gentleman 
 being in a boat on Loch Fyne, in company 
 with Sir T. D. L., happened to be mentioning 
 these curious circumstances, when one of the 
 boatmen said, that he " knew well about those 
 two men ; and that a very strange thing had 
 occurred in regard to one of them." This one, 
 on enquiry, proved to be the subject of the 
 dream ; and the strange thing was this : On 
 being liberated, he had quitted that part of the
 
 DREAMING, ETC. 6.3 
 
 country, and, in process of time, had gone to 
 Greenock, and thence embarked in a vessel 
 for Cork. But the vessel seemed fated never 
 to reach its destination ; one misfortune hap- 
 pened after another, till at length the sailors 
 said, " This won't do ; there must be a mur- 
 derer on board with us." As is usual, when 
 such a persuasion exists, they drew lots three 
 times, and each time it fell on that man. He 
 was, consequently, put on shore, and the vessel 
 went on its way without him. What had 
 become of him afterwards, was not known. 
 
 A friend of mine, being in London, dreamt 
 that she saw her little boy playing on the 
 terrace of her house in Northumberland, 
 that he fell and hurt his arm, and she saw him 
 lying apparently dead. The dream recurred 
 two or three times, on the same night, and 
 she awoke her husband, saying, she " feared 
 something must have happened to Henry." 
 In due course of post, a letter arrived from the 
 governess, saying, that she was sorry to have 
 to commuicate that, whilst playing on the ter- 
 race that morning, Master Henry had fallen 
 over a heap of stones, and broken his arm ; 
 adding, that he had fainted after the accident, 
 and had lain for some time insensible. The 
 lady to whom this dream occurred, is not aware
 
 64 DREAMING, ETC. 
 
 having ever manifested this faculty before or 
 since. 
 
 Mrs. W. dreamt that she saw people ascend- 
 ing by a ladder to the chamber of her step-son, 
 John; wakes, and says she is afraid he is 
 dead, and that there was something odd in 
 her dream about a watch and a candle. In 
 the morning, a messenger is sent to enquire for 
 the gentleman, and they find people ascending 
 to his chamber window by a ladder, the door 
 of the room being locked. They discover him 
 dead on the floor, with his watch in his hand, 
 and the candle between his feet. The same 
 lady dreamt that she saw a friend in great 
 agony ; and that she heard him say, they were 
 tearing his flesh from his bones. He was 
 some time afterwards seized with inflamma- 
 tion, lay as she had seen him, and made use 
 of those exact words. 
 
 A friend of mine dreamt, lately, that some- 
 body said, her nephew must not be bled, as 
 it would be dangerous. The young man was 
 quite well, and there had been no design of 
 bleeding him ; but, on the following morning 
 he had a tooth drawn, and an effusion of blood 
 ensued, which lasted some days, and caused a 
 good deal of uneasiness. 
 
 A farmer, in Worcestershire, dreamt that
 
 DREAMING, ETC. 65 
 
 his little boy, of twelve years old, had fallen 
 from the waggon and was killed. The dream 
 recurred three times in one night; but, unwilling 
 to yield to superstitious fears, he allowed the 
 child to accompany the waggoner to Kidder- 
 minster Fair. The driver was very fond of 
 the boy, and he felt assured would take care of 
 him ; but, having occasion to go a little out of 
 theroad to leave a parcel, the man bade the child 
 walk on with the waggon, and he would meet 
 him at a certain spot. On arriving there, the 
 horses were coming quietly forward, but the 
 boy was not with them ; and on retracing the 
 road, he was found dead ; having, apparently, 
 fallen from the shafts and been crushed by the 
 wheels. 
 
 A gentleman, who resided near one of the 
 Scottish lakes, dreamt that he saw a number 
 of persons surrounding a body, which had just 
 been drawn out of the water. On approaching 
 the spot, he perceives that it is himself, and 
 the assistants are his own friends and retainers. 
 Alarmed at the life-like reality of the vision, 
 he resolved to elude the threatened destiny by 
 never venturing on the lake again. On one 
 occasion, however, it became quite indispen- 
 sable that he should do so ; and, as the day was 
 quite calm, he yielded to the necessity, on con- 
 G 5
 
 60 DREAMING, ETC. 
 
 dition that he should he put ashore at once on 
 the opposite side, whilst the rest of the party 
 proceeded to their destinations, where he would 
 meet them. This was accordingly done : the 
 boat skimmed gaily over the smooth waters, 
 and arrived safely at the rendezvous, the gen- 
 tlemen laughing at the superstition of their 
 companion ; whilst he stood smiling on the 
 bank to receive them. But, alas ! the fates- 
 were inexorable : the little promontory that 
 supported him had been undermined by the 
 water : it gave way beneath his feet, and life 
 was extinct before he could be rescued. This 
 circumstance was related to me by a friend of 
 the family. 
 
 Mr. S. was the son of an Irish bishop, who 
 set somewhat more value on the things of 
 this world than became his function. He 
 had always told his son that there was but one 
 thing he could not forgive, and that was a bad 
 marriage : meaning, by a bad marriage, a poor 
 one. As cautions of this sort do not, by any 
 means, prevent young people falling in love, 
 Mr. S. fixed his affections on Lady O., a fair 
 young widow, without any fortune ; and, aware 
 that it would be useless to apply for his father's 
 consent, he married her without asking it. 
 They were, consequently, exceedingly poor ;
 
 DREAMING, ETC. 67 
 
 and, indeed, nearly all they had to live on was 
 a small sinecure of forty pounds per annum, 
 which Dean Swift procured for him. Whilst 
 in this situation, Mr. S. dreamt one night 
 that he was in the cathedral in which he had 
 formerly been accustomed to attend service ; 
 that he saw a stranger, habited as a bishop, 
 occupying his father's throne ; and that, on 
 applying to the verger for an explanation, the 
 man said, that the bishop was dead, and that 
 he had expired just as he was adding a codicil 
 to his will in his son's favour. The impression 
 made by the dream was so strong, that Mr. S. 
 felt that he should have no repose till he had 
 obtained news from home ; and as the most 
 speedy way of doing so, was to go there him- 
 self, he started on horseback, much against the 
 advice of his wife, who attached no importance 
 whatever to the circumstance. He had 
 scarcely accomplished half his journey, when 
 he met a courrier, bearing the intelligence of 
 his father's death ; and when he reached 
 home, he found that there was a codicil 
 attached to the will of the greatest importance 
 to his own future prospects ; but the old gen- 
 tleman had expired, with the pen in his hand, 
 just as.he was about to sign it. 
 
 In this unhappy position, reduced to hope-
 
 68 DREAMING, ETC. 
 
 less indigence, the friends of the young man 
 proposed that he should present himself at 
 the Vice-regal Palace, on the next levee day, 
 in hopes that some interest might be excited 
 in his favour ; to which, with reluctance, he 
 consented. As he was ascending the stairs, 
 he was met by a gentleman whose dress 
 indicated that he belonged to the Church. 
 
 " Good Heavens !" said he, to the friend who 
 accompanied him, " Who is that ?" 
 
 " That is Mr. , of so and so." 
 
 "Then he will be Bishop of L !" re- 
 turned Mr. S. ; " For that is the man I saw 
 occupying my father's throne !" 
 
 " Impossible !" replied the other ; " he has 
 no interest whatever, and has no more chance 
 of being a bishop than I have." 
 
 " You will see," replied Mr. S., "I am 
 certain he will. 
 
 They had made their obeisance above, and 
 were returing, when there was a great cry 
 without, and everybody rushed to the doors 
 and windows to enquire what had happened. 
 The horses attached to the carriage of a young 
 nobleman had become restive, and were 
 endangering the life of their master, when 
 
 Mr. rushed forward, and, at the peril of 
 
 his own, seized their heads, and afforded Lord
 
 DREAMING, ETC. 69 
 
 C. time to descend before they broke through 
 all restraint, and dashed away. Through the 
 interest of this nobleman and his friends, to 
 
 whom Mr. had been previously quite 
 
 unknown, he obtained the see of L. These 
 circumstances were related to me by a 
 member of the family. 
 
 It would be tedious to relate all the 
 instances of this sort of dreaming which have 
 come to my knowledge, but were they even 
 much more rare than they are, and were there 
 none of a graver and more mysterious kind, 
 it might certainly occasion some surprise that 
 they should have excited so little attention. 
 When stories of this sort are narrated, they 
 are listened to with wonder for the moment, 
 and then forgotten, and few people reflect on 
 the deep significance of the facts, nor the 
 important consequences to us involved in the 
 question, of how, with our limited faculties, 
 which cannot foretel the events of the next 
 moment, we should suddenly become prophets 
 and seers. 
 
 The following dream, as it regards the fate 
 of a very interesting person, and is, I believe, 
 very little known, I will relate, though the 
 story is of somewhat an old date : Major 
 Andre, the circumstances of whose lamented
 
 70 DREAMING, ETC. 
 
 death are too well known to make it neces- 
 sary for me to detail them here, was a friend 
 of Miss Se ward's, and, previously to his em- 
 barkation for America, he made a journey 
 into Derbyshire, to pay her a visit, and it 
 was arranged that they should ride over to see 
 the wonders of the Peak, and introduce Andre 
 to Newton, her minstrel, as she called him, 
 and to Mr. Cunningham, the curate, who was 
 also a poet. 
 
 Whilst these two gentlemen were awaiting 
 the arrival of their guests, of whose intentions 
 they had been apprised, Mr. Cunningham 
 mentioned to Newton that, on the preceding 
 night, he had had a very extraordinary dream, 
 which he could not get out of his head. He 
 had fancied himself in a forest ; the place was 
 strange to him ; and, whilst looking about, he 
 perceived a horseman approaching at great 
 speed, who had scarcely reached the spot 
 where the dreamer stood, when three men 
 rushed out of the thicket, and, seizing his 
 bridle, hurried him away, after closely search- 
 ing his person. The countenance of the 
 stranger being very interesting, the sympathy 
 felt by the sleeper for his apparent misfortune 
 awoke him; but he presently fell asleep again, 
 and dreamt that he was standing near a great
 
 DREAMING, ETC. 71 
 
 city, amongst thousands of people, and that 
 he saw the same person he had seen seized 
 in the wood brought ont and suspended to a 
 gallows. When Andre and Miss Seward 
 arrived, he was horror-struck to perceive that 
 his new acquaintance was the antitype of the 
 man in the dream. 
 
 Mr. C., a friend of mine, told me, the other 
 day, that he had dreamt he had gone to see 
 a lady of his acquaintance, and that she had 
 presented him with a purse. In the morning 
 he mentioned the circumstance to his wife, 
 adding that he wondered what should have 
 made him dream of a person he had not been 
 in any way led to think of; and, above all, 
 that she should give him a purse. On that 
 same day, a letter arrived from that lady to 
 Mrs. C., containing a purse, of which she 
 begged her acceptance. Here was the imper- 
 fect foreshadowing of the fact, probably from 
 unsound sleep. 
 
 Another friend lately dreamt, one Thursday 
 night, that he saw an acquaintance of his 
 thrown from his horse ; and that he was lying 
 on the ground with the blood streaming from 
 his face, which was much cut. He mentioned 
 his dream in the morning, and being an entire 
 disbeliever in such phenomena, he could not
 
 72 DREAMING, ETC. 
 
 account for the impression made on his mind. 
 This was so strong, that, on Saturday, he could 
 not forbear calling at his friend's house ; who, 
 he was told, was in bed, having been thrown 
 from his horse on the previous clay, and much 
 injured about the face. 
 
 Relations of this description having been 
 more or less familiar to the world in all times 
 and places ; and the recurrence of the pheno- 
 mena too frequent to admit of their reality 
 being disputed, various theories were promul- 
 gated to account for them ; and, indeed, there 
 scarcely seems to be a philosopher or historian 
 amongst the Greeks and Romans who does not 
 make some allusion to this ill-understood de- 
 partment of nature ; whilst, amongst the 
 eastern nations, the faith in such mysterious 
 revelations remains even yet undiminished. 
 Spirits, good and evil, or the divinities of the 
 heathen mythology, were generally called in 
 to remove the difficulty; though some philo- 
 sophers, rejecting this supernatural inter- 
 ference, sought the explanation in merely 
 physical causes. 
 
 In the Druidical rites of the northern na- 
 tions, women bore a considerable part : there 
 were pristesses, who gave forth oracles and 
 prophecies, much after the manner of the Py.
 
 WITCHES, ETC. 73 
 
 thonesses of the Grecian temples, and, no 
 doubt, drawing their inspiration from the 
 same sources ; namely, from the influences of 
 magnetism, and from narcotics. When the 
 pure rites of Christianity superseded the 
 Heathen forms of worship, tradition kept alive 
 the memory of these vaticinations, together 
 with some of the arcana of the Druidical 
 groves ; and hence, in the middle ages, arose 
 a race of so-called witches and sorcerers, who 
 were partly imposters, and partly self'deluded. 
 Nobody thought of seeking the explanation 
 of the facts they witnessed in natural causes ; 
 what had formerly been attributed to the in- 
 fluence of the Gods, was now attributed to the 
 influence of the Devil ; and a league with 
 Satan was the universal solvent of all diffi- 
 culties. 
 
 Persecution followed, of course ; and men, 
 women, and children, were offered up to the 
 demon of superstition, till the candid and 
 rational part of mankind, taking fright at the 
 holocaust, began to put in their protest, and 
 lead out a reaction, which, like all reactions, 
 ran right into the opposite extreme. From 
 believing everything, they ceased to believe 
 anything ; and, after swallowing unhesitatingly 
 the most monstrous absurdities, they relieved 
 VOL. i. H
 
 74 WITCHES, ETC. 
 
 themselves of the whole difficulty, by denying 
 the plainest facts ; whilst, what it was found 
 impossible to deny, was referred to imagina- 
 tion that most abused word, which ex- 
 plained nothing, but left the matter as obscure 
 as it was before. Man's spiritual nature was 
 forgotten; and what the senses could not 
 apprehend, nor the understanding account 
 for, was pronounced to be impossible. Thank 
 God ! we have lived through that age, and, 
 in spite of the struggles of the materialistic 
 school, we are fast advancing to a better. 
 The traditions of the saints who suffered the 
 most appalling tortures, and slept or smiled 
 the while, can scarcely be rejected now, when 
 we are daily hearing of people undergoing 
 frightful operations, either in a state of insen- 
 sibility, or whilst they believe themselves re- 
 velling in delight ; nor can the psychological 
 intimations which these facts offer, be much 
 longer overlooked. One revelation must lead 
 to another ; and the wise men of the world 
 will, ere long, be obliged to give in their ad- 
 herence to Shakspere's much quoted axiom, 
 and confess that " there are more things in 
 Heaven and earth than are dreamt of in their 
 philosophy !"
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ALLEGORICAL DREAMS, PRESENTIMENT, ETC. 
 
 IT has been the opinion of many philosophers, 
 both ancient and modern, that, in the original 
 state of man, as he came forth from the hands 
 of his Creator, that knowledge which is now 
 acquired by pains and labour, was intuitive. 
 His material body was given him for the 
 purpose of placing him in relation with the 
 material world, and his sensuous organs for 
 the perception of material objects , but his 
 soul was a mirror of the universe, in which 
 everything was reflected, and, probably, is so 
 still, but that the spirit is no longer in a con- 
 dition to perceive it. Degraded in his nature,
 
 76 ALLEGORICAL DREAMS, 
 
 and distracted by the multiplicity of the ob- 
 jects and interests that surround him, man has 
 lost his faculty of spiritual seeing ; but in 
 sleep, when the body is in a state of passivity, 
 and external objects are excluded from us by 
 the shutting up of the senses through which 
 we perceive them, the spirit, to a certain 
 degree, freed from its impediments, may enjoy 
 somewhat of its original privilege. " The 
 soul, which is designed as the mirror of a 
 superior spiritual order" (to which it belongs), 
 still receives, in dreams, some rays from 
 above, and enjoys a foretaste of its future con- 
 dition ; and, whatever interpretation may be 
 put upon the history of the Fall, few will 
 doubt that, before it, man must have stood in 
 a much more intimate relation to his Creator 
 than he has done since. If we admit this, and 
 that, for the above hinted reasons, the soul 
 in sleep may be able to exercise somewhat of 
 its original endowment, the possibility of what 
 is called prophetic dreaming may be better 
 understood, 
 
 " Seeing in dreams," says Ennemoser, " is a 
 self-illumining of things, places, and times ;" 
 for relations of time and space form no ob- 
 struction to the dreamer: things, near and far, 
 ;ue alike seen in the mirror of the soul, ac-
 
 PRESENTIMENT, ETC. 77 
 
 cording to the connexion in which they stand 
 to each other ; and, as the future is but an 
 unfolding of the present, as the present is of 
 the past, one being necessarily involved in 
 the other, it is not more difficult to the un- 
 trammelled spirit to perceive what is to 
 happen, than what has already happened. 
 Under what peculiar circumstances it is that, 
 the body and soul fall into this particular 
 relative cdndition, we do not know ; but that 
 certain families and constitutions are more 
 prone to these conditions than others, all ex- 
 perience goes to establish. According to the 
 theory of Dr. Ennemoser, we should conclude 
 that they are more susceptible to magnetic 
 influences, and that the body falls into a more 
 complete state of negative polarity. 
 
 In the histories of the Old Testament, we 
 constantly find instances of prophetic dream- 
 ing, and the voice of God was chiefly heard 
 by the prophets in sleep ; seeming to establish 
 that man is, in that state, more susceptible of 
 spiritual communion, although the being thus 
 made the special organ of the divine will, is 
 altogether a different thing from the mere 
 disfranchisement of the embodied spirit in 
 ordinary cases of clear seeing in sleep. Pro- 
 fane history, also, furnishes us with various 
 H 5
 
 78 ALLEG01UCAL DHKAMS, 
 
 instances of prophetic dreaming-, which it is 
 unnecessary for me to refer to here. But 
 there is one thing very worthy of remark, 
 namely, that the allegorical character of many 
 of the dreams recorded in the Old Testament, 
 occasionally pervades those of the present day. 
 I have heard of several of this nature, and 
 Oberlin, the good pastor of Ban de la Roche, 
 was so subject to them, that he fancied he had 
 acquired the art of interpreting the symbols. 
 This characteristic of dreaming is in strict con- 
 formity with the language of the Old Testa- 
 ment, and of the most ancient nations. Poets 
 and prophets, heathen and Christian, alike 
 express themselves symbolically, and, if we 
 believe that this language prevailed in the 
 early ages of the world, before the external 
 and intellectual life had predominated over 
 the instinctive and emotional, we must con- 
 clude it to be the natural language of man, 
 who must, therefore, have been gifted with a 
 conformable faculty, of comprehending these 
 hieroglyphics ; and hence it arose that the 
 interpreting of dreams became a legitimate 
 art. Long after these instinctive faculties 
 were lost, or rather obscured, by the turmoil 
 and distractions of sensuous life, the memories 
 and traditions of them remained, and hence
 
 PRESENTIMENT, ETC. 79 
 
 the superstructure of jugglery and imposture 
 that ensued, of which the gipsies form a 
 signal example, in whom, however, there can 
 be no doubt, that some occasional gleams of 
 this original endowment may still be found, 
 as is the case, though more rarely, in indi- 
 vrduals of all races and conditions. The whole 
 of nature is one large book of symbols, which, 
 because we have lost the key to it, we cannot 
 decipher. " To the first man," says Hamann, 
 " whatever his ear heard, his eye saw, or his 
 hand touched, was a living word ; with this 
 word in his heart and in his mouth, the forma- 
 tion of language was easy. Man saw things 
 in their essence and properties, and named 
 them accordingly. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the heathen 
 forms of worship and systems of religion were 
 but the external symbols of some deep 
 meanings, and not the idle fables that they 
 have been too frequently considered ; and it is 
 absurd to suppose that the theology which 
 satisfied so many great minds, had no better 
 foundation than a child's fairy tale. 
 
 A maid servant, who resided many years in 
 a distinguished family in Edinburgh, was re- 
 peatedly warned of the approaching death of 
 certain members of that family, by dreaming 
 that one of the walls of the house had fallen:
 
 80 ALLEGORICAL DREAMS, 
 
 Shortly before the head of the family sickened 
 and died, she said she had dreamt that the 
 main wall had fallen. 
 
 A singular circumstance which occurred in 
 this same family, from a member of whom I 
 heard it, is mentioned by Dr. Abercrombie. 
 On this occasion the dream was not only pro- 
 phetic, but the symbol was actually translated 
 into fact. 
 
 One of the sons being indisposed with a sore 
 throat, a sister dreamt that a watch, of con- 
 siderable value, which she had borrowed from 
 a friend, had stopt; that she had awakened 
 another sister and mentioned the circum- 
 stance, who answered that " something much 
 worse had happened, for Charles's breath had 
 stopt." She then awoke, in extreme alarm, 
 and mentioned the dream to her sister, who, to 
 tranquillize her mind, arose and went to the 
 brother's room, where she found him asleep 
 and the watch going. The next night, the same 
 dream recurred, and the brother was again found 
 asleep and the watch going. On the following 
 morning, however, this lady was writing a note 
 in the drawing-room, with the watch beside her, 
 when, on taking it up, she perceived it had 
 stopt ; and she was just on the point of calling 
 her sister to mention the circumstance, when 
 she heard a scream from her brother's room,
 
 PRESENTIMENT, ETC. 81 
 
 and the sister rushed in with the tidings that 
 he had just expired. The malady had not 
 been thought serious; but a sudden fit of 
 suffocation had unexpectedly proved fatal. 
 
 This case, which is established beyond all 
 controversy, is extremely curious in many 
 points of view : the acting out of the symbol, 
 especially. Symbolical events of this descrip- 
 tion have been often related, and as often 
 laughed at. It is easy to laugh at what we 
 do not understand ; and it gives us the advan- 
 tage of making the timid narrator ashamed of 
 his fact, so that if he do not wholly suppress 
 it, he at least ensures himself by laughing, too, 
 the next time he relates it. It is said that 
 Goethe's clock stopt at the moment he died ; 
 and I have heard repeated instances of 
 this strange kind of synchronism, or mag- 
 netism, if it be by magnetism that we are 
 to account for the mystery. One was told 
 me very lately by a gentleman to whom 
 the circumstance occurred. 
 
 On the 16th of August, 1769, Frederick 
 II. of Prussia is said to have dreamt, that 
 a star fell from heaven, and occasioned such an 
 extraordinary glare that he could with great 
 difficulty find his way through it. He men- 
 tioned the dream to his attendants, and it was
 
 82 ALLEGORICAL DREAMS, 
 
 afterwards observed that it was on that day 
 Napoleon was born. 
 
 A lady, not long since, related to me the fol- 
 lowing circumstance : Her mother, who was 
 at the time residing in Edinburgh, in a house, 
 one side of which looked into a wynd, whilst 
 the door was in the High-street, dreamt 
 that, it being Sunday morning, she had heard a 
 sound, which had attracted her to the window; 
 and, whilst looking out, had dropt a ring from 
 her finger into the wynd below. That she 
 had, thereupon, gone down in her night clothes 
 to seek it ; but when she reached the spot, it 
 was not to be found. Returning, extremely 
 vexed at her loss, as she re-entered her own 
 door she met a respectable looking young man, 
 carrying some loaves of bread. On expressing 
 her astonishment at finding a stranger there 
 at so unseasonable an hour, he answered, by 
 expressing his at seeing her in such a situation. 
 She said she had dropt her ring, and had been 
 round the corner to seek it ; whereupon, to her 
 delighted surprise, he presented her with her 
 lost treasure. Some months afterwards, being 
 at a party, she recognised the young man seen 
 in her dream, and learnt that he was a baker. 
 He took no particular notice of her on that 
 occasion; an 1, 1 think, two years elapsed be
 
 PRESENTIMENT, ETC, 83 
 
 fore she met him again. This second meeting, 
 however, led to an acquaintance, which ter- 
 minated in marriage. 
 
 Here the ring and the bread are curiously 
 emblematic of the marriage, and the occu- 
 pation of the future husband. 
 
 Miss L., residing at Dalkeith, dreamt 
 that her brother, who was ill, called her to 
 his bedside, and gave her a letter, which he 
 desired her to carry to their aunt, Mrs. H., 
 with the request that she would deliver it to 
 John," (John was another brother, who had 
 died previously, and Mrs. H. was at the time 
 ill.) He added that, " he himself w=is going 
 there also, but that Mrs. H. would be there 
 before him." Accordingly, Miss L. went, in 
 her dream, with the letter to Mrs. H., whom 
 she found dressed in white, and looking quite 
 radiant and happy. She took the letter, 
 saying she was going there directly, and 
 would deliver it. 
 
 On the following morning, Miss L. learnt 
 that her aunt had died in the night. The 
 brother died some little time afterwards. 
 
 A gentleman who had been a short time 
 visiting Edinburgh, was troubled with a 
 cough, which, though it occasioned him no 
 alarm, he resolved to go home to nurse. On
 
 84 ALLEGORICAL DREAMS, 
 
 the first night of his arrival, he dreamt that 
 one half of the house was blown away. His 
 bailiff, who resided at a distance, dreamt the 
 same dream on the same night. The gentle- 
 man died within a few weeks. 
 
 " This symbolical language which the 
 Deity appears to have used " (witness Peter's 
 dream, Acts ii., and others,) " in all his reve- 
 lations to man, is in the highest degree,, what 
 poetry is ina lower; and the language of dreams, 
 iu the lowest, namely, the original natural 
 language of man ; and we may fairly ask 
 whether this language, which here plays an 
 inferior part, be not, possibly, the proper lan- 
 guage of a higher sphere, whilst we, who 
 vainly think ourselves awake, are, in reality, 
 buried iu a deep, deep sleep, in which, like 
 dreamers who imperfectly hear the voices of 
 those around them, we occasionally apprehend, 
 th ough obscurely, a few words of this Divine 
 tongue." ( Vide Schubert.} 
 
 This subject of sleeping and waking is a 
 very curious one, and might give rise to 
 strange questionings. In the case of those 
 patients above mentioned, who seem to have 
 two different spheres of existence, who shall 
 say which is the waking one, or whether 
 either of them be so ? The speculations of
 
 DREAMS AND PRESENTIMENTS. 85 
 
 Mr. Dove on tlm subject merited more atten- 
 tion, I think, than they met with, when he 
 lectured in Edinburgh. He maintained that, 
 long before he had paid any attention to mag- 
 netism, he had arrived at the conclusion that 
 there are as many states or conditions of mind 
 beyond sleep, as there are on this side of it ; 
 passing through the different stages of dream- 
 ing, reverie, contemplation, &c., up to perfect 
 vigilance. However this be, in this world of 
 appearance, where we see nothing as it is, and 
 where, both as regards our moral and physical 
 relations, we live in a state of continual de- 
 lusion, it is impossible for us to pronounce' 
 on this question. It is a common remark, that 
 some people seem to live in a dream, and 
 never to be quite awake ; and the most cur- 
 sory observer cannot fail to have been struck 
 with examples of persons in this condition, 
 especially in the aged. 
 
 With respect to this allegorical language, 
 Ennemoser observes that, " since no dreamer 
 learns it of another, and still less from those 
 who are awake, it must be natural to all men." 
 How different, too, is its comprehensiveness 
 and rapidity, to our ordinary language ! We 
 are accustomed, and with justice, to wonder 
 at the admirable mechanism by which, with- 
 
 VOL. i. i
 
 86 DREAMS AND PRESENTIMENTS. 
 
 out fatigue or exertion, we communicate with 
 our fellow beings ; but how slow and ineffec- 
 tive is human speech, compared to this 
 {spiritual picture-language, where a whole 
 history is understood at a glance ! and scenes 
 that seem to occupy days and weeks, are 
 acted out in ten minutes. It is remarkable 
 that this hieroglyphic language appears to be 
 the same amongst all people ; and that the 
 dream interpreters of all countries construe the 
 signs alike. Thus, the dreaming of deep 
 water denotes trouble, and pearls are a sign 
 of tears. 
 
 I have heard of a lady, who, whenever a 
 misfortune was impending, dreamt that she 
 saw a large fish. One night, she dreamt that 
 this fish had bitten two of her little boy's 
 fingers. Immediately afterwards, a school- 
 fellow of the child^s injured those two very 
 fingers, by striking him with a hatchet; and 
 I have met with several persons who have 
 learnt, by experience, to consider one particular 
 dream as the certain prognostic of misfortune. 
 A lady, who had left the West Indies when 
 six years old, came one night, fourteen years 
 afterwards, to her sister's bed-side, and said, 
 " I know uncle is dead. I have dreamt that I 
 saw a number of slaves in the large store-
 
 DEEAMS AND PRESENTIMENTS. 87 
 
 room at Barbadoes, with long brooms sweep- 
 ing down immense cobwebs. I complained to 
 my aunt, and she covered her face and said, 
 " Yes, he is no sooner gone than they disobey 
 him." It was afterwards ascertained, that 
 Mr* P. had died on that night ; and that he had 
 never permitted the cobwebs in this room to 
 be swept away, of which, however, the lady 
 assures me she knew nothing ; nor could she 
 or her friends conceive what was meant by 
 the symbol of the cobwebs, till they received 
 the explanation subsequently, from a member 
 of the family. 
 
 The following very curious allegorical dream 
 I give, not in the words of the dreamer, but 
 in those of her son, who bears a name des- 
 tined, I trust, to a long immortality : 
 
 " Wooer's Abbey-Cottage, 
 
 " Dunfermiline-in-the Woods, 
 
 "Monday Morning, 31st May, 1847. 
 " Dear Mrs. Crowe, 
 
 " That dream of my mother's was as fol- 
 lows: She stood in a long, dark, empty 
 gallery : on her one side was my father, and 
 on the other my eldest sister Amelia ; then 
 myself, and the rest of the family, according to 
 their ages. At the foot of the hall stood my
 
 88 DREAMS AND PRESENTIMENTS. 
 
 youngest sister Alexes, and above her my sister 
 Catherine a creature, by the way, in person 
 and mind more like an angel of heaven than 
 an inhabitant of earth. We all stood silent 
 and motionless. At last It entered the 
 unimagined something that, casting its grim 
 shadow before, had enveloped all the trivialties 
 of the preceding dream in the stifling atmo- 
 sphere of terror. It entered, stealthily de- 
 scending the three steps that led from the 
 entrance down into the chamber of horror : and 
 my mother felt It was Death. He was 
 dwarfish, bent, and shrivelled. He carried on 
 his shoulder a heavy axe ; and had come, she 
 thought, to destroy ' all her little ones at one 
 fell swoop.' On the entrance of the shape 
 my sister Alexes leapt out of the rank, inter- 
 posing herself between him and my mother. 
 He raised his axe and aimed a blow at 
 Catherine : a blow which, to her horror, my 
 mother could not intercept; though she had 
 snatched up a three-legged stool, the sole fur- 
 niture of the apartment, for that purpose. 
 She could not, she felt, fling the stool at the 
 figure without destroying Alexes, who kept 
 shooting out and in between her and the 
 ghastly thing. She tried, in vain, to scream ; 
 she besought my father, in agony, to avert the
 
 DREAMS AND PRESENTIMENTS. 80 
 
 impending stroke; but he didnothear,ordidnot 
 heed her ; and stood motionless, as in a trance. 
 Down came the axe, and poor Catherine fell 
 in her blood, cloven to ' the white halse 
 bane.' Again the axe was lifted, by the in- 
 exorable shadow, over the head of my brother, 
 who stood next in the line. Alexes had some- 
 where disappeared behind the ghastly visitant; 
 and, with a scream, my mother flung the foot- 
 stool at his head. He vanished, and she 
 awoke. This dream left on my mother's mind 
 u fearful apprehension of impending misfortune, 
 ' which would not pass away.' It was murder 
 she feared; and her suspicions were not allayed 
 by the discovery that a man some time before 
 discarded by my father for bad conduct, and 
 with whom she had, somehow, associated the 
 Death of her dream had been lurking about 
 the place, and sleeping in an adjoining out- 
 house on the night it occurred, and for some 
 nights previous and subsequent to it. Her 
 terror increased. Sleep forsook her ; and every 
 night, when the house was still, she arose and 
 stole, sometimes with a candle, sometimes in 
 the dark, from room to room, listening, in a 
 sort of waking night-mare, for the breathing 
 of the assassin, who, she imagined, was lurking 
 i 5
 
 90 DREAMS AND PRESENTIMENTS. 
 
 in some one of them. This could not last. 
 She reasoned with herself; but her terror be- 
 came intolerable, and she related her dream to 
 my father, who, of course, called her a fool for 
 her pains whatever might be his real opinion 
 of the matter. Three months had elapsed, when 
 we, children, were all of us seized with scarlet 
 fever. My sister Catherine died almost im- 
 mediately sacrificed, as my mother, in her 
 misery, thought, to her (my mother's) over- 
 anxiety for Alexes, whose danger seemed more 
 imminent. The dream-prophecy was in part 
 fulfilled. I, also, was at death's door given 
 up by the doctors, but not by my mother : she 
 was confident of my recovery ; but for my 
 brother, who was scarcely considered in danger 
 at all, but on whose head x/ie had seen the 
 visionary axe impending, her fears were great ; 
 for she could not recollect whether the blow 
 had, or had not, descended when the spectre 
 vanished. My brother recovered, but relapsed, 
 and barely escaped with life ; but Alexes did 
 not. For a year and ten months the poor 
 child lingered ; and almost every night I had 
 to sing her asleep ; often, I remember, through 
 bitter tears ; for I knew she was dying, and I 
 loved her the more as she wasted away. 1
 
 DREAMS AND PRESENTIMENTS. 91 
 
 helu her little hand as she died; I followed 
 her to the grave the last thing- that I have 
 loved on earth. And the dream was fulfilled. 
 '* True and sincerely your's, 
 
 "J. NOELPATON." 
 
 The dreaming of coffins and funerals, 
 when a death is impending, must be considered 
 as examples of this allegorical language. 
 Instances of this kind are extremely numerous. 
 Not un frequently the dreamer, as in cases of 
 second sigl.t, sees either the body in the coffin, 
 so as to be conscious of who is to die ; or else, 
 is made aware of it from seeing the funeral 
 procession at a certain house, or from some 
 other significant circumstance. This faculty 
 which has been supposed to belong peculiarly 
 to the Highlanders of Scotland, appears to be 
 fully as well known in Wales and on the con- 
 tinent, especially in Germany. 
 
 The language of dreams, however, is not 
 always symbolical. Occasionally, the scene 
 that is transacting at a distance, or that is to 
 be transacted at some future period, is literally 
 presented to the sleeper, as things appear to 
 be presented in many cases of second sight, and 
 also in clairvoyance ; and, since we suppose 
 him, that is, the sleeper, to be in a tempoiarily
 
 92 DREAMS AND PRESENTIMENTS. 
 
 magnetic state, we must conclude that the 
 degree of perspecuity, or translucency of 
 the vision, depends on the degree of that state. 
 Nevertheless, there are considerable difficulties 
 attending this theory. A great proportion of 
 the prophetic dreams we hear of, are connected 
 with the death of some friend or relative. 
 Some, it is true, regard unimportant matters 
 as visits, and so forth ; but this is generally, 
 though not exclusively, the case only with 
 persons who have a constitutional tendency 
 to this kind of dreaming, and with whom it is 
 frequent ; but it is not uncommon for those 
 who have not discovered any such tendency, 
 to be made aware of a death ; and the number 
 of dreams of this description I meet with, is 
 very considerable. Now, it is difficult to con- 
 ceive what the condition is, that causes this 
 perception of an approaching death ; or why, 
 supposing, as we have suggested above, that, 
 when the senses sleep, the untrammelled spirit 
 sees, the memory of this revelation, if I may 
 so call it, so much more frequently survives 
 than any other, unless, indeed, it be the force 
 of the shock sustained, which shock, it is to be 
 remarked, always wakes the sleeper ; and this 
 may be the reason that, if he fall asleep again, 
 the dream is almost invariably repeated.
 
 DREAMS AND PRESENTIMENTS. 93 
 
 I could fill pages with dreams of this de- 
 scription which have come to my knowledge, 
 or been recorded by others. 
 
 Mr. H., a gentleman with whom I am 
 acquainted, a man engaged in active business, 
 and apparently as little likely as any one I 
 ever knew to be troubled with a faculty of 
 this sort, dreamt that he saw a certain friend 
 of his dead. The dream was so like reality, 
 that, although he had no reason whatever to 
 suppose his friend ill, he could not forbear 
 sending in the morning to enquire for him. 
 The answer returned was, that Mr. A. was 
 out, and was quite well. The impression, 
 however, was so vivid, that, although he had 
 nearly three miles to send, Mr. H. felt that 
 he could not start for Glasgow, whither 
 business called him, without making another 
 enquiry. This time his friend was at home, 
 and answered for himself, that he was very 
 well, and that somebody must have been 
 hoaxing H., and making him believe other- 
 wise. Mr. H. set out on his journey, won- 
 dering at his own anxiety, but unable to con- 
 quer it. He was absent but a few days I 
 think, three ; arid the first news he heard on 
 his return was, that his friend had been seized 
 with an attack of inflammation, and was dead.
 
 94 DREAMS AND PRESENTIMENTS. 
 
 A German professor lately related to a 
 friend of mine, that, being some distance from 
 home, he dreamt that his father was dying, 
 and was calling for him. The dream being 
 repeated, he was so far impressed as to alter 
 his plans, and return home, where he arrived 
 in time to receive his parent's last breath. He 
 was informed that the dying man had been 
 calling upon his name repeatedly, in deep 
 anguish at his absence. 
 
 A parallel case to this is that of Mr. R. E. S., 
 an accountant in Edinburgh, and a shrewd 
 man of business, who relates the following 
 circumstance as occurring to himself. He is 
 a native of Dalkeith, and was residing there, 
 when, being about fifteen years of age, he 
 left home on a Saturday, to spend a few 
 days with a friend at Prestonpans. On the 
 Sunday night, he dreamt that his mother was 
 extremely ill, and started out of his sleep with 
 an impression that he must go to her imme- 
 diately. He even got out of bed with the 
 intention of doing so, but, reflecting that he 
 had left her quite well, and that it was only a 
 dream, he returned to bed, and again fell asleep. 
 But the dream returned, and, unable longer 
 to control his anxiety, he arose, dressed himself 
 in the dark, quitted the house, leaping the
 
 DREAMS AND PRESENTIMENTS. 95 
 
 railings that surrounded it, and made the best 
 of his way to Dalkeith. On reaching; home, 
 which he did before daylight, he tapped at 
 the kitchen window, and, on gaining admit- 
 tance, was informed that on the Saturday 
 evening, after he had departed, his mother had 
 been seized with an attack of British cholera? 
 and was lying above, extremely ill. She had 
 been lamenting his absence extremely, and 
 had scarcely ceased crying, " Oh, Ralph, 
 Ralph ! what a grief that you are away !" 
 
 At nine o'clock he was admitted to her room ; 
 but she was no longer in a condition to recog- 
 nise him, and she died within a day or two. 
 Instances of this sort are numerous ; but it 
 would be tedious to narrate them, especially as 
 there is little room for variety in the details. 
 I shall, therefore, content myself with giving 
 one or two specimens of each class, confining 
 my examples to such as have been communi- 
 cated to myself, except where any case of par- 
 ticular interest leads me to deviate from this 
 plan. The frequency of such phenomena 
 may be imagined, when I mention that the 
 instances I shall give, with few exceptions, 
 have been collected with little trouble, and 
 without seeking, beyond my own small circle 
 of acquaintance.
 
 96 DREAMS AND PRESENTIMENTS. 
 
 In the family of the above-named gentle- 
 man, Mr. R. E. S., there probably existed a 
 faculty of presentiment ; lor, in the year 1810, 
 his elder brother being Assistant-Surgeon on 
 board the Gorgon, war-brig, his father dreamt 
 that he was promoted to the Sparrow-hawk 
 a ship he had then never heard of; 
 neither had the family received any intelligence 
 of the young man for several months. He 
 told his dream, and was well laughed at for his 
 pains ; but in a few weeks a letter arrived an- 
 nouncing the promotion. 
 
 When Lord Burghersh was giving theatrical 
 parties at Florence, a lady, Mrs. M., whose 
 presence was very important, excused herself 
 one evening, being in great alarm from having 
 dreamt in the night that her sister, in England, 
 was dead, which proved to be the fact. 
 
 Mr. W., a young man at Glasgow College, 
 not long since dreamt that his aunt in Russia 
 was dead. He noted the date of his dream on 
 the window-shutter of his chamber. In a short 
 time the news of the lady's death arrived. The 
 dates, however, did not accord ; but, on men- 
 tioning the circumstance to a friend, he was 
 reminded that the adherence of the Russians 
 to the old style reconciled the difference. 
 
 A man of business, in Glasgow, lately
 
 DREAMS AND PRESENTIMENTS. 7 
 
 dreamt that he saw a coffin, on which was 
 inscribed the name of a friend, with the date of 
 his death. Some time afterwards he was sum- 
 moned to attsnd the funeral of that person, 
 who, at the time of the dream, was in good 
 health, and he was struck with surprise on 
 seeing the plate of the coffin bearing the very 
 date he had seen in his dream. 
 
 A French gentleman, Monsieur de V., dreamt, 
 some years since, that he saw a tomb, on 
 which he read, very distinctly, the following 
 date 23rd June, 184 ; there were, also, 
 some initials, but so much effaced that he 
 could not make them out. He mentioned the 
 circumstance to his wife ; and, for some time, 
 they could not help dreading the recurrence 
 of the ominous month ; but, as year after year 
 passed, and nothing happened, they had 
 ceased to think of it, when, at last, the symbol 
 was explained. On the 23rd of June, 1846, 
 their only daughter died at the age of 
 seventeen. 
 
 Thus far the instances I have related seem 
 to resolve themselves into cases of simple 
 clairvoyance, or second sight, in sleep, although, 
 in using these words, I am very far from 
 meaning to imply that I explain the thing, or 
 unveil its mystery. The theory above alluded 
 
 VOL. i. K
 
 98 DREAMS AND PRESENTIMENTS. 
 
 to, seems, as yet, the only one applicable to 
 the facts, namely, that the senses, being placed 
 in a negative and passive state, the universal 
 sense of the immortal spirit within, which 
 sees, and hears, and knows, or rather, in one 
 word, perceives, without organs, becomes more 
 or less free to work unclogged. That the 
 soul is a mirror in which the spirit sees all 
 things reflected, is a modification of this theory ; 
 but I confess I find myself unable to attach 
 any idea to this latter form of expression. 
 Another view, which I have heard suggested 
 by an eminent person, is, that, if it be true, as 
 maintained by Dr. Wigan, and some other 
 physiologists, that our brains are double, it is 
 possible that a polarity may exist between 
 the two sides, by means of which the negative 
 side may, under certian circumstances, become a 
 mirror to the positive. It seems difficult to 
 reconcile this notion with the fact, that these 
 perceptions occur most frequently when the 
 brain is asleep. How far the sleep is perfect 
 and general, however, we can never know ; 
 and, of course, when the powers of speech and 
 locomotion continue to be exercised, we are 
 aware that it is only partial, in a more or less 
 degree. In the case of magnetic sleepers, 
 observation shows us, that the auditory nerves
 
 PRESENTIMENT. 99 
 
 I 
 
 are aroused by being addressed, and fall asleep 
 again as soon as they are left undisturbed. In 
 most cases of natural sleep, the same process, 
 if the voice were heard at all, would disperse 
 sleep altogether ; and it must be remembered 
 that, as Dr. Holland says, sleep is a fluctuating 
 condition, varying from one moment to another, 
 and this allowance must be made when con- 
 sidering magnetic sleep also. 
 
 It is by this theory of the duality of the 
 brain, which seems to have many arguments 
 in its favour, and the alternate sleeping 
 and waking of the two sides, that Dr. 
 Wigan seeks to account for the state of 
 double or alternate consciousness above alluded 
 to ; and also, for that strange sensation which 
 most people have experienced, of having wit- 
 nessed a scene, or heard a conversation, at 
 some indefinite period before, or even in some 
 earlier state of existence. He thinks that one- 
 half of the brain being in a more active con- 
 dition than the other, it takes cognizance of 
 the scene first ; and that thus the perceptions 
 of the second, when they take place, appear to 
 be a repetition of some former experiences. I 
 confess this theory, as regards this latter phe- 
 nomenon, is to me eminently unsatisfactory , 
 and it is especially defective in not accounting
 
 100 PRESENTIMENT. 
 
 for one of the most curious particulars con- 
 nected with it, namely, that on these occasion, 
 people not only seem to recognise the circum- 
 stances as having been experienced before ; 
 but they have, very frequently, an actual fore- 
 knowledge of what will be next said or done. 
 
 Now, the explanation of this mystery, I in- 
 cline to think, may possibly lie in the hypo- 
 thesis I have suggested ; namely, that in pro- 
 found, and what appears to us generally to 
 have been dreamless sleep, we are clear-seers. 
 The map of coming events lies open before us, 
 the spirit surveys it ; but with the awaking of 
 the sensuous organs, this dream-life, with its 
 aerial excursions, passes away; and we are 
 translated into our other sphere of existence. 
 But, occasionally, some flash of recollection, 
 some ray of light, from this visionary world, in 
 which we have been living, breaks in upon our 
 external objective existence, and we recognize 
 the locality, the voice, the very words, as being 
 but a re-acting of some foregone scenes of a 
 drama. 
 
 The faculty of presentiment, of which every- 
 body must have heard instances, seems to have 
 some affinity to the phenomenon last referred 
 to. I am acquainted with a lady, in whom this 
 faculty is in some degree developed, who has
 
 PRESENTIMENT. 101 
 
 evinced it by a consciousness of the moment 
 when a death was taking place in her family, 
 or amongst her connexions, although she does 
 not know who it is that has departed. 1 have 
 heard of several cases of people hurrying home 
 from a presentiment of fire ; and Mr. M. of 
 Calderwood was once, when absent from home, 
 siezed with such an anxiety about his family, 
 that, without being able in any way to account 
 for it, he felt himself impelled to fly to them 
 and remove them from the house they were 
 inhabiting; one wing of which fell down im- 
 mediately afterwards. No notion of such a 
 misfortune had ever before occurred to him? 
 nor was there any reason whatever to expect it; 
 the accident originating from some defect in 
 the foundations. 
 
 A circumstance, exactly similar to this, is 
 related by Stilling, of Professor Bohm, teacher 
 of Mathematics at Marburg ; who being one 
 evening in company, was suddenly seized with 
 a conviction that he ought to go home. As, 
 however, he was very comfortably taking his 
 tea, and had nothing to do at home, he resisted 
 the admonition ; but it returned with such 
 force that at length he was obliged to yield. 
 On reaching his house, he found everything as 
 he had left it ; but he now felt himself urged to 
 K 5
 
 102 PRESENTIMENT. 
 
 remove his bed from the corner in which it > 
 stood to another ; hut as it had always stood 
 there, he resisted this impulsion also. How- 
 ever, the resistance was vain, ahsurd as it 
 seemed, he felt he must do it ; so he summoned 
 the maid, and, with her aid, drew the bed to the 
 bthersideof theroom ; after which hefeltquite at 
 ease and returned to spend the rest of the even- 
 ing with his friends. At ten o'clock the party 
 broke up, and he retired home and went to bed 
 and to sleep. In the middle of the night, he 
 was awakened by a loud crash, and on looking 
 gut, he saw that a large beam had fallen, 
 bringing part of the ceiling with it, and was 
 1) ing exactly on the spot his bed had occupied. 
 A young servant girl in this neighbourhood, 
 who had been several years in an excellent 
 situation, where she was much esteemed, was 
 suddenly seized with a presentiment that she 
 was wanted at home ; and, in spite of all repre- 
 sentations, she resigned her place and set out 
 on her journey thither ; where, when she ar- 
 rived, she found her parents extremely ill, one 
 of them mortally, and in the greatest need of 
 her services. No intelligence of their illness 
 had reached her, nor could she herself in any 
 way account for the impulse. I have heard of 
 numerous well authenticated cases of people
 
 PRESENTIMENT." 103 
 
 in* 
 
 escaping drowning from being seized with an 
 unaccountable presentiment of evil when there 
 were no external signs whatever to justify the 
 apprehension. The story of Cazotte as related 
 by La Harpe is a very remarkable instance of 
 this sort of faculty; and seems to indicate 
 a power resembling that possessed by 
 Zschokke, who relates of himself, in his auto- 
 biography, that, frequently whilst conversing 
 with a stranger, the whole circumstances of 
 that person's previous life were revealed to 
 him, even comprising details of places and 
 persons. In the case of Cazotte, it was the 
 future that was laid open to him, and he fore- 
 told, to a company of eminent persons, in the 
 year 1788, the fate which awaited each indi- 
 vidual, himself included, in consequence of the 
 revolution then commencing. As this story is 
 already in print, I forbear to relate it. 
 
 One of the most remarkable cases of pre- 
 sentiment I know, is, that which occuiTed, not 
 very long since, on board one of her Majesty's 
 ships, when lying off Portsmouth. The officers 
 being one day at the mess-table, a young 
 Lieutenant P. suddenly laid down his knife 
 and fork, pushed away his plate, and turned 
 extremely pale. He then rose from the table, 
 covering his face with his hands, and retired
 
 J04 PRESENTIMENT. 
 
 from the room The president of the mess, 
 supposing him to be ill, sent one of the young 
 men to enquire what was the matter. At first, 
 Mr. P. was unwilling to speak ; but on being 
 pressed, he confessed that he had been seized 
 by a sudden and irresistible impression, that a 
 brother he had then in India was dead. " He 
 died," said he, "on the 12th of August, at 
 six o'clock ; I am perfectly certain of it !" 
 No arguments could overthrow this convic- 
 tion, which, in due course of post, was verified 
 to the letter. The young man had died at 
 Cawnpore, at the precise period mentioned. 
 
 When any exhibition of this sort of faculty 
 occurs in animals, which is by no means un- 
 frequent, it is termed instinct ; and we look 
 upon it, as what it probably is, only another 
 and more rare development of that intuitive 
 knowledge which enables them to seek their 
 food, and perform the other functions necessary 
 to the maintenance of their existence, and the 
 continuance of their race. Now, it is remark- 
 able, that the life of an animal is a sort of 
 dream-life ; their ganglionic system is more 
 developed than that of man, and the cerebral, 
 less ; and since it is doubtless, from the greater 
 development of the ganglionic system in 
 women, that they exhibit more frequent in-
 
 PRESENTIMENT. 105 
 
 stances of such abnormal phenomena as I am 
 treating of. than men, we may be, perhaps, 
 justified in considering the faculty of presenti- 
 ment in a human being as a suddenly awakened 
 instinct ; just as in an animal, it is an inten- 
 sified instinct. 
 
 Everybody has either witnessed or heard of 
 instances of this sort of presentiment, in dogs 
 especially. For the authenticity of the follow- 
 ing anecdote I can vouch ; the traditions being 
 very carefully preserved in the family con- 
 cerned, from whom I have it. In the last 
 century, Mr. P., a member of this family, who 
 had involved himself in some of the stormy 
 affairs of this northern part of the island, 
 was one day surprised by seeing a favourite dog, 
 that was lying at his feet, start suddenly up 
 and seize him by the knee, which he pulled 
 not with violence, but in a manner that indi- 
 cated a wish that his master should follow him 
 to the door. The gentleman resisted the invi- 
 tation for some time ; till at length the perse- 
 verance of the animal arousing his curiosity, 
 he yielded, and was thus conducted by the dog 
 into the most sequestered part of a neighbour- 
 ing thicket, where, however, he could see no- 
 thing to account for his dumb friend's pro- 
 ceeding, who now lay himself down, quite
 
 106 PRESENTIMENT. 
 
 satisfied, and seemed to wish his master to 
 follow the example ; which, determined to 
 pursue the adventure and find out, if possible, 
 what was meant, he did. A considerable 
 time now elapsed before the dog would consent 
 to his master's going home ; but at length he 
 arose and led the way thither, when the first 
 news Mr. P. heard was, that a party of soldiers 
 had been there in quest of him ; and he was 
 shown the marks of their spikes, which had been 
 thrust through the bed-clothes in their search. 
 He fled, and ultimately escaped ; his life being 
 thus preserved by his dog. 
 
 Some years ago, at Plymouth, I had a brown 
 spaniel that regularly, with great delight, 
 accompanied my son and his nurse in their 
 morning's walk. One day, she carne to com- 
 plain to me that Tiger would not go out with 
 them. Nobody could conceive the reason of 
 so unusual a caprice ; and, unfortunately, we 
 did not yield to it, but forced him to go. In 
 less than a quarter of an hour he was brought 
 back, so torn to pieces, by a savage dog that 
 had just come ashore from a foreign vessel, 
 that it was found necessary to shoot him im 
 mediately.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 WARNINGS. 
 
 THIS comparison, betwixt the power of pre- 
 sentiment in a human being and the instincts 
 of an animal, may be offensive to some people; 
 but it must be admitted, that, as far as we 
 can see, the manifestation is the same, what- 
 ever be the cause. Now, the body of an animal 
 must be informed by an immaterial principle 
 let us call it soul or spirit, or anything else ; 
 for it is evident that their actions are not the 
 mere result of organization ; and all I mean 
 to imply is, that this faculty of fore-seeing 
 must be inherent in intelligent spirit, let it
 
 108 WARNINGS. 
 
 be lodged in what form of flesh it may ; 
 whilst, with regard to what instinct is, we are, 
 in the meanwhile, in extreme ignorance. 
 Instinct being a word which, like Imagina- 
 tion, everybody uses, and nobody understands. 
 Ennemoser and Schubert believe, that the 
 instinct by which animals seek their food 
 consists in polarity, but I have met with only 
 two modern theories which pretend to ex- 
 plain the phenomena of presentiment ; the one 
 is, that the person is in a temporarily magnetic 
 state, and that the presentiment is a kind of 
 clairvoyance. That the faculty, like that of 
 prophetic dreaming, is constitutional, and 
 chiefly manifested in certain families, is well 
 established ; and the very unimportant events, 
 such as visits, and so forth, on which it fre- 
 quently exercises itself, forbid us to seek an 
 explanation in a higher source. It seems, 
 also, to be quite independent of the will of the 
 subject, as it was in the case of Zschokke, 
 who found himself thus let into the secrets of 
 persons in whom he felt no manner of inter- 
 est ; whilst, where the knowledge might have 
 been of use to him, he could not command it. 
 The theory of one-half of the brain in a nega- 
 tive state, serving as a mirror to the other 
 half, if admitted at all, may answer as well,
 
 WARNINGS. 100 
 
 or better, for these waking presentiments, 
 than for clear-seeing in dreams. But, for my 
 own part, I incline very much to the views of 
 that school of philosophers who adopt the first 
 and more spiritual theory, which seems to me, 
 to offer fewer difficulties, whilst, as regards 
 our present nature, and our future hopes, it 
 is certainly more satisfactory. Once admitted 
 that the body is but the temporary dwelling 
 of an immaterial spirit, the machine through 
 which, and by which, in its normal states, the 
 spirit alone can manifest itself, I cannot see 
 any great difficulty in conceiving that, in cer- 
 tain conditions of that body, their relations 
 may be modified, and that the spirit may per- 
 ceive, by its own inherent quality, without 
 the aid of its matt rial vehicle ; and, as this 
 condition of the body may arise from causes 
 purely physical, we see at once why trie reve*- 
 lations frequently regard such unimportant 
 events. 
 
 Plutarch, in his dialogue betwixt Lamprius 
 ana Ammonius, observes, that if the Daemons, 
 or protecting spirits, that watch over mankind 
 are disembodied souls, we ought not to doubt 
 that those spirits, even when in the flesh, pos- 
 sessed the faculties they now en^oy, since we 
 have no reason to suppose that any new ones 
 
 VOL. i. L
 
 110 WARNINGS. 
 
 are conferred at the period of dissolution ; for 
 these faculties must be inherent, although 
 temporarily obscured, and weak and ineffective 
 in their manifestations. As it is not when 
 the sun breaks from behind the clouds that 
 he first begins to shine, so it is not when the 
 soul issues from the body, as from a cloud that 
 envelopes it, that it first attains the power of 
 looking- into the future. 
 
 But the events foreseen are not always unim- 
 portant, nor is the mode of the communication 
 always of the same nature. I have mentioned 
 above, some instances wherein danger was 
 avoided, and there are many of the same kind re- 
 corded in various works ; and it is the number 
 of instances of this description, corroborated 
 hy the universal agreement of all somnam- 
 bulists of a higher order, which has induced a 
 considerable section of the German psycho- 
 logists to adopt the doctrine of guardian 
 spirits a doctrine which has prevailed, more 
 or less, in all ages ; and has been considered 
 by many theologians to be supported by the 
 Bible. There is in this country, and I believe 
 in France, also, though with more exceptions, 
 such an extreme aversion to admit the possi- 
 bility of anything like what is called super- 
 natural agency, that the mere avowal of such a
 
 WARNINGS. Ill 
 
 persuasion is enough to discredit one's under- 
 standing with a considerable part of the world ; 
 not excepting those who profess to believe in 
 the scriptures. Yet, even apart from this latter 
 authority, I cannot see anything repugnant to 
 reason in such a belief. As far as we see of 
 nature, there is a continued series from the 
 lowest to the highest; and what right have we 
 to conclude that we are the last link of the 
 chain ? Why may there not be a gamut of 
 beings ? That such should be the case, is cer- 
 tainly in accordance with all that we see; and 
 that we do not see them, affords, as I have 
 said above, not a shadow of argument against 
 their existence ; man, immersed in business 
 and pleasure, living only his sensuous life, is 
 too apt to forget how limited those senses are, 
 how merely designed for a temporary purpose, 
 and how much may exist of which they can 
 take no cognizance. 
 
 The possibility&dmitted, the chief arguments 
 against the probability of such a guardianship, 
 are the interference it implies with the free- 
 will of man, on the one hand, and the rarity of 
 this interference, on the other. With respect 
 to the first matter of free-will, it is a subject 
 of acknowledged difficulty, and beyond the 
 scope of my work. Nobody can honestly look
 
 112 WARNINGS. 
 
 back upon his past life without feeling per- 
 plexed by the question, of how far he was, or 
 was not able, at the moment, to resist certain 
 impulsions, which caused him to commit 
 wrong- or imprudent actions ; and it must, I 
 fear, ever remain a qucestio vexata how far our 
 virtues and vices depend upon our organi- 
 zation ; an organization whose constitution is 
 beyond our own power, in the first instance, 
 although we may certainly improve or deteri- 
 orate it ; but which we must admit, at the same 
 time, to be, in its present deteriorated form, 
 the ill result of the world's corruption, and the 
 inherited penalty of the vices of our prede- 
 cessors ; whereby the sins of the fathers are 
 visited upon the children unto the third and 
 fourth generation. 
 
 There is, as the Scriptures say, but one way 
 to salvation, though there are many to per- 
 dition, that is, though there are many wrongs, 
 there is only one right ; for truth is one, and 
 our true liberty consists in being free to follow 
 it ; for we cannot imagine that anybody seeks 
 his own perdition, and nobody, I conceive, 
 loves vice for its own sake, as others love 
 virtue, that is, because it is vice; so that, 
 when they follow its dictates, we must con- 
 clude that they are not free, but in bondage,
 
 WARNINGS. 113 
 
 whose ever bond-slave they be, whether of an 
 evil spirit, or of their own organization ; and, 
 I think, every human being who looks into 
 himself will feel, that he is, in effect then 
 only free when he is obeyingthe dictates of vir- 
 tue ; and that the language of Scripture, which 
 speaks of sin as a bondage, is not only meta- 
 phorically, but literally, true. 
 
 The warning a person of an impending 
 danger, or error, implies no constraint; the 
 subject of the warning is free to take the hint 
 or not, as he pleases ; we receive many cau- 
 tions, both from other people and from ourown 
 consciences, which we refuse to benefit by. 
 
 With regard to the second objection, it seems 
 to have greater weight ; for although the in- 
 stances of presentiment are very numerous 
 taken apart, they are, certainly, as far as we 
 know, still but exceptional cases. But here 
 we must remember, that an influence of this 
 sort might be very continuously, though some- 
 what remotely, excercised in favour of an indi- 
 vidual, without the occurrence of any instance 
 of so striking a nature, as to render the inter- 
 ference manifest ; and certain it is, that some 
 people I have met with several and very sen- 
 sible persons, too, have all their lives an intui- 
 tive persuasion of such a guardianship existing 
 
 L5
 
 114 WARNINGS. 
 
 in relation to themselves. That in our normal 
 states it was not intended we should hold sen- 
 sible communion with the invisible world, 
 seems evident ; but nature abounds in excep- 
 tions ; and there may be conditions regarding 
 both parties, the incorporated and the unincor- 
 porated spirit, which may at times bring them 
 into a more intimate relation. No one who 
 believes that consciousness is to survive the 
 death of the body, can doubt that the released 
 spirit will then hold communion with its con- 
 geners ; it being the fleshly tabernacles we in- 
 habit which alone disables us from doing so at 
 present ; but since the constitutions of bodies 
 vary exceedingly, not only in different indivi- 
 duals, but in the same individuals at different 
 times, may we not conceive the possibility of 
 there existing conditions, which by diminishing 
 the obstructions, render this communion prac- 
 ticable within certain limits ? For there, cer- 
 tainly, are recorded and authentic instances of 
 presentiments and warnings, that with diffi- 
 culty admit of any other explanation ; and that 
 these admonitions are more frequently received 
 in the state of sleep than of vigilance, rather 
 furnishes an additional argument in favour of 
 the last hypothesis ; for if there be any 
 foundation for the theories above suggested, it
 
 WARNINGS. 115 
 
 is then, that the sensuous functions being in 
 abeyance, and the external life thereby shut 
 out from us, the spirit would be most suscep 
 tible to the operations of spirit, whether of our 
 deceased friends or of appointed ministers, if 
 such there be. Jung Stelling is of opinion that 
 we must decide from the aim and object of the re- 
 velation, whether it be a mere development of the 
 faculty of presentiment, or a case of spiritual 
 intervention ; but this would surely be a very 
 erroneous mode of judging, since the presenti- 
 ment that foresees a visit, may foresee a 
 danger, and show us how to avoid it, as in the 
 following instance : 
 
 A few years ago, Dr. W., now residing at 
 Glasgow, dreamt that he received a summons 
 to attend a patient at a place some miles from 
 where he was living ; that he started on 
 horseback, and that as he was crossing a moor, 
 he saw a bull making furiously at him, whose 
 horns he only escaped by taking refuge on a 
 spot inaccessible to the animal ; where he 
 waited a long time, till some people, observing 
 his situation, came to his assistance and re- 
 leased him. Whilst at breakfast, on the fol- 
 lowing morning, the summons came ; and, 
 smiling at the odd coincidence, he started on 
 horseback. He was quite ignorant of the road
 
 1 16 WARNINGS. 
 
 he had to go ; hut, by and by, he arrived at 
 the moor, which he recognised, and presently 
 the bull appeared, coming full tilt towards 
 him. But his dream had shown him the place 
 of refuge, for which he instantly made ; and 
 there he spent three or four hours, besieged by 
 the animal, till the country people set him free. 
 Dr. W. declares, that but for the dream, he 
 should not have known in what direction to 
 runt for safety. 
 
 A Butcher named Bone, residing at Holy- 
 town, dreamt a few years since, that he was 
 stopt at a particular spot on his way to market, 
 whither he was going on the following day to 
 purchase cattle, by two men in blue clothes, 
 who cut his throat. He told the dream to his 
 wife, who laughed at him ; but as it was re- 
 peated two or tnree times, and she saw he was 
 really alarmed, she advised him to join some- 
 body who was going the same road. He ac- 
 cordingly listened till he heard a cart passing 
 his door, and then went out and joined the 
 mau, telling him the reason for so doing. 
 When they came to the spot, there actually 
 stood the two men in blue clothes, who, seeing 
 he was not alone, took to their heels and ran. 
 
 Now, although the dream was here probably 
 themeansofsavingBone'slife^hereisno reason
 
 WARNINGS. 117 
 
 to suppose this a case of what is called super- 
 natural intervention. The phenomenon would 
 be sufficiently accounted for by the admission 
 of the hypothesis I have suggested ; namely, 
 that he was aware of the impending 
 danger in his sleep, and had been able, from 
 some dause unknown to us, to convey the 
 recollection into his waking state. 
 
 I know instances in which, for several 
 mornings previous to the occurrence of a 
 calamity, persons have awakened with a pain- 
 ful sense of misfortune, for which they could 
 not account, and which was dispersed as soon 
 as they had time to reflect that they had no 
 cause for uneasiness. This is the only kind of 
 presentiment I ever experienced myself; but 
 it has occurred to me twice, in a very marked 
 and unmistakeable manner. As soon as the 
 intellectual life, the life of the brain, and the 
 external world broke in, the instinctive life 
 receded, and the intuitive knowledge was ob- 
 scured. Or, according to Dr. Ennemoser's 
 theory, the polar relations changed, and the 
 nerves were busied with conveying sensuous 
 impressions to the brain, their sensibility or 
 positive state now being transferred from the 
 internal to the external periphery. It is by 
 the contrary change that Dr. Ennemoser seeks
 
 118 WARNINGS. 
 
 to explain the insensibility to pain of 
 mesmerised patients. 
 
 A circumstance of a similar kind to the 
 above occurred in a well known family in 
 Scotland, the Rutheifords of E. A lady 
 dreamt that her aunt, who resided at some 
 distance, was murdered by a black servant. 
 
 Impressed with the liveliness of the vision, 
 she could not resist going to the house of her re- 
 lation, where the man she had dreamt of, whom 
 I think she had never before seen, opened the 
 door to her. Upon this, she induced a gentle- 
 man to watch in the adjoining room during 
 the night ; and towards morning hearing a foot 
 upon the stairs, he opened the door and dis- 
 covered the black servant carrying up a coal 
 scuttle full of coals, for the purpose, as he said, 
 of lighting his mistress's fire. As this motive 
 did not seem very probable, the coals were ex- 
 amined and a knife found hidden amongst them, 
 with which, he afterwards confessed, he in- 
 tended to have murdered his mistress, provided 
 she made any resistance to a design he had 
 formed, of robbing her of a large sum ol money, 
 which he was aware she had that day received. 
 
 The following case has been quoted in se- 
 veral medical works at least in works written
 
 WARNINGS. 119 
 
 by learned doctors, and on that account I 
 should not mention it here, but for the pur- 
 pose of remarking on the extraordinary 
 facility with which, whilst they do not ques- 
 tion the fact, they dispose of the mystery. 
 
 Mr. D., of Cumberland, when a youth, came 
 to Edinburgh, for the purpose of attending 
 College, and was placed under the care of his 
 uncle and aunt, Major and Mrs. Griffiths, who 
 then resided in the castle. When the fine 
 weather came, the young man was in the habit 
 of making frequent excursions, with others of 
 his own age and pursuits ; and one afternoon he 
 mentioned that they had formed a fishing party, 
 and had bespoken a boat for the ensuing day. 
 No objections were made to this plan ; but in 
 the middle of the night, Mrs. Griffiths screamed 
 out, " The boat is sinking ! Oh, save them !" 
 Her husband said, he supposed she had been 
 thinking of the fishing party ; but she declared 
 she had never thought about it, at all, and 
 soon fell asleep again. But, ere long, she 
 awoke a second time, crying out that she "saw 
 the boat sinking !" "It must have been the 
 remains of the impression made by the other 
 dream," she suggested to her husband, "for I 
 have no uneasiness, whatever, about the fish- 
 ing party." but on going to sleep once more,
 
 120 WARNINGS. 
 
 her husband was again disturbed by her cries, 
 " they are gone ! " she said, " the boat has 
 sunk ! " She now, really, became alarmed, 
 and, without waiting 1 for morning 1 , she threw 
 on her dressing- gown, and went to Mr. D., 
 who was still in bed, and, whom with much 
 difficulty, she persuaded to relinquish his pro- 
 posed excursion. He, consequently, sent his 
 servant to Leith, with an excuse; and the 
 party embarked without him. The day was 
 extremely fine, when they put to sea ; but 
 some hours afterwards, a storm arose, in 
 which the boat foundered ; nor did any one of 
 the number survive to tell the tale. 
 
 " This dream is easily accounted for," say 
 the learned gentlemen above alluded to, "from 
 the dread all women have of the water, and 
 the danger that attends boating on the Frith 
 of Forth !" Now, I deny that all women have 
 a dread of the water, and there is not the 
 slightest reason for concluding that Mrs. 
 Griffiths had. At all events, she affirms that 
 she felt no uneasiness at all about the party, 
 and one might take leave to think that her 
 testimony upon that subject is of more value 
 than that of persons who never had any ac- 
 quaintance with her, and who were not so 
 much as born at the time the circumstance
 
 WARNINGS. 121 
 
 occurred, which was in the year 1731. Be- 
 sides, if Mrs. Griffith's dream arose simply 
 from " the dread all women have of the water," 
 and that its subsequent verification was a mere 
 coincidence, since women constantly risk their 
 persons for voyages, and boating 1 excursions, 
 such dreams should be extremely frequent ; 
 the fact of there being 1 any accident impend- 
 ing 1 , or not, having, according 1 to this theory, 
 no relation whatever to the phenomenon. 
 And as for the danger that attends boating on 
 the Frith of Forth, we must naturally suppose 
 that had it been considered so imminent, 
 Major Griffiths would have, at least, endea- 
 voured to dissuade a youth that was placed 
 under his protection from risking his life so 
 imprudently. It would be equally reasonable 
 to explain away Dr. W.'s dream, by saying, 
 that all gentlemen who have to ride across 
 commons are in great dread of encountering a 
 bull commons, in general, being infested by 
 that animal. 
 
 Miss D., a friend of mine, was some time 
 since invited to join a pic-nic excursion into the 
 country. Two nights before the day fixed for 
 the expedition, she dreamt that the carriage she 
 was to go in, was overturned down a precipice. 
 Impressed with her dream, she declined the ex- 
 
 VOL. I M
 
 122 WARNINGS. 
 
 cursion, confessing her reason, and advising the 
 rest of the party to relinquish their project. They 
 laughed at her, and persisted in their scheme. 
 When, subsequently, she went to enquire how 
 they had spent the day, she found the ladies con- 
 fined to their beds, from injuries received ; the 
 carriage haivng been overturned down a preci- 
 pice. Still, this was only a coincidence ! 
 
 Another specimen of the haste with which 
 people are willing to dispose of what they 
 do not understand, is afforded by a case 
 that occurred, not many years since, in 
 the north of Scotland, where a murder 
 having been committed, a man came forward 
 saying that he had dreamt that the pack of the 
 murdered pedlar was hidden in a certain spot ; 
 where, on a search being made, it was actually 
 found. They atfirst concluded he was himself the 
 assassin, but the real criminal was afterwards 
 discovered ; and it being asserted, though I 
 have been told erroneously, that the two men 
 had passed some time together, since the 
 murder, in a state of intoxication, it was 
 decided that the crime and the place of con- 
 cealment had been communicated to the pre- 
 tended dreamer ; and all who thought other- 
 wise were laughed at; for why, say the ration- 
 alists, should not Providence have so ordered
 
 WARNINGS. 123 
 
 the dream as to have prevented the murder 
 altogether ? 
 
 AY ho can answer that question, and whither 
 would such a discussion leads us ? Moreover* 
 if. this faculty of presentiment be a natural 
 one, though only imperfectly and capriciously 
 developed, there may have been no design in 
 the matter ; it is an accident, just in the same 
 sense as an illness is an accident ; that is, not 
 without cause, but without a cause that we 
 can penetrate. If, on the other hand, we have 
 recourse to the intervention of spiritual beings, 
 it may be answered that we are entirely igno- 
 rant of the conditions under which any such 
 communication is possible; and that we can- 
 not therefore come to any conclusions as to 
 why so much is done, and no more. 
 
 But there is another circumstance to be 
 observed in considering the case, which is, that 
 the dreamer is said to have passed some days 
 in a state of intoxication. Now, even supposing 
 this had been true, it is well-known that the 
 excitement of the brain, caused by intoxication, 
 has occasionally produced a very remarkable 
 exaltation of certain faculties. It is by means, 
 either of intoxicating draughts or vapours, 
 that the soothsayers of Lapland and Siberia 
 place themselves in a condition to vaticinate ;
 
 124 WARNINGS. 
 
 and we have every reason to believe that drugs, 
 producing similar effects, were resorted to by 
 the thaumaturgists of old, and by the witqhes 
 of later days, of which I shall have more to say 
 hereafter. But as a case in point, I may here 
 allude to the phenomena exhibited in a late 
 instance of the application of ether, by Pro- 
 fessor Simpson, of Edinburgh, to a lady who 
 was at the moment under circumstances not 
 usually found very agreeable. She said that 
 she was amusing- herself delightfully by play- 
 ing over a set of quadrilles, which she had 
 known in her youth, but had long forgotten ; 
 but she now perfectly remembered them, and 
 hadplayed them over several times. Here was 
 an instance of the exaltation of a faculty from 
 intoxication, similar to that of the woman who, 
 in her delirium, spoke a language which she 
 had only heard in her childhood, and of which, 
 in her normal state, she had no recollection. 
 
 That the inefficiency of the communication, 
 or presentiment, or whatever it may be, is no 
 argument against the fact of such dreams oc- 
 curring, I can safely assert, from cases which 
 have come under my own knowledge. A pro- 
 fessional gentleman, whose name would be a 
 warrant for the truth of whatever he relates, 
 told me the following circumstance regarding
 
 WARNINGS, 125 
 
 himself. He was, not very long since, at the 
 sea-side, with his family, and, amongst the 
 rest, he had with him one of his sons, a boy 
 about twelve years of age, who was in the 
 habit of bathing daily, his father accompany- 
 ing him to the water side. This practice had 
 continued during the whole of their visit, and 
 no idea of danger or accident had ever occurred 
 to anybody. On the day preceding the one 
 appointed for their departure, Mr. H., the 
 gentleman in question, felt himself, after 
 breakfast, surprised by an unusual drowsiness, 
 which he, having vainly struggled to over- 
 come, at length fell asleep in his chair, and 
 dreamt that he was attending his son to the 
 bath as usual, when he suddenly saw the boy 
 drowning, and that he himself had rushed 
 into the water, dressed as he was, and brought 
 him ashore. Though he was quite conscious 
 of the dream when he awoke, he attached no 
 importance to it; he considered it merely a 
 dream, no more ; and when, some hours after- 
 wards, the boy came into the room, and said, 
 " Now, papa, it's time to go ; this will be my 
 last bath $" his morning's vision did not even 
 recur to him. They walked down to the sea, 
 as usual, and the boy went into the water, 
 whilst the father stood composedly watching 
 M 5
 
 1 26 WARNINGS. 
 
 him from the beach, when, suddenly, the child 
 lost his footing, a wave had caught him, and 
 the danger of his being carried away was so 
 imminent, that, without even wailing to take 
 off his great coat, boots, or hat, Mr. H. rushed 
 into the water, and was only just in time to 
 save him. 
 
 Here is a case of undoubted authenticity, 
 which I take to be an instance of clear-seeing, 
 or second sight, in sleep. The spirit, with its 
 intuitive faculty, saw what was impending; 
 the sleeper remembered his dream, but the 
 intellect did not accept the warning ; and, 
 whether that warning was merely a subjec- 
 tive process the clear-seeing of the spirit 
 or whether it was effected by any external 
 agency, the free will of the person concerned 
 was not interfered with. 
 
 I quote the ensuing similar case from the 
 Frankfort Journal, 25th June, 1837: "A 
 singular circumstance is said to be connected 
 with the late attempt on the life of the Arch- 
 bishop of Autun. The two nights preceding 
 the attack, the prelate dreamt that he saw a 
 man, who was making repeated efforts to take 
 away his life, and he awoke in extreme terror 
 and agitation from the exertions he had made 
 to escape the danger. The features and ap-
 
 WARNINGS. 127 
 
 pearance of the man were so clearly imprinted 
 on his memory, that he recognized him the 
 moment his eye fell upon him, which happened 
 as he was coming out of church. The bishop 
 hid his face, and called his attendants, but 
 the man had fired before he could make known 
 his apprehensions. Facts of this description 
 are far from uncommon. It appears that the 
 assassin had entertained designs against the 
 Jives of the Bishops of Dijon, Burgos, and 
 Nevers. 1 ' 
 
 The following case,which occurred a few years 
 since, in the North of England, and which, I 
 have from the best authority,is remark able from 
 the inexorable fatality which brought about the 
 fulfilment of the dream : Mrs. K., a lady of 
 family and fortune in Yorkshire^ said to her 
 son, one morning, on descending to breakfast, 
 " Henry, what are you going to do to-day ?" 
 
 " I am going to hunt," replied the young 
 man." 
 
 " I am very glad of it," she answered, ". I 
 should not like you to go shooting, for I dreamt 
 last night that you did so, and were shot. 
 The son answered gaily, that he would take 
 care not to be shot, and the hunting party 
 rode away ; but, in the middle of the day they 
 returned, not having found any sport. Mr.
 
 1 28 WARNINGS. 
 
 B., a visitor in the house, then proposed that 
 they should go out with their guns, and try to 
 find some woodcocks. " I will go with you," 
 returned the young man, "but I must not 
 shoot to-day, myself, for my mother dreamt 
 last night I was shot; and, nlthough it is hut 
 a dream, she would be uneasy." 
 
 They went, Mr. B. with his gun, and Mr. 
 K.. without; but shortly afterwards the beloved 
 -son was brought home dead. A charge from 
 the gun of his companion had struck him in 
 the eye, entered his brain, and killed him on 
 the spot. Mr. B., the unfortunate cause of 
 this accident, and also the narrator of it, died 
 but a few weeks since. 
 
 It is well known that the murder of Mr. 
 Percival,by Bellingham, was seen in sleep by 
 a gentleman at York, who actually went to 
 London in consequence of his dream, which 
 was several times repeated. He arrived too 
 late to prevent the calamity ; neither would he 
 have been believed, had he arrived earlier. 
 
 In the year 1461, a merchant was travelling 
 towards Rome, by Sienna, when he dreamt that 
 his throat was cut. He communicated his 
 dream to the host of the inn, who did not like it, 
 and advised him to pray and confess. He did 
 bo, and then rode forth, and was presently
 
 WARNINGS. 129 
 
 attacked by the priest he had confessed to, 
 who had thus learnt his apprehensions. He 
 killed the merchant, but was betrayed, and 
 disappointed of his gains, by the horse taking 
 fright, and running back to the inn with the 
 money bags. 
 
 I have related this story, though not a new 
 one, on account of its singular resemblance to 
 the following, which I take from a newspaper 
 paragraph ; but which I find mentioned as a 
 fact in a continental publication : 
 
 "SINGULAR VERIFICATION OF A DREAM. A 
 Jetter from Hamburgh, contains the fol- 
 lowing curious story, relative to the verifica- 
 tion of a dream. It appears that a locksmith's 
 apprentice, one morning lately, informed his 
 master (Claude Seller), that on the previous 
 night he dreamt that he had been assassinated 
 on the road to Bergsdorff, a little town at 
 about two hours' distance from Hamburgh. 
 The master laughed at the young man's credu- 
 lity, and to prove that he himself had little 
 faith in dreams, insisted upon sending him to 
 Bergsdorff, with 140 rix dollars (.22 8s.), 
 which he owed to his brother-in-law, who re- 
 sided in the town. The apprentice, after in 
 vain imploring his master to change his inten- 
 tion, was compelled to set out, at about eleven
 
 130 WARNINGS. 
 
 o'clock. On arriving at the village of Bill- 
 waerder, about half-way between Hamburgh 
 and Bergsdorff, he recollected his dream with 
 terror, but perceiving the baillie of the village 
 at a little distance, talking to some of his 
 workmen, he accosted him, and acquainted 
 him with his singular dream, at the same time 
 requesting, that, as he had money about his 
 person, one of his workmen might be allowed 
 to accompany him for protection across a 
 small wood which lay in his way. The baillie 
 smiled, and, in obedience to his orders, one of 
 his men set out with the young apprentice. 
 The next day, the corpse of the latter was con- 
 veyed by some peasants to the baillie, along 
 with a reaping-hook, which had been found 
 by his side, and, with which, the throat of the 
 murdered youth had been cut. The baillie 
 immediately recognised the instrument as one 
 which he had on the previous day given to the 
 workman who had served as the apprentice's 
 guide, for the purpose of pruning some willows. 
 The workman was apprehended, and, on being 
 confronted with the body of his victim, made 
 a full confession of his crime, adding, that the 
 recital of the dream had alone prompted him to 
 commit the horrible act. The assassin, who 
 is thirty- five years of age, is a native of Bill-
 
 WARNINGS. 131 
 
 waerder, and, previously to the perpetration 
 of the murder, had always borne an irreproach- 
 able character." 
 
 The life of the great Harvey was saved by 
 the Governor of Dover refusing to allow him 
 to embark for the Continent, with his friends. 
 The vessel was lost, with all on board ; and 
 the Governor confessed to him, that he had 
 detained him in consequence of an injunction 
 he had received in a dream to do so. 
 
 There is a very curious circumstance related 
 by Mr. Ward, in his " Illustrations of Human 
 Life," regarding the late Sir Evan Nepean, 
 which, I believe is perfectly authentic. I have, 
 at least been assured, by persons well ac- 
 quainted with him, that he himself testified to 
 its truth. 
 
 Being, at the time, Secretary to the Admi- 
 raly, he found himself one night unable to 
 sleep, and urged by an undefinable feeling that 
 he must rise, though it was then only two 
 o'clock. He accordingly did so, and went 
 into the park, and from that to the Home 
 Office, which he entered by a private door, of 
 which he had the key. He had no object in 
 doing this, and to pass the time, he took up a 
 newspaper that was lying on the table, and 
 there read a paragraph to the effect, that a re-
 
 132 WARNINGS. 
 
 prieve had been dispatched to York, for the 
 men condemned for coining. 
 
 The question occurred to him, was it indeed 
 dispatched? He examined the books and 
 found it was not ; and it was only by the most 
 energetic proceedings that the thing was 
 carried through, and reached York in time to 
 save the men. 
 
 Is not this like the agency of a protecting 
 spirit, urging Sir Evan to this discovery, in 
 order that these men might be spared; or that 
 those concerned might escape the remorse 
 they would have suffered for their criminal 
 neglect ? 
 
 It is a remarkable fact, that somnambules of 
 the highest order believe themselves attended 
 by a protecting spirit. To those who do not 
 believe, because they have never witnessed the 
 phenomena of somnambulism, or who look 
 upon the disclosures of persons in that state, 
 as the mere raving of hallucination, this autho- 
 rity will necessarily have no weight ; but even 
 to such persons, the universal coincidence, 
 must be considered worthy of observation, 
 though it be regarded only as a symptom of 
 disease. I believe I have remarked, else- 
 where, that many persons, who have not the 
 least tendency to somnambulism, or any proxi-
 
 WARNINGS. 133 
 
 I 
 
 mate malady, have, all their lives, an intuitive 
 feeling of such a guardianship ; and, not to 
 mention Socrates and the ancients, there are, 
 besides, numerous recorded cases in modern 
 times, in which persons, not somnambulic, 
 have declared themselves to have seen and 
 held communication with their spiritual pro- 
 tector. 
 
 The case of the girl called Ludwiger, who, 
 in her infancy, had lost her speech, and the 
 use of her limbs, and who was earnestly com- 
 mitted by her mother, when dying, to the care 
 of her elder sisters, is known to many. These 
 young women piously fulfilled their engage- 
 ment, till the wedding-day of one of them 
 caused them to forget their charge. On recol- 
 lecting it, at length, they hastened home, and 
 found the girl to their amazement, sitting up 
 in her bed, and she told them, that her mother 
 had been there and given her food. She never 
 spoke again, ond soon after died. This cir- 
 cumstance occurred at Dessau, not many 
 years since ; and is, according to Schubert, a 
 perfectly established fact in that neighbour- 
 hood. The girl, at no other period of her life 
 exhibited any similar phenomena, nor had she 
 ever displayed any tendency to spectral illu- 
 sions. 
 
 VOL. i. N
 
 134 WARNINGS. 
 
 The wife of a respectable citizen, named 
 Arnold, at Heilbronn, held constant communi- 
 cations with her protecting spirit, who warned 
 her of impending dangers, approaching vi- 
 sitors, and so forth. He was only once visible 
 to her, and it was in the form of an old man ; 
 but his presence was felt by others as well as 
 herself, and they were sensible that the air 
 was stirred, as by a breath. 
 
 .lung Stilling publishes a similar account, 
 which was bequeathed to him by a very worthy 
 and pious minister of the church. The sub- 
 ject of the guardianship was his own wife ; 
 and the spirit first appeared to her after her 
 marriage, in the year 1799, as a child, attired 
 in a white robe, whilst she was busy in her 
 bed-chamber. She stretched out her hand to 
 take hold of the figure, but it disappeared. 
 It frequently visited her afterwards, and in 
 answer to her enquiries, it said, " I died in my 
 childhood ! " It came to her at all hours, 
 whether alone or in company, and not only at 
 home, but elsewhere, and even when travelling, 
 assisting her when in danger ; it sometimes 
 floated in the air, spake to her in its own lan- 
 guage, which, somehow, she says, she under- 
 stood, and could speak, too; and it was once 
 seen by another person. He bade her call him
 
 [> WARNINGS. 135 
 
 Immanuel. She earnestly begged him to show 
 himself to her husband, but he alleged that it 
 would make him ill, and cause his death. On 
 asking him wherefore, he answered, " few 
 persons are able to see such things." 
 
 Her two children, one six years old, and the 
 other younger, saw this figure as well as 
 herself. 
 
 Schubert, in his " Geschichte der Seele," 
 relates that the ecclesiastical councillor 
 Schwartz, of Heidelberg, when about twelve 
 years of age, and at a time that he was learning 
 the Greek language, but knew very little 
 about it, dreamt that his grandmother, a very 
 pious woman, to whom he had been much 
 attached, appeared to him, and unfolded a 
 parchment, inscribed with Greek characters, 
 which foretold the fortunes of his future life. 
 He read it off with as much facility as if it had 
 been in German ; but being dissatisfied with some 
 particulars of the prediction, he begged they 
 might be changed. His grandmother answered 
 him in Greek, whereupon he awoke, remem- 
 bering the dream, but, in spite of the efforts 
 to arrest them, he was unable to recall the parti- 
 culars the parchment had contained. The 
 answer of his grandmother, hosvever, he was 
 able to grasp before it had fled his memory,
 
 136 WARNINGS. 
 
 and he wrote down the words ; but the 
 meaning' of them he could not discover, 
 without the assistance of his Grammar and 
 Lexicon. Being- interpreted, they proved to 
 he these u As it is prophecied to me, so I 
 prophecy to thee '/' He had written the words 
 in a volume of Gessner's works, being- the 
 first thing- he laid his hand on ; and he often 
 philosophized on them in later days, when 
 they chanced to meet his eye. How, he says, 
 should he have been able to read and produce 
 that in his sleep, which, in his waking- state, 
 he would have been quite incapable of? 
 " Even long after, when I left school," he adds, 
 " I could scarcely have put tog-ether such a 
 sentence ; and it is extremely remarkable 
 that the feminine form was observed in con- 
 formity with the sex of the speaker. The 
 words were these 7~auVa 
 
 Grotius relates, that when Mr. de Saumaise 
 was councillor of the Parliament at Dijon, a 
 ]>erson who knew not a word of Greek, brought 
 him a paper, on which was written some words 
 in that language, but not in the character. 
 He said that a voice had uttered them to him 
 in the night, and that he had written them 
 down, imitating the sound as well as he could.
 
 WARNINGS. 137 
 
 Mons. cle Saumaise made out that the signifi- 
 cation of the words, was; "Begone! do yon. 
 not see that death impsnds ? " Without com- 
 prehending what danger was predicted, the per- 
 son obeyed the mandate and departed. On 
 that night the house that he had been lodging 
 in, fell to the ground. 
 
 The difficulty in these two cases is equally 
 great, apply to it whatever explanation we 
 may ; for even if the admonitions proceeded 
 from some friendly guardian, as we might be 
 inclined to conclude, it is not easy to conceive 
 why they should have been communicated in 
 a language the persons did not understand. 
 
 After the death of Dante, il was discovered 
 that the thirteenth canto of the " Paradise" was 
 missing ; great search was made for it, but in 
 vain ; and to the regret of everybody concerned, 
 it was at length concluded that it had either 
 never been written, or had been destroyed. The 
 quest was therefore given up, and some months 
 had elapsed, when Pietro Allighieri, his son, 
 dreamt that his father appeared to him and 
 told him that if he removed a certain pannel 
 near the window of the room, in which he had 
 been accustomed to write, the thirteenth cant< 
 would be found. Pietro told his dream and 
 was laughed at, of course ; however, as the 
 N 5
 
 138 WARNINGS. 
 
 canto did not turn up, it was thought as well 
 to examine the spot indicated in the dream. 
 The pannel was removed, and there lay the 
 missing canto behind it ; much mildewed, but 
 fortunately, still legible. 
 
 If it be true that the dead do return some-' 
 times to solve our perplexities, here was not an 
 unworthy occasion for the exercise nf such a 
 power. We can imagine the spirit of the 
 great poet still clinging to the memory of his 
 august work, immortal as himself the record 
 of those high thoughts which can never die. 
 
 There are numerous curious accounts extant 
 of persons being awakened by the calling of a 
 voice which announced some impending 
 danger to them. Three boys are sleeping in 
 the wing of a castle, and the eldest is awakened 
 by what appears to him to be the voice of his 
 lather calling him l>y name. He rises and 
 hastens to his parent's chamber, situated in 
 another part, of the building, where he finds 
 his father asleep ; who, on being awakened, 
 assures him that he had not called him, and 
 the boy returns to bed. But he is scarcely 
 asleep, before the circumstance recurs, and he 
 again goes to his father with the same result. 
 A third time he falls asleep, and a third time 
 he is aroused by the voice, too distinctly heard
 
 WARNINGS. 139 
 
 for him to doubt his senses ; and now, alarmed 
 at he knows not what, he rises and takes his 
 brothers with him to his father's chamber ; and 
 whilst they are discussing the singularity of 
 the circumstance, a crash is heard, and that 
 wing of the castle in which the boys slept, falls 
 to the ground. This incident excited so much 
 attention in Germany that it was recorded in a 
 ballad. 
 
 It is related by Amyraldus, that Monsieur 
 Calignan, Chancellor of Navarre, dreamed 
 three successive times in one night, at Berne, 
 that a voice called to him and bade him quit 
 the place, as the plague would soon break out 
 in that town ; that, in consequence, he removed 
 his family, and the result justified his flight. 
 
 A German physician relates, that a patient 
 of his told him, that he dreamt repeatedly, one 
 night, that a voice bade him go to his hop- 
 garden, as there were thieves there. He re^ 
 sisted the injunction some time, till, at length, 
 he was told that, if he delayed any longer, he 
 would lose all his produce. Thus urged, he 
 went at last, and arrived just in time to see the 
 thieves, loaded with sacks, making away from 
 the opposite side of the hop-ground. 
 
 A Madame Von Militz, found herself under 
 the necessity of parting with a property which
 
 140 VVAllNlXGS. 
 
 had long been in her family. When the bar- 
 gain was concluded, and she was preparing- to 
 remove, she solicited permission of the new 
 proprietor to carry away with her some little 
 relic as a memento of former days a request 
 which he uncivilly denied. On one of the 
 nights that preceded her departure from the 
 home of her ancestors, she dreamt that a voice 
 spoke to her, and bade her go to the cellar and 
 open a certain part of the wall, where she 
 would find something- that nobody would dis- 
 pute with her. Impressed with her dream, she 
 sent for a bricklayer, who, after long seeking, 
 discovered a place which appeared less solid 
 than the rest. A hole was made, and, in a 
 niche, was found a goblet, which contained 
 something that looked like a pot pourri. On 
 shaking out the contents, there lay at the bot- 
 tom a small ring, on which was engraven the 
 name Anna Von Militz. 
 
 A friend of mine, Mr. Charles Kirkpatrick 
 Sharpe, has some coins that were found 
 exactly in the same manner. The child of 
 a Mr. Christison, in whose house his father 
 was lodging, in the year 1781, dreamt that 
 there was a treasure hid in the cellar. Her 
 lather had no faith in the dream ; but Mr.
 
 WARNINGS. 141 
 
 S. had the curiosity to have the place dug up, 
 and a copper pot was found, full of coins. 
 
 A very singular circumstance was related to 
 me lately, by Mr. J. J., as having occurred 
 not long since to himself. A tonic had been 
 prescribed to him by his physician, for some 
 slight derangement of the system, and, as there 
 was no good chemist in the village he in- 
 habited, he was in the habit of walking to a 
 town about five miles off, to get the bottle filled 
 as occasion required. One night, that he had 
 been to M. for this purpose, and had obtained 
 his last supply, for he was now recovered, and 
 about to discontinue the medicine, a voice 
 seemed to warn him that some great danger 
 was impending, his life was in jeopardy ; then 
 he heard, but not with his outward ear, a 
 beautiful prayer. " It was not myself that 
 prayed,'' he said, " the prayer was far beyond 
 anything I am capable of composing it spoke 
 of me in the third person, always as lie; and 
 supplicated that for the sake of my widowed 
 mother this calamity might be averted. My 
 father had been dead some months. I was 
 sensible of all this, yet I cannot say whether I 
 was asleep or awake. When I rose in the 
 morning, the whole was present to my mind, 
 although I had slept soundly in the interval ;
 
 1-12 WARNINGS. 
 
 I felt, however, as if there was some mitigation 
 of the calamity, though what the danger was 
 with which I was threatened, I had no notion. 
 When I was dressed, I prepared to take my 
 medicine, but, on lifting the bottle, I fancied 
 that the colour was not the same as usual. I 
 looked again, and hesitated, and finally, in- 
 stead of taking two table spoonfuls, which was 
 my accustomed dose, I took but one. Fortu- 
 nate it was that I did so ; the apothecary had 
 made a mistake; the drug was poison; I was 
 seized with a violent vomiting, and other 
 alarming symptoms, from which I with diffi- 
 culty recovered. Had I taken the two spoon- 
 fuls, I should, probably, not have survived to 
 tell the tale." 
 
 The manner in which I happened to obtain 
 these particulars is not uninteresting. I was 
 spending the evening with Mr. Wordsworth, 
 at Ridal, when he mentioned to me that a 
 stranger, who had called on him that morning, 
 had quoted two lines from his poem of 
 " Laodamia," which, he said, to him had a 
 peculiar interest. They were these : 
 
 " The invisible world with thee hath sympathised; 
 Be thy affections raised and solemnised." 
 
 " I do not know what he alludes to," said Mr. 
 Wordsworth ; " but he gave me to understand
 
 WARNINGS. 143 
 
 that these lines had a deep meaning for him, 
 and that he had himself been the subject of 
 such a sympathy." 
 
 Upon this, I sought the stranger, whose 
 address the poet gave me, and thus learnt the 
 above particulars from himself. His very 
 natural persuasion was, that the interceding 
 spirit was his father. He described the 
 prayer as one of earnest anguish. 
 
 One of the most remarkable instances of 
 warning that has come to my knowledge, is 
 that of Mr. M., of Kingsborough. This gen- 
 tleman, being on a voyage to America, dreamt, 
 one night, that a little old man came into his 
 cabin and said, " Get up ! Your life is in 
 danger !" Upon which, Mr. M. awoke ; but 
 considering it to be only a dream, he soon 
 composed himself to sleep again. The dream, 
 however, if such it were, recurred, and the old 
 man urged him still more strongly to get up 
 directly 5 but he still persuaded himself it was 
 only a dream ; and after listening a few 
 minutes, and hearing nothing to alarm him, 
 he turned round and addressed himself once 
 more to sleep. But now the old man appeared 
 again, and angrily bade him rise instantly, and 
 take his gun and ammunition with him, 
 for he had not a moment to lose. The
 
 144 WARNINGS. 
 
 injunction was now so distinct that Mr. M. 
 felt he could no longer resist it ; so he hastily 
 dressed himself, took his gun, and ascended 
 to the deck, where he had scarcely arrived, 
 when the ship struck on a rock, which he and 
 several others contrived to reach. The place, 
 however, was uninhabited, and, but for his 
 gun, they would never have been able to pro- 
 vide themselves with food till a vessel arrived 
 to their relief. 
 
 Now these can scarcely be looked upon as 
 instances of clear seeing, or of second sight in 
 sleep, which, in Denmark, is ca\\ed.jir$t-seeiny, 
 I believe ; for in neither case did the sleeper 
 perceive the danger, much less the nature of it. 
 If, therefore, we refuse to attribute them to 
 some external protecting influence, they re- 
 solve themselves into cases of vague presenti- 
 ment; but it must then be admitted that the 
 mode of the manifestation is very extraoidi- 
 nary ; so extraordinary, indeed, that we fall 
 into fully as great a difficulty as that offered by 
 the supposition of a guardian spirit. 
 
 An American clergyman told me that an old 
 woman, with whom he was acquainted, who 
 had two sons, heard a voice say to her in the 
 night, " John's dead I" This was her eldest 
 son. Shortly afterwards, the news of his death
 
 WARNINGS. 145 
 
 arriving, she said to the person who commu- 
 nicated the intelligence to her, " If John's dead, 
 then I know that David is dead, too, for the 
 same voice has since told me so ;" and the event 
 proved that the information, whenceever it 
 came, was correct. 
 
 Not many years since, Captain S. was pass- 
 ing a night at the Manse of Strachur, in 
 Argyleshire, then occupied by a relation of his 
 own ; shortly after he had lain down in bed, 
 the curtains were opened, and somebody 
 looked in upon him. Supposing it to be some 
 inmate of the house, who was not aware that 
 the bed was occupied, he took no notice of the 
 circumstance, till, it being two or three times 
 repeated, he at length said, " What do you 
 want? Why do you disturb me in this 
 manner?'* 
 
 " I come," replied a voice, " to tell you, that 
 this day twelvemonth you will be with your 
 father !" 
 
 After this, Captain S. was no more dis- 
 turbed. In the morning, he related the cir- 
 cumstance to his host ; but, being an entire 
 disbeliever in all such phenomena, without 
 attaching any importance to the warning. 
 
 In the natural course of events, and quite 
 irrespective of this visitation, on that day 
 
 VOL. i. o
 
 146 WARNINGS. 
 
 twelvemonth he was again at the Manse of 
 Strachur, on his way to the North, for which 
 purpose it was necessary that he should cross 
 the ferry to Craigie. The day was, however, 
 so exceedingly stormy, that his friend begged 
 him not to go ; but he pleaded his business, 
 adding that he was determined not to be 
 withheld from his intention by the ghost, and, 
 although the minister delayed his departure, 
 by engaging him in a game of backgammon, 
 he at length started up, declaring he could 
 stay no longer. They, therefore, proceeded 
 to the water, but they found the boat 
 moored to the side of the lake, and the boat- 
 man assured them that it would be impossible 
 to cross. Captain S., however, insisted, and, 
 as the old man was firm in his refusal, he be- 
 came somewhat irritated, and laid his cane 
 lightly across his shoulders. 
 
 " It ill becomes you, sir," said the ferryman, 
 " to strike an old man like me ; but, since you 
 will have your way, you must ; I cannot go 
 with you, but my son will ; but you will never 
 reach the other side ; he will be drowned, and 
 you too." 
 
 The boat was then set afloat, and Captain 
 S., together with his horse and servant, and 
 the ferryman's son, embarked in it.
 
 WARNINGS. 147 
 
 The distance was not great, but the storm 
 was tremendous ; and, after having with great 
 difficulty got half way across the lake, it was 
 found impossible to proceed. The danger of 
 tacking, was, of course, considerable ; but, 
 since they could not advance, there was no 
 alternative but to turn back, and it was re- 
 solved to attempt it. The manoeuvre, how- 
 ever, failed ; the boat capsized, and they were 
 all precipitated into the water. 
 
 " You keep hold of the horse, I can swim," 
 said Captain S. to his servant, when he saw 
 what was about to happen. 
 
 Being an excellent swimmer, and the dis- 
 tance from the shore inconsiderable, he hoped 
 to save himself, but he had on a heavy top 
 coat, with boots and spurs. The coat he con- 
 trived to take ofi in the water, and then struck 
 out with confidence ; but, alas, the coat had 
 got entangled with one of the spurs, and, as 
 he swam, it clung to him, getting heavier and 
 heavier, as it became saturated with water, 
 ever dragging him beneath the stream. He, 
 however, reached the shore, where his anxious 
 friend still stood watching the event, and, as 
 the latter bent over him, he was just able to 
 make a gesture with his hand, which seemed
 
 ]48 WARNINGS. 
 
 to say, " You see, it was to be !* and then 
 expired. 
 
 The boatman was also drowned; but, by 
 the aid of the horse, the servant escaped. 
 
 As I do not wish to startle my readers nor 
 draw too suddenly on their faith, I have com- 
 menced with this class of phenomena, which 
 it must be admitted are sufficiently strange, 
 and, if true, must also be admitted to be well 
 worthy of attention. No doubt, these cases, 
 and still more those to which I shall next pro- 
 ceed, give a painful shock to the received 
 notions of polished and educated society in gene- 
 ral ; especially in this country, where the ana- 
 lytical or scientitical psychology of the eighteenth 
 century has almost entirely superseded the 
 study of synthetic or philosophical psychology. 
 It has become a custom to look at all the phe- 
 nomena regarding man in a purely physi- 
 ological point of view ; for although it is 
 admitted that he has a mind, and although 
 there is such a science as metaphysics, the 
 existence of what we call mind, is never con- 
 sidered but as connected with the body. We 
 know that body can exist without mind ; for, 
 not to speak of certain living conditions, the 
 body subsists without mind when the spirit
 
 WARNINGS. 149 
 
 has fled ; albeit, without the living principle it 
 can subsist but for a short period, except under 
 particular circumstances ; but we seem to have 
 forgotten that mind, though very dependant 
 upon body as long as the connexion between 
 them continues, can yet subsist without it. 
 There have, indeed, been philosophers, purely 
 materialistic, who have denied this ; but they 
 are not many ; and not only the whole 
 Christian world, but all who believe in a 
 future state, must perforce admit it; for even 
 those who hold that most unsatisfactory doc- 
 trine, that there will be neither memory nor 
 consciousness till a second incorporation takes 
 place, will not deny that the mind, however 
 in a state of abeyance and unable to manifest 
 itself, must still subsist, as an inherent property 
 of man's immortal part. Even if, as some 
 philosophers believe, the spirit, when freed 
 i'rom the body by death, returns to the Deity 
 and is re-absorbed in the being of God, not to 
 become again a separate entity until re-incor- 
 porated, still, what we call mind cannot be 
 disunited from it. And when once we have 
 begun to conceive of mind, and consequently of 
 perception, as separated from and independent 
 of bodily organs, it will not be very difficult to 
 apprehend that those bodily organs must cir- 
 o 5
 
 150 WARNINGS. 
 
 cumscribe and limit the view of the spiritual 
 in-dweller, which must otherwise be neces- 
 sarily perceptive of spirit like itself, though per- 
 haps unperceptive of material objects and 
 obstructions. 
 
 " It is perfectly evident to me," said Socrates, 
 in his last moments, " that, to see clearly, we 
 must detach ourselves from the body, and per- 
 ceive by the soul alone. Not whilst we live, 
 but when we die, will that wisdom which we 
 desire and love, be first revealed to us ; it must 
 be then, or never, that we shall attain to true 
 understanding and knowledge; since by means 
 of the body we never can. But if, during 
 life, we would make the nearest approaches 
 possible to its possession, it must be by 
 divorcing ourselves as much as in us lies from 
 the flesh and its nature." In their spiritual 
 views and apprehension of the nature of man, 
 how these old heathens shame us 1 
 
 The Scriptures teach us that God chose to 
 reveal himself to his people chiefly in dreams, 
 and we are entitled to conclude that the reason 
 of this was, that the spirit was then more free 
 to the reception of spiritual influences and im- 
 pressions ; and the class of dreams to which 
 I next proceed, seem to be best explained by 
 this hypothesis. It is also to be remarked, 
 that the awe or fear which pervades a mortal
 
 WARNINGS. 151 
 
 at the mere conception of being brought into 
 relation with a spirit, has no place in sleep, 
 whether natural or magnetic. There is no fear 
 then, no surprise ; we seem to meet on an 
 equality is it not that we meet spirit to 
 spirit ? Is it not that our spirit being then 
 released from the trammels the dark chamber 
 of the flesh, it does enjoy a temporary equality? 
 Is not that true, that some German psycho- 
 logist has said, " The magnetic man is a 
 spirit!" 
 
 There are numerous instances to be met 
 with, of persons receiving information in their 
 sleep, which either is, or seems to be, com- 
 municated by their departed friends. The 
 approach of danger, the period of the sleeper's 
 death, or of that of some persons beloved, has 
 been frequently made known in this form of 
 dream. 
 
 Dr. Binns quotes, from Cardanus, the case of 
 Johannes Maria Maurosenus, a Venetian 
 senator, who, whilst Governor of Dalmatia, 
 saw in a dream one of his brothers, to whom 
 he was much attached ; the brother embraced 
 him and bade him farewell, because he was 
 going into the other world; Maurosenus having 
 followed him a long way weeping, awoke in 
 tears and expressed much anxiety respecting
 
 15'2 WARNINGS. 
 
 this brother. Shortly afterwards he received 
 tidings from Venice, that this Domatus, of 
 whom he had dreamt, had died on the night 
 and at the hour of the dream, of apestilental 
 fever, which had carried him off in three days. 
 
 On the night of the 21st of June, in the year 
 1813, a lady residing in the north of England, 
 dreamt that her brother, who was then with 
 his regiment in Spain, appeared to her saying, 
 " Mary, I die this day at Vittoria." 
 
 Vittoria was a town which, previous to the 
 famous battle, was not generally known even 
 by name, in this country, and this dreamer, 
 amongst others, had never heard of it ; but, on 
 rising, she eagerly resorted to a Gazetteer for 
 the purpose of ascertaining if such a place 
 existed. On finding that it was so, she im- 
 mediately ordered her horses, and drove to the 
 house of a sister, who resided some eight or 
 nine miles off, and her first words on entering 
 the room were, " Have you heard anything of 
 John ?" " No," replied the second sister, " but 
 I know he is dead ! He appeared to me last 
 night, in a dream, and told me that he was 
 killed at Vittoria. I have been looking into 
 the Gazetteer and the Atlas, and I find there 
 is such a place, and I am sure that he 
 is dead !" And so it proved ; the young man
 
 WARNINGS. 
 
 died that day at Vittoria, and, I believe, on the 
 field of battle. If so, it is worthy of obser- 
 vation, that the communication was not made 
 till the sisters slept. 
 
 A similar case to this, is that of Miss D.,of G., 
 who, one night, dreamt that she was walking 
 about the washing greens, when a figure ap- 
 proached, which she recognized as that of a be- 
 loved brother, who was at that time with the 
 British army, in America. It gradually faded 
 away into a kind of anatomy, holding up its 
 hands, through which the light could be per- 
 ceived, and asking for clothes to dress a body for 
 the grave. The dream recurred more than once 
 in the same night, and, apprehending some 
 misfortune, Miss I), noted down the date of 
 the occurrence. In due course of post, the 
 news arrived that this brother had been killed 
 at the battle of Bunker's Hill. Miss D., who 
 died only within the last few years, though 
 unwilling to speak of the circumstance, never 
 refused to testify to it as a fact. 
 
 Here, supposing this to be a real apparition, 
 we see an instance of that desire for decent 
 obsequies so constantly attributed by the 
 ancients to the souls of the dead., 
 
 When the German poet, Collin, died at 
 Vienna, a person named Hartmann, who was
 
 154 WARNINGS. 
 
 his friend, found himself very much distressed 
 by the loss of a hundred and twenty florins, 
 which he had paid for the poet, under a pro- 
 mise of reimbursement. As this sum formed 
 a large portion of his whole possessions, the 
 circumstance was occasioning him consider- 
 able anxiety, when he dreamt, one night, that 
 his deceased friend appeared to him, and bade 
 him immediately set two florins on No. 1 1, on 
 the first calling of the little lottery, or loto, 
 then about to be drawn. He was bade to con- 
 fine his venture to two florins, neither less nor 
 more ; and to communicate this information to 
 nobody. Hartmaun availed himself of the 
 hint, and obtained a prize of a hundred and 
 thirty florins. 
 
 Since we look upon lotteries, in this country, 
 as an immoral species of gambling, it may be 
 raised as an objection to this dream, that such 
 intelligence was an unworthy mission for a 
 spirit, supposing the communication to have 
 been actually made by Collin. But, in the 
 first place, we have only to do with facts, and 
 not with their propriety, or impropriety, ac- 
 cording to our notions ; and, by and by, I shall 
 endeavour to show, that such discrepancies 
 possibly arise from the very erroneous notions 
 commonly entertained of the state of those
 
 WARNINGS. 155 
 
 who have disappeared from the terrestrial 
 life. 
 
 Simonides, the poet, arriving at the sea- 
 shore with the intention of embarking on 
 board a vessel on the ensuing day, found an 
 imburied body, which he immediately desired 
 should be decently interred. On the same 
 night, this deceased person appeared to hiji 
 and bade him by no means go to sea, as he 
 had proposed. Simonides obeyed the in- 
 junction, and beheld the vessel founder, as he 
 stood on the shore. He raised a monument on 
 the spot to the memory of his preserver, which 
 is said still to exist, on which are engraven 
 some lines to the effect, that it was dedicated by 
 Simonides, the poet of Cheos, in gratitude to 
 the dead who had preserved him from death. 
 
 A much esteemed secretary died a few years 
 since, in the house of Mr. R. von N. About 
 eight weeks afterwards, Mr. R. himself being 
 ill, his daughter dreamt that the house-bell 
 rang ; and that on looking out, she perceived 
 the secretary at the door. Having admitted 
 him and enquired what he was come for, he 
 answered, " to fetch somebody." Upon which, 
 alarmed for her father, she exclaimed, "I hope 
 not my father." He shook his head so- 
 lemnly, in a manner that implied it was not
 
 156 WARNINGS. 
 
 the old man he had come for, and turned away 
 towards a guest chamber, at that time vacant, 
 and there disappeared at the door. The father 
 recovered, and the lady left home for a few 
 days, on a visit ; on her return, she found her 
 brother had arrived in the interval to pay a 
 visit to his parents, and was lying sick in that 
 room, where he died. 
 
 I will here mention a curious circumstance, 
 regarding Mr. H., the gentleman alluded to in 
 a former page, who, being at the sea-side, saw, 
 in a dream, the danger that awaited his son 
 when he went to bathe. This gentleman has 
 frequently, on waking, felt a consciousness 
 that he had been conversing with certain per- 
 sons of his acquaintance and, indeed, with 
 some of whom he knew little and has after- 
 wards, not without a feeling of awe, learnt 
 that these persons had died during the hours 
 of his sleep. 
 
 Do not such circumstances entitle us to en- 
 tertain the idea that 1 have above suggested, 
 namely, that in sleep the spirit is free to see 
 and to know, and to communicate with spirit, 
 although the memory of this knowledge is 
 rarely carried into the waking state. 
 
 The story of the two Arcadians, who tra- 
 velled together to Megara, though reprinted
 
 WARNINGS. 157 
 
 in other works, I cannot omit here. One of 
 these established himself, on the night of their 
 arrival, at the house of a friend, whilst the 
 <Hher sought shelter in a public lodging-house 
 for strangers. During the night, the latter 
 appeared to the former, in a dream, and be- 
 sought him to come to his assistance, as his 
 villainous host was about to take his life, and 
 only the most speedy aid could save him. The 
 dreamer started from his sleep, and his first 
 movement was to obey the summons, but, re- 
 flecting that it was only a dream, he presently 
 lay down, and composed himself again to rest. 
 But now his friend appeared before him a 
 second time, disfigured by blood and wounds, 
 conjuring him, since he had not listened to 
 his first entreaties, that he would, at least, 
 avenge his death. His host, he said, had mur- 
 dered him, and was, at that moment, deposit- 
 ing his body in a dung-cart, for the purpose 
 of conveying it out of the town. The dreamer 
 was thoroughly alarmed, arose, and hastened 
 to the gates of the city, where he found, wait- 
 ing to pass out, exactly such a vehicle as his 
 friend had described. A search being insti- 
 tuted, the body was found underneath the ma- 
 nure; and the host was, consequently, seized, and 
 VOL. i. p
 
 158 WARNINGS. 
 
 delivered over to the chastisement of the 
 law. 
 
 "Who shall venture to assert," says Dr. 
 Ennemoser, ''that this communing with the 
 deadin sleep is merely a subjective phenomenon, 
 and that the presence of these apparitions is a 
 pure illusion ?" 
 
 A circumstance fully as remarkable as any 
 recorded, occurred at Odessa, in the year 1842. 
 An old blind man, named Michel, had for many 
 years, been accustomed to get his living by 
 seating himself every morning, on a beam, in 
 one of the timber yards, with a wooden bowl 
 at his feet, into which the passengers cast 
 their alms. This long continued practice had 
 made him well known to the inhabitants, and 
 as he was believed to have been formerly a 
 soldier, his blindness was attributed to the 
 numerous wounds he had received in battle. 
 For his own part, he spoke little, and never 
 contradicted this opinion. 
 
 One night, Michel, by some accident, fell in 
 with a little girl, of ten years old, named 
 Powleska, who was friendless, and on the verge 
 of perishing with cold and hunger. The old 
 man took her home, and adopted her; and, 
 from that time, instead of sitting in the tim- 
 ber yards, he went about the streets in her
 
 WARNINGS. 159 
 
 company, asking alms at the doors of the 
 houses. The child called \i\mfat her, and they 
 were extremely happy together. But when 
 they had pursued this mode of life for about 
 five years, a misfortune befell them. A theft 
 having been committed in a house which they 
 had visited in the morning, Powleska was sus- 
 pected and arrested, and the blind man was 
 left once more alone. But, instead of resuming 
 his former habits, he now disappeared alto- 
 gether, and this circumstance causing the sus- 
 picion to extend to him, the girl was brought 
 before the magistrate to be interrogated with 
 regard to his probable place of concealment. 
 
 " Do you know where Michel is ?" enquired 
 the magistrate. 
 
 " He is dead !" replied she, shedding a torrent 
 of tears. 
 
 As the girl had been shut up for three days, 
 without any means of obtaining informa- 
 tion from without, this answer, together with 
 her unfeigned distress, naturally excited con- 
 siderable surprise. 
 
 "Who told you he was dead?" they en- 
 quired. 
 
 " Nobody !" 
 
 " Then how can you know it ?"
 
 160 WARNINGS. 
 
 " I saw him killed !" 
 
 " But you have not been out of the prison ?" 
 
 " But I saw it, nevertheless !" 
 
 ** But how was that possible ? Explain 
 what you mean !" 
 
 " I cannot. All I can say is, that I saw 
 him killed." 
 
 " When was he killed, and how ?" 
 
 "It was the night I was arrested." 
 
 " That cannot be ; he was alive when you 
 were seized 1" 
 
 " Yes, he was ; he was killed an hour after 
 that. They stabbed him with a knife." 
 
 " Where were you then ?'"" 
 
 " I can't tell ; but I saw it." 
 
 The confidence with which the girl asserted 
 what seemed to her hearers impossible and 
 absurd, disposed them to imagine that she was 
 either really insane, or pretending to be so ; 
 so leaving Michel aside, they proceeded to in- 
 terrogate her about the robbery, asking her if 
 she was guilty. 
 
 " Oh, no !" she answered. 
 
 " Then how came the property to be found 
 about you ?"" 
 
 " I don't know : I saw nothing but the 
 murder."
 
 WARNINGS. J61 
 
 "But there are no grounds for supposing 
 Michel is dead; his body has not been 
 found." 
 
 " It is in the aqueduct." 
 
 " And do you know who slew him ?'* 
 
 " Yes ; it is a woman. Michel was Walk- 
 ing very slowly, after I was taken from him. 
 A woman came behind him with a large 
 kitchen-knife ; but he heard her, and turned 
 round j and then the woman flung a piece of 
 grey stuff over his head, and struck him re- 
 peatedly with the knife, the grey stuff was 
 much stained with the blood. Michel fell at 
 the eighth blow, and the woman dragged the 
 body to the aqueduct and let it fall in without 
 ever lifting the stuff which stuck to his face." 
 
 As it was easy to verify these latter asser- 
 tions, they dispatched people to the spot j and 
 there the body was found with the piece of 
 stuff over his head, exactly as she had de- 
 scribed. But when they asked her how she 
 knew all this, she could only answer " I don't 
 know." 
 
 " But you know who killed him ?" 
 
 " Not exactly : it is the same woman that 
 put out his eyes ; but, perhaps, he will tell me 
 her name to-night j and if he does, I will tell 
 it to you." 
 
 P 5
 
 162 WARNINGS. 
 
 " Who do you mean by he ?" 
 
 " Why, Michel, to be sure !" 
 
 During the whole of the following night, 
 without allowing her to suspect their intention, 
 they watched her ; and it was observed that 
 she never lay down, but sat upon the bed in a 
 sort of lethargic slumber. Her body was quite 
 motionless, except at intervals, when this re- 
 pose was interrupted by violent nervous shocks, 
 which pervaded her whole frame. On the en- 
 suing day, the moment she was brought before 
 the judge, she declared that she was now 
 able to tell them the name of the assassin. 
 
 " But stay, said the magistrate ; " did 
 Michel never tell you, when he was alive, how 
 he lost his sight ?" 
 
 " No ; but the morning before I was arrested, 
 he promised me to do so ; and that was the 
 cause of his death." 
 
 " How could that be ?" 
 
 " Last night Michel came to me, and he 
 pointed to the man hidden behind the scaffold- 
 ing on which he and I had been sitting. He 
 showed me the roan listening to us, when he 
 said, ' I'll tell you all about that to-night ;' and 
 then the man " 
 
 " Do you know the name of this man ?" 
 
 " It is Luck; he went afterwards to a broad
 
 WARNING^. 163 
 
 street that leads down to the harbour, and he 
 entered the third house on the right " 
 
 " What is the name of the street ?" 
 
 " I don't know : but the house is one story 
 lower than the adjoining ones. Luck told 
 Catherine what he had heard, and she pro- 
 posed to him to assassinate Michel ; but he 
 refused, saying, ' it was bad enough to have 
 burnt out his eyes fifteen years before, whilst 
 he was asleep at your door, and to have kid- 
 napped him into the country.' Then I went 
 in to ask charity, and Catherine put a piece of 
 plate into my pocket, that I might be arrested : 
 then she hid herself behind the aqueduct to 
 wait for Michel, and she killed him." 
 
 " But, since you say all this, why did you 
 keep the plate? why didn't you give infor- 
 mation ?" 
 
 " But I didn't see it then. Michel showed 
 it me last night." 
 
 " But what should induce Catherine to do 
 this ?" 
 
 " Michel was her husband, and she had for- 
 saken him to come to Odessa and marry again. 
 One night, fifteen years ago, she saw Michel, 
 who hud come to seek her. She slipped hastily 
 into her house, and Michel, who thought she 
 had not seen him, lay down at her door to
 
 164 WARNINGS. 
 
 watch ; but he fell asleep, and then Luck 
 burnt out his eyes, and carried him to a dis- 
 tance." 
 
 " And is it Michel who has told you this ?" 
 
 " Yes : he came, very pale and covered with 
 blood ; and he took me by the hand and 
 showed me all this with his fingers." 
 
 Upon this, Luck and Catherine were 
 arrested; and it was ascertained that she had 
 actually been married to Michel in the year 
 1819, at Kherson. They at first denied the 
 accusation, but Powleska insisted, and they 
 subsequently confessed the crime. When they 
 communicated the circumstances of the con- 
 fession to Powleska, she said, " I was told it 
 last night." 
 
 This affair naturally excited great interest, 
 and people all round the neighbourhood has- 
 tened into the city to learn the sentence.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 DOUBLE DREAMING AND TRANCE. 
 
 AMONGST the phenomena of the dream- life 
 which we have to consider, that of double- 
 dreaming- forms a very curious department. 
 A somewhat natural introduction to this sub- 
 ject may be found in the cases above recorded 
 of Professor Herder and Mr. S. of Edinburgh, 
 who appear in their sleep to have received so 
 lively an impression of those earnest wishes 
 of their dying friends to see them, that they 
 found themselves irresistably impelled to obey 
 the spiritual summons. These two cases oc- 
 curred to men engaged in active daily life, and
 
 166 DOUBLE DREAMING 
 
 in normal physical conditions, on which account 
 I particularly refer to them here, although 
 many similar ones might be adduced. 
 
 With respect to this subject of double- 
 dreaming, Dr. Ennemoser thinks that it is not 
 so difficult to explain as might appear on a 
 first view, since he considers that there exists 
 an indisputable sympathy betwixt certain 
 organisms, especially where connected by re- 
 lationship, or by affection, which may be 
 sufficient to account for the supervention of 
 simultaneous thoughts, dreams, or presenti- 
 ments ; and I have met with some cases where 
 the magnetiser and his patient have been the 
 subjects of this phenomenon. With respect to 
 the power asserted to have been frequently 
 exercised by causing or suggesting dreams by 
 an operator at a distance from the sleeper, 
 Dr. E. considers the two parties to stand in a 
 positive and negative relation to each other ; 
 the antagonistic power of the sleeper being 
 = 0, he becomes a perfectly passive recipient 
 of the influence exerted by his positive 
 half, if I may use the expression ; for, where 
 such a polarity is established, the two beings 
 seem to be almost blended into one ; whilst 
 Dr. Passavent observes, that we cannot pro- 
 nounce what may be the limits of the nervous
 
 AND TRANCE. 167 
 
 force, which certainly is not bounded by the 
 termination of its material conductors. 
 
 I have yet myself met with no instance of 
 dream compelling by a person at a distance ; 
 but Dr. Ennemoser, says, that Agrippa von 
 Nettesheim asserts that this can assuredly be 
 done, and also that the Abbot Trithemius, and 
 others, possessed the power. In modern times, 
 Wesermaun, in Dusseldorf, pretended to the 
 same faculty, and affirms that he had frequently 
 exercised it. 
 
 All such phenomena, Dr. Passavent attri- 
 butes to the interaction of imponderables or 
 of one universal imponderable under different 
 manifestations which acts not only within the 
 organism, but beyond it, independently of all 
 material obstacles ; just as a sympathy appears 
 betwixt one organ and another, unobstructed 
 by the intervening ones ; and he instances the 
 sympathy which exists betwixt the mother 
 and the foetus, as an example of this sort of 
 double life, and standing as midway betwixt 
 the sympathy between two organs in the 
 same body and that between two separate 
 bodies ; each having its own life, and its life 
 also in and for another, as parts of one whole. 
 The sympathy betwixt a bird and the eggs it 
 sits upon is of the same kind ; many instances
 
 168 DOUBLE DREAMING 
 
 having been observed, wherein eggs taken 
 from one bird and placed under another, have 
 produced a brood feathered like the foster, in- 
 stead of the real parent. 
 
 Thus, this vital force may extend dynami- 
 cally the circle of its influence, till, under 
 favourable circumstances, it may act on other 
 organisms making their organs its own. 
 
 I need scarcely remind my leaders of the 
 extraordinary sympathies manifested by the 
 Siamese twins Chang and Eug. I never saw 
 them myself; and, for the benefit of others in 
 the same situation, I quote the following par- 
 ticulars from Dr. Passavent : " They were 
 united by a membrane which extended from 
 the breast-bone to the navel ; but, in other re- 
 spects, were not different from their country- 
 men in general. They were exceedingly alike, 
 only that Eng was rather the most robust of 
 the two. Their pulsations were not always co- 
 incident. They were active and agile, and fond 
 of bodily exercises ; their intellects were well- 
 developed, and their tones of voice and accent 
 were precisely the same. As they never con- 
 versed together, they had nearly forgotten their 
 native tongue. If one was addressed, they 
 both answered. They played some games of 
 skill, but never with each other ; as that, they
 
 AND TRANCE. 160 
 
 said, would have been like the right hand 
 playing- with the left. They read the same 
 book at the same time, and sang together in 
 unison. In America they had a fever, which 
 ran precisely a similar course with each. Their 
 hunger, thirst, sleeping and waking, were al- 
 ways coincident ; and their tastes and incli- 
 nations were identical. Their movements 
 were so simultaneous that it was impossible to 
 distinguish with which the impulse had ori- 
 ginated; they appeared to have but one will. 
 The idea of being separated by an operation 
 was abhorrent to them; and they consider 
 themselves much happier in their duality than 
 are the individuals who look upon them with 
 pity. 
 
 This admirable sympathy, although neces- 
 sarily in an inferior degree, is generally mani- 
 fested, more or less, betwixt all persons twin 
 born. Dr. Passavent, and other authorities, 
 mention several instances of this kind, in 
 which, although at some distance from each 
 other, the same malady appeared simulta- 
 neously in both, and ran precisely a similar 
 course. A very affecting instance of this sort 
 of sympathy was exhibited, not very long ago, 
 by a young lady, twin-born, who was suddenly 
 seized with an unaccountable horror, followed 
 
 VOL. i. Q
 
 170 DOUBLE DREAMING 
 
 by a strange convulsion, which the doctor, who 
 was hastily called in, said, exactly resembled 
 the struggles and sufferings of a person drown- 
 ing. In process of time, the news arrived >- 
 that her twin brother, then abroad, had been 
 drowned precisely at that period. 
 
 It is, probably, a link of the same kind, that 
 i.s established betwixt the magnetiser and his 
 patient, of which, besides those recorded in 
 various works on the subject, some curious 
 instances have come to my knowledge, such 
 as uncontrollable impulses to go to sleep, or 
 to perform certain actions, in subserviance to 
 the will of the distant operator. Mr. W. W., 
 a 'gentleman well known in the north of 
 England, related to me, that he had been 
 cured, by magnetism, of a very distressing 
 malady, During part of the process of cure, 
 after the rapport had been well established, 
 the operations were carried on whilst he was 
 atMalvern, and his magnetiser at Cheltenham, 
 under which circumstances the existence of 
 this extraordinary dependence was frequently 
 rxhibited in a manner that left no possibility 
 of doubt. On one occasion, I remember, that 
 Mr. W. W. being in the magnetic sleep, he 
 suddenly started from his seat, clasping his 
 hands as if startled, and, presently afterwards,
 
 AND TRANCE. 171 
 
 burst into a violent fit of laughter. As, on 
 waking 1 , he could give no account of these im- 
 pulses, his family wrote to the magnetiser to 
 enquire if he had sought to excite any par- 
 ticular manifestations in his patient, as the 
 sleep had been somewhat disturbed. The 
 answer was, that no such intention had been 
 entertained, but that the disturbance might 
 possibly have arisen from one to which he had 
 himself been subjected. " Whilst my mind 
 was concentrated on you," said he, " I was 
 suddenly so much startled by a violent knock 
 at the door, that I actually jumped off my seat, 
 clasping my hands with affright. I had a 
 hearty laugh at my own folly, but am sorry if 
 you were made uncomfortable by it." 
 
 I have met with some accounts of a sym- 
 pathy of this kind existing betwixt young 
 children and their parents, so that the fornler 
 have exhibited great distress and terror at the 
 moment that death or danger have supervened 
 to the latter ; but it would require a great 
 number of instances to establish this par- 
 ticular fact, and separate it from cases of acci- 
 dental coincidence. Dr. Passavent, however^ 
 admits the phenomena. 
 
 I shall return to these mysterious influences 
 by and by ; but to revert, in the meanwhile,
 
 172 DOUBLE DREAMING 
 
 to the subject of double dreams, I will relate 
 one that occurred to two ladies, a mother and 
 daughter, the latter of whom related it to me. 
 They were sleeping in the same bed at Chel- 
 tenham, when the mother, Mrs. C., dreamt 
 that her brother-in-law, then in Ireland, had 
 sent for her ; that she entered his room, and 
 saw him in bed, apparently dying. He re- 
 quested her to kiss him, but, owing to his 
 livid appearance, she shrank from doing so, 
 and awoke with the horror of the scene upon 
 her. The daughter awoke at the same mo- 
 ment, saying, " Oh, I have had such a frightful 
 dream P' " Oh, so have I P returned the 
 mother ; " I have been dreaming of my bro- 
 ther-in-law !" " My dream was about him, 
 too," added Miss C. " I thought I was sitting 
 in the drawing-ro.om, and that he came in 
 wearing a shroud, trimmed with black rib- 
 bons, and, approaching me, he said, ( My dear 
 niece, your mother has refused to kiss me, but 
 1 am sure you will not be so unkind ! ' " 
 
 As these ladies were not in habits of regular 
 correspondence with their relative, they knew 
 that the earliest intelligence likely to reach 
 them, if he were actually dead, would be by 
 means of the Irish papers ; and they waited 
 anxiously for the following Wednesday, which
 
 AND TRANCE. 173 
 
 was the day these journals were received in 
 Cheltenham. When that morning arrived, 
 Miss C. hastened at an early hour to the read- 
 ing-room, and there she learnt what the dreams 
 had led them to expect : their friend was 
 dead ; and they afterwards ascertained that his 
 decease had taken place on that night. They 
 moreover observed, that neither one or the 
 other of them had been speaking or thinking 
 of this gentleman for some time previous to 
 the occurrence of the dreams ; nor had they 
 any reason whatever for uneasiness with regard 
 to him. It is a remarkable peculiarity in this 
 case, that the dream of the daughter appears 
 to be a continuation of that of the mother. In 
 the one, he is seen alive ; in the other, the 
 shroud and black ribbons seem to indicate that 
 he is dead; and he complains of the refusal to 
 'give him a farewell kiss. 
 
 One is almost inevitably led here to the con- 
 clusion that the thoughts and wishes' of the 
 dying man wore influencing the sleepers ; or, 
 that the released spirit was hovering near them. 
 
 Pomponius Mela relates, that a certain 
 people in the interior of Africa lay themselves 
 down to sleep on the graves of their fore - 
 fathers, and believe the dreams that ensue U> 
 be the unerring counsel of the dead. 
 Q 5
 
 174 DOUBLE DREAMING 
 
 The following dream, from St. Austin, is 
 quoted by Dr. Binns : " Praestantius desired, 
 from n certain philosopher, the solution of a 
 doubt, which the latter refused to give him; but 
 in the following night, the philosopher appeared 
 at his bed-side and told him what he desired to 
 know. On being asked, the next day, why he 
 had chosen that hour for his visit, he answered, 
 ' I came not to you truly, but in my dream I 
 appeared to you to do so/ In this case, how- 
 ever, only one of the parties seems to have been 
 asleep ; for Praestautius says that he was 
 awake ; and it is, perhaps, rather an example 
 of another kind of phenomena, similar to the 
 instance recorded of himself by the late Joseph 
 Wilkins, a dissenting minister ; who says, that 
 being one night asleep, he dreamed that he 
 was travelling to London, and that as it would 
 not be much out of his way, he would go by 
 Gloucestershire and call upon his friends. 
 Accordingly he arrived at his father's house, 
 but finding the front door closed, he went 
 round to the back, and there entered. The 
 family, however, being already in bed, he 
 ascended the stairs, and entered his father's 
 bedchamber. Him he found asleep ; but to 
 his mother, who was awake, he said, as he 
 walked round to her side of the bed, ' Mother,
 
 AND TRANCE. 175 
 
 I am going a long journey, and am come to bid 
 you good bye ;' to which she answered. ' Oh, 
 dear son, thee art dead ! ' Though struck with 
 the distinctness of the dream, Mr. Wilkins 
 attached no importance to it, till, to his surprise, 
 a letter arrived from his father, addressed to 
 himself, if alive ; or, if not, to his surviving 
 friends, begging earnestly for immediate in- 
 telligence ; since they were under great appre- 
 hensions that their son was either dead or in 
 danger of death ; for that on such a night 
 (naming that on which the above dream had 
 occurred), he, the father being asleep and Mrs- 
 W. awake, she had distinctly heard somebody 
 try to open the fore door, which being fast, the 
 person had gone round to the back and there 
 entered. She had perfectly recognised the 
 footstep to be that of her son, who had ascended 
 the stairs, and entering the bedchamber had 
 said to her, ' Mother, I am going a long jour- 
 ney, and am come to bid you good bye;' 
 whereupon, she had answered, 'Oh, dear son, 
 thee art dead!' Much alarmed, she had 
 awakened her husband and related what had 
 occurred, assuring him that it was not a dream, 
 for that she had not been asleep at all. Mr. "W. 
 mentions that this curious circumstance took 
 place iu the year 1 754, when he was living at
 
 176 DOUBLE DREAMING, ETC. 
 
 Ottery ; and that he had frequently discussed 
 the subject with his mother, on whom the im- 
 pression made was even stronger than on him- 
 self. Neither death, nor anything else re- 
 markable ensued." 
 
 A somewhat similar instance to this, which I 
 also quote from Dr. Binns, is that of a gentle- 
 man who dreamt that he was pushing violently 
 against the door of a certain room in a house 
 with which he was well acquainted, whilst the 
 people in that room were, at the same time, 
 actually alarmed by a violent pushing against 
 the door, which it required their utmost force 
 effectually to resist. As soon as the attempt 
 to burst open the door had ceased, the house 
 was searched ; but nothing discovered to 
 account for the disturbance. 
 
 These examples are extremely curious ; and 
 they conduct us by a natural transition to 
 another department of this mysterious subject. 
 
 There must be few persons who have not 
 heard amongst their friends and acquaintance 
 instances of what is called a Wraith that is, 
 that in the moment of death, a person is seen 
 in a place where bodily he is not. I believe th<* 
 Scotch use this term also in the same sense as 
 the Irish word Fetch; which is a person's 
 double seen at some indefinite period previous
 
 WRAITHS. 177 
 
 to his death, of which such an appearance is 
 generally supposed to be a prognostic. The 
 Germans express the same thing by the word 
 Doppel ganger. 
 
 With respect to the appearance of wraiths, 
 at the moment of death, the instances to be 
 met with are so numerous and well authenti- 
 cated, that I generally find the most sceptical 
 people unable to deny that some such pheno- 
 menon exists, although they evade, without, I 
 think, diminishing the difficulty, by pro- 
 nouncing it to be of a subjective, and not of an 
 objective, nature ; that is, that the image of the 
 dying person is, by some unknown operation, 
 presented to the imagination of the seer, 
 without the existence of any real outstanding 
 figure, from which it is reflected ; which re- 
 duces such instances so nearly to the class of 
 mere sensuous illusion, that it seems difficult 
 to draw the distinction. The distinction these 
 theorists wish to imply, however, is, that the 
 latter are purely subjective and self-originating, 
 whilst the others have an external cause, 
 although not an external visible object the 
 image seen being protruded by the imagina- 
 tion of the seer, in consequence of an un- 
 conscious intuition of the death of the person 
 whose wraith is perceived.
 
 178 WRAITHS. 
 
 Instances of this kind of phenomenon have 
 been common in all ages of the world, insomuch 
 that Lucretius, who did not believe in the 
 immortality of the soul, and was yet unable to 
 deny the facts, suggested the strange theory 
 that the superficial surfaces of all bodies were 
 continually flying off, like the coats of an onion, 
 which accounted for the appearance of wraiths, 
 ghosts, doubles, &c. ; and a more modern 
 author, Gaffarillus, suggests that corrupting 
 bodies send forth vapours, which, being com- 
 p reused by the cold night air, appear visible to 
 the eye in the forms of men. 
 
 It will not be out of place, here, to mention 
 the circumstance recorded in Professor Gre- 
 gory's Abstract of Baron Von Reichenbach's 
 Researches in Magnetism, regarding a person 
 called Billing, who acted in the capacity of 
 amanuensis to the blind poet Pieffel, at Col- 
 mar. Having treated of various experiments, 
 by which it was ascertained that certain sensi- 
 tive persons were not only able to detect 
 electric influences of which others were un- 
 conscious, but could also perceive, emanating 
 from the wires and magnets, flames which were 
 invisible to people in general ; " the Baron," ac- 
 cording to Dr. Gregory, " proceeded to a useful 
 application of the results, which is, says he,
 
 WRAITHS. 1 79 
 
 so much the more welcome, as it utterly eradi- 
 cates one of the chief foundations of super- 
 stition, that worst enemy to the development 
 of human enlightenment and liberty. A 
 singular occurrence, which took place at Col 
 mar, in the garden of the poet Pfeffel, has been 
 made generally known by various writings. 
 The following are the essential facts. The 
 poet, being blind, had employed a young cler- 
 gyman, of the evangelical church, as amanuen- 
 sis. Pfeffel, when he walked out, was sup- 
 ported and led by this young man, whose 
 name was Billing. As they walked in the 
 garden, at some distance from the town, Pfeffel 
 observed, that, as often as they passed over a 
 particular spot, the arm of Billing trembled, and 
 he betrayed uneasiness. On being questioned, 
 the young man reluctantly confessed that, as 
 often as he passed over that spot, certain feel- 
 ings attacked him, which he could not con- 
 troul, and which he knew well, as he always 
 experinced the same, in passing over any place 
 where human bodies lay buried. He added, 
 that, at night, when he came near such 
 places, he saw supernatural appearances. 
 Pfeffel, with the view of curing the youth of 
 what he looked on as a fancy, went that night 
 with him to the garden. As they approached
 
 130 WRAITHS. 
 
 the spot in the dark, Billing perceived a feeble 
 light, and when still nearer, he saw a luminous 
 ghost-like figure floating over the spot. This 
 he described as a female form, with one arm 
 laid across the body, the other hanging down, 
 floating in the upright posture, but tranquil, 
 the feet only a hand-breadth or two above the 
 soil. Pfeffel went alone, as the young man 
 declined to follow him, up to the place where 
 the figure was said to be, and struck about in 
 all directions with his stick, besides running 
 actually through the shadow ; but the figure 
 was not more affected than a flame would have 
 been : the luminovs form, according to Billing, 
 always returned to its original position after 
 these experiments. Many things were tried 
 during several months, and numerous com- 
 panies of people were brought to the spot, but 
 the matter remained the s>ame, and the ghost 
 seer adhered to his serious assertion, and to the 
 opinion founded on it, that some individual lay 
 buried there. At last, Pfeffel had the place 
 dug up. At a considerable depth was found a 
 firm layer of white lime, of the length and 
 breadth of a grave, and of considerable thick- 
 ness, and when this had been broken into, there 
 were found the bones of a human being. It 
 was evident that some one had been buried in
 
 CHEMICAL EMANATIONS. 181 
 
 the place, and covered with a thick layer of 
 lime (quicklime), as is generally done in times 
 of pestilence, of earthquakes, and other simi- 
 lar events. The bones were removed, the pit 
 filled up, the lime mixed and scattered abroad, 
 and the surface again made smooth. When 
 Billing was now brought back to the place, the 
 phenomena did not return, and the nocturnal 
 spirit had for ever disappeared. 
 
 " It is hardly necessary to point out to the 
 reader what view the author takes of this 
 story, which excited much attention in Ger- 
 many, because it came from the most truthful 
 man alive, and theologians and psychologists 
 gave to it sundry terrific meanings. It ob- 
 viously falls into the province of chemical 
 action, and thus meets with a simple and clear 
 explanation from natural and physical causes. 
 A corpse is a field for abundant chemical 
 changes, decompositions, fermentation, putre- 
 faction, gasification, and general play of affi- 
 nities. A stratum of quicklime, in a narrow 
 pit, unites its powerful affinities to those of 
 the organic matters, and gives rise to a long 
 'continued working of the whole. Rain-water 
 filters through and contributes to the action : 
 the lime on the outside of the mass first falls 
 to a fine powder, and afterwards, with more 
 
 VOL. i. K
 
 182 CHEMICAL EMANATIONS. 
 
 water, forms lumps which are very slowly 
 penetrated by the air. Slaked lime prepared 
 for building 1 , but not used, on account of some 
 cause connected with a warlike state of society 
 some centuries since, has been found in sub- 
 terraneous holes or pits, in the ruins of old 
 castles ; and the mass, except on the outside, 
 was so unaltered, that it has been used for 
 modern buildings. It is evident, therefore, 
 that in such circumstances there must be a 
 very slow and long continued chemical action, 
 partly owing to the slow penetration of the 
 mass of lime by the external carbonic acid, 
 partly to the changes going on in the remains 
 of animal matter, at all events as long as any 
 is left. In the above case, this must have gone 
 on in Pfeffel's garden, and, as we know that 
 chemical action is invariably associated with 
 light, visible to the sensitive, this must have 
 been the origin of the luminous appearance, 
 which again must have continued until the 
 mutual affinities of the organic remains, the 
 lime, the air, and water, had finally come to a 
 state of chemical rest or equilibrium. As 
 soon, therefore, as a sensitive person, although 
 otherwise quite healthy, came that way, and 
 entered within the sphere of the force in 
 action, he must feel, by day, like Mdlle. Maix, 
 the sensations so often described, and see by
 
 CHEMICAL EMANATIONS. 183 
 
 night, like Mdlle. Reichel, the luminous ap- 
 pearance. Ignorance, fear, and superstition, 
 would now dress up the feebly shining va- 
 pourous light into a human form, and furnish 
 it with human limbs and members ; just as 
 we can at pleasure fancy every cloud in the 
 sky to represent a man or a demon. 
 
 " The wish to strike a fatal blow at the 
 monster superstition, which, at no distant 
 period, poured out on European society from a 
 similar source, such inexpressible misery, 
 when, in trials for witchcraft, not hundreds, 
 not thousands, but hundreds of thousands of 
 innocent human beings perished miserably, 
 either on the scaffold, at the stake, or by the 
 effects of torture, this desire induced the 
 author to try the experiment of bringing, if 
 possible, a highly sensitive patient, by night, 
 to a churchyard. It appeared possible that 
 such a person might see, over graves, in which 
 mouldering bodies lie, something similar to 
 that which Billing had seen. Mdlle. Reichel 
 had the courage, rare in her sex, to gratify this 
 wish of the author. On two very dark nights 
 she allowed herself to be taken from the castle 
 of Reisenberg, where she was living, with the 
 author's family, to the neighbouring church- 
 yard of Grunzing. The result justified his 
 anticipation in the most beautiful manner.
 
 184 CHRMIACL EMANATIONS. 
 
 She very soon saw a light, and observed 
 on one of the graves, along its length, a 
 delicate, breathing flame : she also saw the 
 same thing, only weaker, on a second 
 grave. But she .saw neither witches nor 
 ghosts ; she described the fiery appearance as 
 a shining vapour, one to two spans high, ex- 
 tending as far as the grave, and floating near 
 its surface. Some time afterwards she was 
 taken to two large cemeteries near Vienna, 
 where several burials occur daily, and graves 
 lie about by thousands. Here she saw nume- 
 rous graves provided with similar lights. 
 Wherever she looked, she saw luminous 
 masses scattered about. But this appearance 
 was most vivid over the newest graves, while 
 in the oldest it could not be perceived. She 
 described the appearance less as a clar flame, 
 than as a dense vaporous mass of fire, inter- 
 mediate between fog and flame. On many 
 graves the flame was four feet high, so that 
 when she stood on them, it surrounded her up 
 to the neck. If she thrust her hand into it, 
 it was like putting it into a dense fiery cloud. 
 She betrayed no uneasiness, because she had 
 all her life been accustomed to such emana- 
 tions, and had seen the same, in the author's 
 experiments, often produced by natural causes. 
 Many ghost stories will now find their natural
 
 CHEMICAL EMANATIONS. J85 
 
 explanation. We can also see, that it was not 
 altogether erroneous, when old women declared 
 that all had not the gilt to see the departed 
 wandering about their graves ; for it must 
 have always been the sensitive alone who were 
 able to perceive the light given out by the 
 chemical action going on in the corpse. The 
 author has thus, he hopes, succeeded in tear- 
 ing down one of the most impenetrable 
 barriers erected by dark ignorance and super- 
 stitious folly, against the progress of natural 
 truth." 
 
 " [The reader will at once apply the above 
 most remarkable experiments to the explana- 
 tion of corpse-lights in church-yards, which 
 were often visible to the gifted alone, to those 
 who had the second sight, for example. Many 
 nervous or hysterical females must often have 
 been alarmed by white, faintly luminous ob- 
 jects, in dark churchyards, to which objects 
 fear has given a defined form. In this, as 
 well as in numerous other points, which will 
 force themselves on the attention of the careful 
 reader of both works, Baron Reichenbach's 
 experiments illustrate the experiences of the 
 Seeress of Prevorst. W. G.]" * 
 
 * This very curious work I have translated from the 
 German. Published by Moore, London. C. C. 
 
 R 5
 
 186 THK PALING AX ESI A. 
 
 That the flames here described may have 
 originated in chemical action, is an opinion I 
 have no intention of disputing; the fact may 
 possibly be so ; such a phenomenon has fre- 
 quently been observed hovering over coffins 
 and decomposing flesh ; but I confess I cannot 
 perceive the slightest grounds for the assertion 
 that it was the ignorance, fear, and superstition 
 of Billing, who was an Evangelical clergy- 
 man, that caused him to dress up this vaporous 
 light in a human form and supply it with 
 members, &c. In the first place, I see no 
 proof adduced that Billing was either ignorant 
 or superstitious, nor even afraid ; the feelings 
 he complained of, appearing to be rather phy- 
 sical than moral ; and it must be a weak per- 
 son indeed, who, in company with another, 
 could be excited to such a freak of the imagi- 
 nation. It is easily comprehensible, that that 
 which appeared only a luminous vapour by 
 day, might when reflected on a darker atmo - 
 sphere, present a defined form ; and the sug- 
 gestion of this possibility might lead to some 
 curious speculations, with regard to a mystery 
 called the palinganesia, said to have been prac- 
 tised by some of the chemists and alchemists 
 of the sixteenth century. 
 
 Gafl'arillus, in his book, entitled " Curiositim
 
 THE PALINGANESIA. 187 
 
 I 
 
 Inouies" published in 1650, when speaking on 
 the subject of talismans, signatures, &c., ob- 
 serves, that since in many instances the plants 
 used for these purposes were reduced to ashes, 
 and no longer retained their form, their efficacy 
 which depended on their figure should in- 
 evitably be destroyed ; but this, he says, is not 
 the case, since, by an admirable potency exist- 
 ing in nature, the form, though invisible, is 
 still retained in the ashes. This, he observes, 
 may appear strange to those who have never 
 attended to the subject ; but he asserts that an 
 account of the experiment will be found in the 
 works of Mr. Du Chesne. one of the best 
 chemists of the period, who had been shown, 
 by a Polish physician, at Cracow, certain phials 
 containing ashes, which, when duly heated, ex- 
 hibited the forms of various plants. A small 
 obscure cloud was first observed, which gradu- 
 ally took on a defined form, and presented to 
 the eye a rose, or whatever plant or flower the 
 ashes consisted of. Mr. Du Chesne, however, 
 had never been able to repeat the experiment, 
 though he had made several unsuccessful 
 attempts to do so ; but at length he succeeded, 
 by accident, in the following manner: Having 
 for some purpose extracted the salts from some 
 burnt nettles, and having left the lie outside
 
 188 THE "PALINGANESIA. 
 
 
 
 the house, all night, to cool, in the morning he 
 found it frozen ; and, to his surprise, the form 
 and figure of the nettles were so exactly re- 
 presented on the ice, that the living plant 
 could not be more perfect. Delighted at this 
 discovery, he summoned Mr. De Luynes, par- 
 liamentary councillor, to behold this curiosity ; 
 from whence, he says, they both concluded, 
 that when a body dies, its form or figure still 
 resides in its ashes. 
 
 Kircher, Vallemont, Digby, and others, are 
 said to have practised this art of resuscitating 
 the forms of plants from their ashes ; and at 
 the meeting of naturalists at Stuttgard, in 
 1834, a Swiss savant seems to have revived 
 the subject, and given a receipt for the ex- 
 periment extracted from a work by Oetinger, 
 called " Thoughts on the Birth and Genera- 
 tion of Things." " The earthly husk," says 
 Oetinger, " remains in the retort, whilst the 
 volatile essence ascends, like a spirit, perfect 
 in form, but void of substance." 
 
 But Oetinger also records another discovery 
 of this description, which, he says, he fell upon 
 unawares. A woman having brought him a 
 large bunch of balm, he laid it under the tiles, 
 which were yet warm with the summer's heat, 
 where it dried in the shade. But, it being in
 
 THE PALING AX ESIAA. 189 
 
 the month of September, the cold soon came, 
 and contracted the leaves, without expelling- 
 the volatile salts. They lay there till the 
 following June, when he chopped up the 
 balm, put it into a glass retort, poured rain 
 water upon it, and placed a receiver above. 
 He afterwards heated it till the water boiled, 
 and then increased the heat ; whereupon there 
 appeared, on the water, a coat of yellow oil, 
 about the thickness of the back of a knife, 
 and this oil shaped itself into the forms of 
 innumerable balm leaves, which did not run 
 one into another, but remained perfectly dis- 
 tinct and defined, and exhibited all the marks 
 that are seen in the leaves of the plant. Oe- 
 tinger says he kept the fluid some time, and 
 showed it to a number of people. At length, 
 wishing to throw it away, he shook it, and the 
 leaves ran into one another with the disturb- 
 ance of the oil, but resumed their distinct 
 shape again, as soon as it was at rest, the fluid 
 form retaining the perfect signature. 
 
 Now, how far these experiments are really 
 practicable, I connot say, their not being re- 
 peated, or not being repeated successfully, is 
 no very decided argument against their possi- 
 bility, as all persons acquainted with the 
 annals of chemistry well know ; but there is,
 
 190 CORPSE CANDLES. 
 
 certainly, a curious coincidence betwixt these 
 details, and the experience of Billing ; where 
 it is to be observed, that, according- to his 
 account and what right have we to dispute it 
 the figure after being disturbed by Pfeffel, 
 always resumed its original form. The same 
 peculiarity has been observed with respect to 
 some apparitions, where the spectator has been 
 bold enough to try the experiment. In a letter 
 to Dr. Bentley, from the Rev. Thos. Wilkins, 
 curate of Warblington, in Hampshire, written 
 in the year 1G95, wherein he gives an account 
 of an apparition which haunted the parsonage 
 house, and which he himself, and several 
 other persons, had seen ; he particularly men- 
 tions that, thinking it might be some fellow 
 hid in the room, he put his arm out to feel it, 
 and his hand seemingly went through the 
 body of it, and felt no manner of substance, 
 until it reached the wall, " then I drew back 
 iny hand, but still the apparition was in the 
 same place." 
 
 Yet this spectre did not appear above, or 
 near a grave, but moved from place to place, 
 and gave considerable annoyance to the 
 inhabitants of the rectory. 
 
 With respect to the lights over the graves, 
 sufficing to account for the persuasion re-
 
 CORPSE CANDLES. 191 
 
 garding what is called corpse candles, they 
 certainly, up to a certain point, afford a very 
 satisfactory explanation, but that explanation 
 does not comprehend the whole of the mystery, 
 for most of those persons who have professed 
 to see corpse candles, have also asserted that 
 they were not always stationery over the 
 graves, but sometimes moved from place to 
 place, as in the following instance, which was 
 related to me by a gentleman who assured me 
 he received the account from the person who 
 witnessed the phenomenon. Now, this last 
 fact, I mean the locomotion of the lights, will, 
 of course, be disputed ; but so was their ex- 
 istence ; yet they exist, for all that, and may 
 travel from place to place, for anything we 
 know to the contrary. 
 
 The story related to me, or a similar in- 
 stance, is, I think, mentioned by Mrs. Grant ; 
 but it was to the effect that a minister, newly 
 inducted in his cure, was standing one evening 
 leaning over the wall of the church-yard 
 which adjoined the manse, when he ob- 
 served a light hovering over a particular 
 spot. Supposing it to be somebody with 
 a lanthorn, he opened the wicket, and went 
 forward to ascertain who it might be ; 
 but before he readied the spot the light moved
 
 192 CORPSE CANDLES. 
 
 onwards ; and he followed, but could see no- 
 body. It did not rise far from the ground, but 
 advanced rapidly across the road, entered a 
 wood, and ascended a hill, till it at length dis- 
 appeared at the door of a farm-house. Unable 
 to comprehend of what nature this light could 
 be, the minister was deliberating whether to 
 make enquiries at the house or return, when 
 it appeared again, seeming to come out of the 
 house, accompanied by another, passed him, 
 and going over the same ground, they both dis- 
 appeared on the spot where he had first observed 
 the phenomenon. He left a mark on the grave by 
 which he might recognise it, and the next day 
 enquired of the sexton whose it was. The man 
 said, it belonged to a family that lived up the 
 hill, indicating the house the light had stopped 
 at, named M'D. but that it was a consider- 
 able time since any one had been buried there. 
 The minister was extremely surprised to learn, 
 in the course of the day, that a child of that 
 family had died of scarlet fever on the pre- 
 ceding evening. With respect to the class of 
 phenomena accompanied by this phospho- 
 rescent light, I shall have more to say by and 
 by. The above will appear a very incredible 
 story to many people, and there was a time that 
 it would have appeared equally so to myself;
 
 REMARKABLE DREAM. ] G3 
 
 but I have met with so much strange corrobo- 
 rative evidence, that I no longer feel myself 
 entitled to reject it. I asked the gentleman 
 who told me the story, whether he believed it ; 
 he said that he could not believe in anything 
 of the sort. I then enquired if he would 
 accept the testimony of that minister on any 
 other question, and he answered, " Most as- 
 suredly." As, however, I shall have occasion 
 to recur to this subject in a subsequent chap- 
 ter, I will leave it aside for the present, and 
 relate some of the facts which led me to the 
 consideration of the above theories and ex- 
 periments. Dr. S. relates, that a Madame T., 
 in Prussia, dreamt, on the 16th March, 1832, that 
 the door opened, and her godfather, Mr. D.,who 
 was much attached to her, entered the room, 
 dressed as he usually was when prepared for 
 church on Sundays ; and that, knowing him to 
 be in bad health, she asked him what he was 
 doing abroad at such an early hour, and 
 whether he was quite well again. Where- 
 upon, he answered, that he was; and, being 
 about to undertake a very long journey, he 
 had come to bid her farewell, and to intrust 
 her with a commission, which was, that she 
 would deliver a letter he had written to his 
 wife ; but accompanying it with an injunction 
 VOL. i. s
 
 194 REMARKABLE DREAM. 
 
 that she, the wife, was not to open it till that 
 day four years, when he would return himself, 
 precisely at five o'clock in the morning, to 
 fetch the answer, till which period he charged 
 her not to break the seal. He then handed 
 her a letter, sealed with black, the writing on 
 which shone through the paper, so that she, 
 the dreamer, was able to perceive that it con- 
 tained an announcement to Mrs. D., the wife, 
 with whom, on account of the levity of her 
 character, he had long lived unhappily, that she 
 would die that time four years. At this 
 moment, the sleeper was awakened by what 
 appeared to her a pressure of the hand, 
 and, feeling an entire conviction that this was 
 something more than an ordinary dream, she 
 was not surprised to learn that her godfather 
 was dead. She related the dream to Madame 
 D., omitting, however, to mention the an- 
 nouncement contained in the letter, which she 
 thought the dream plainly indicated was not 
 to be communicated. The widow laughed at 
 the story, soon resumed her gay life, and 
 married again. In the winter of 1835-6, how- 
 ever, she was attacked by an intermittent fever, 
 on which occasion Dr. S. was summoned to 
 attend her. After various vicissitudes, she 
 finally sunk ; and, on the 16th of March, 1836,
 
 REMARKABLE DREAM. 195 
 
 exactly at five o'clock in the morning, she sud- 
 denly started up in her bed, and, fixing her 
 eyes apparently on some one she saw standing 
 at the foot, she exclaimed, " What are you 
 come for ? God be gracious to me ! I never 
 believed it !" She then sank back, closed her 
 eyes, which she never opened again, and, in a 
 quarter of an hour afterwards, expired very 
 calmly. 
 
 A friend of mine, Mrs. M., a native of the 
 West Indies, was at Blair Logic, at the period 
 of the death of Dr. Abercroinbie, in Edin- 
 burgh, with whom she was extremely inti- 
 mate. Dr. A. died quite suddenly, without 
 any previous indisposition, just as he was 
 about to go out in his carriage, at eleven 
 o'clock on a Thursday morning. On the night 
 between the Thursday and Friday, Mrs. M. 
 dreamt that she saw the family of Dr. A. all 
 dressed in white, dancing a solemn funereal 
 dance, upon which she awoke, wondering that 
 she should have dreamt a thing so incongruous, 
 pince it was contrary to their custom to dance 
 on any occasion. Immediately afterwards, 
 whilst speaking to her maid, who had come 
 to call her, she saw Dr. Abercrombie against 
 the wall, with his jaw fallen, and a livid coun- 
 tenance, mournfully shaking his head, as he
 
 1P0 REMARKABLE DREAM. 
 
 looked at her. She passed the day in great 
 uneasiness, and wrote to enquire for the Doc- 
 tor, relating what had happened, and express- 
 ing her certainty that he was dead ; the letter 
 was seen by several persons in Edinburgh, 
 on the day of its arrival. 
 
 . The two following cases seem rather to be- 
 long to what is called in the East Second 
 Hearing, although sympathy was probably the 
 exciting cause of the phenomena. A lady and 
 gentleman, in Berwickshire, were awakened 
 one night by a loud cry, which they both im- 
 mediately recognised to proceed from the voice 
 of their son, who was then absent, and at a 
 considerable distance. Tidings subsequently 
 reached them that exactly at that period their 
 son had fallen overboard and was drowned ; 
 and on another occasion, in Perthshire, a person 
 aroused her husband, one night, saying that 
 their son was drowned, for she had been 
 awakened by the splash. Her presentiment 
 also proved too well founded, the young man 
 having fallen from the mast-head of the ship. 
 In both cases we mny naturally conclude, that 
 the thoughts of the young men, at the moment 
 of the accident, would rush homewards ; and, 
 admitting Dr. Ennemoser's theory of polarity, 
 the passive sleepers became the recipients of the
 
 OPINION OF PSYCHOLOGISTS. 197 
 
 force. I confess, however, that the opinion? 
 of another section of philosophers appear to 
 me more germain to the matter ; although to 
 many persons they will doubtless be difficult of 
 acceptance, from their appertaining to those 
 views commonly called mystical. 
 
 These psychologists then believe, as did 
 Socrates and Plato, and others of the ancients, 
 that in certain conditions of the body, which 
 conditions may arise naturally, or be produced 
 artificially, the links which unite it with the 
 spirit may be more or less loosened ; and that 
 the latter may thus be temporarily disjoined 
 from the former, and so enjoy a foretaste of its 
 future destiny. In the lowest, or first degree, 
 of this disunion, we are awake, though scarcely 
 conscious, whilst the imagination is vivified to 
 an extraordinary amount, and our fancy sup- 
 plies images almost as lively as the realities. 
 This, probably, is the temporary condition of 
 inspired poets and eminent discoverers. 
 
 Sleep is considered another stage of this dis- 
 junction, and the question has even been 
 raised, whether, when the body is in profound 
 sleep, the spirit is not altogether free and living 
 in another world, whilst the organic life pro- 
 ceeds as usual, and sustains the temple till the 
 return of its inhabitant. Without, at present, 
 s 5
 
 198 OPINION OF PSYCHOLOGISTS. 
 
 attempting to support or refute this doctrine' 
 I will only observe, that once admitting the 
 possibility of the disunion, all consideration of 
 time must be set aside as irrelavent to the 
 question ; for spirit, freed from matter, must 
 move with the rapidity of thought in short, 
 a spirit must be where its thoughts and affec- 
 tions are. 
 
 It is the opinion of these psychologists, 
 however, that in the normal and healthy con- 
 dition of man, the union of body, soul, and 
 spirit, is most complete ; and that all the 
 degrees of disunion in the waking stale are 
 degrees of morbid derangement. Hence it is, 
 that somnambulists and clairvoyantes are 
 chiefly to be found amongst sickly women. 
 There have been persons who have appeared 
 to possess a power which they could exert at 
 will, whereby they withdrew from their bodies, 
 these remaining during the absence of the spirit 
 in a state of catalepsy scarcely, if at all, to be 
 distinguished from death. 
 
 I say withdrew from their bodies, assuming 
 that to be the explanation of the mystery ; for, 
 of course, it is but an assumption. Epimenides 
 is recorded to have possessed this faculty, and 
 Hermotinus, of Clazomenes, is said to have 
 wandered, in spirit, over the world, whilst hi*
 
 CASES OF TKANCE, 199 
 
 body lay apparently dead. At length, his wife 
 taking advantage of this absence of his soul, 
 burnt his body, and thus intercepted its return. 
 So say Lucien and Pliny, the elder; and Varro 
 relates, that the eldest of two brothers, named 
 Oorfidius, being supposed to die, his will was 
 opened and preparations were made for his 
 funeral by the other brother, who was declared 
 his heir. In the mean time,however,Corfidius 
 revived, and told the astonished attendants, 
 whom he summoned by clapping his hands, 
 that he had just come from his younger brother, 
 who had committed his daughter to his care, and 
 informed him where he had buried some gold, 
 requesting that the funeral preparations he had 
 made might be converted to his own use. Imme- 
 diately afterwards, the news arrived that the 
 younger brother was unexpectedly deceased, 
 and the gold wa fouiui at the place indicated. 
 The last appears to have been a case of natural 
 trance ; but the two most remarkable instances 
 of voluntary trance I have met with in modern 
 times is that of Colonel Townshend, and the 
 Dervish, who allowed himself to be buried. 
 With regard to the former, he could, to all 
 appearance, die whenever he pleased; his 
 heart ceased to beat; there was no perceptible 
 respiration ; and his whole frame became cold
 
 $00 CASES OP TRANCE. 
 
 and rigid as death itself; the features being 
 shrunk and colourless, and the eyes glazed and 
 ghastly. He would continue in this state for 
 several hours, and then gradually revive ; but 
 the revival does not appear to have been an 
 effort of will ; or rather, we are not informed 
 whether it was so or not. Neither are we told 
 whether he brought any recollections back with 
 him, nor how this strange faculty was first de- 
 veloped or discovered all very important 
 points, and well worthy of investigation. He 
 seems to have made this experiment, however, 
 once too often ; for, on one of these occasions, 
 he was found to have actually expired. 
 
 With respect to the Dervish or Fakeer, an 
 account of his singular faculty, was, I believe, 
 first presented to the public in the Calcutta 
 papers, about nine or ten years ago. He had 
 then frequently exhibited it for the satisfaction 
 of the natives, but subsequently he was put to 
 the proof by some of the European officers 
 and residents. Captain Wade, political agent, 
 at Loodhiana, was present when he was disin- 
 terred, ten months after he had been buried by 
 General Ventura, in presence of the Maharajah 
 and many of his principal Sirdars. 
 
 It appears that the man previously prepared 
 himself by some processes, which, he says,
 
 CASES OF TRANCE. 201 
 
 temporarily annihilate the powers of diges- 
 tion, so that milk received into the stomach 
 undergc.es no change. He next forces all the 
 hreath in his body into his brain, which be- 
 comes very hot, upon which the lungs collapse, 
 and the heart ceases to beat. He then stops 
 up, with wax, every aperture of the body 
 through which air could enter, except the 
 mouth, but the tongue is so turned back as to 
 close the gullet, upon which a state of insensi- 
 bility ensues. He is then stripped and put 
 into a linen bag, and, on the occasion in ques- 
 tion, this bag was sealed with Runjeet Sing's 
 own seal. It was then placed in a deal box, 
 which was also locked and sealed, and the box 
 being buried in a vault, the earth was thrown 
 over it and trod down, after which a crop of 
 barley was sown on the spot, and sentries 
 placed to watch it. The Maharajah, however, 
 was so sceptical, that, in spite of all these pre- 
 cautions, he had him, twice in the course of 
 the ten months, dug up and examined ; and 
 each time he was found to be exactly in the 
 same state as when they had shut him up. 
 
 When he i a disinterred, the first step towards 
 his recovery is to turn back his tongue, which 
 is found quite stiff, and requires for some time 
 to be retained in its proper position by the
 
 202 CASES OF TRANCE. 
 
 finger ; warm water is poured upon him, and 
 his eyes and lips moistened with ghee, or oil. 
 His recovery is much more rapid than might 
 be expected, and he is soon able to recognise 
 the bystanders, and converse. He says, that, 
 during this state of trance, his dreams are 
 ravishing, and that it is very painful to be 
 awakened, but I do not know that he has ever 
 disclosed any of his experiences. His only 
 apprehension seems to be, lest he should be 
 attacked by insects, to avoid which accident 
 the box is slung to the ceiling. The interval 
 seems to be passed in a complete state of Hi- 
 bernation ; and when he is taken up, no pulse 
 is perceptible, and his eyes are glazed like 
 those of a corpse. 
 
 He subsequently refused to submit to the 
 conditions proposed by some English officers, 
 and thus incurred their suspicions, that the 
 whole thing was an imposition ; but the experi- 
 ment has been too often repeated by people 
 very well capable of judging, and under too 
 stringent precautions, to allow of this mode of 
 escaping the difficulty. The man assumes to 
 be holy, and is very probably a worthless fel- 
 low, but that does not aftect the question one 
 way or the other. Indian princes do not 
 permit themselves to be imposed on with im-
 
 CASES OF TRANCE. 203 
 
 punity ; and, as Runjeet Sing would not value 
 the man's life at a pin's point, he would 
 neglect no means of debarring him all access 
 to food or air. 
 
 In the above quoted cases, except in those of 
 Corfidius and Hermotinus, the absence of the 
 spirit is alone suggested to the spectator by 
 the condition of the body ; since the memory of 
 one state does not appear to have been carried 
 into the other if the spirit wandered into other 
 regions it brings no tidings back ; but we have 
 many cases recorded where this deficient evi- 
 dence seems to be supplied. The magicians and 
 soothsayers of the northern countries, by nar- 
 cotics, and other means, produce a cataleptic 
 state of the body, resembling death, when their 
 prophetic faculty is to be exercised ; and 
 although we all know that an alloy of impo- 
 sition is generally mixed up with these exhi- 
 bitions, still it is past a doubt, that a state of 
 what we call clear-seeing is thus induced ; and 
 that on awaking, they bring tidings from 
 various parts of the world of actions then per- 
 formingand events occurring, which subsequent 
 investigation have verified. 
 
 One of the most remarkable cases of this 
 kind, is that recorded by Jung Stilling, of a 
 man, who, about the year 1740 resided in the
 
 204 CASES OF TRANCE. 
 
 neighbourhood of Philadelphia, in the United 
 States. His habits were retired, and he spoke 
 little : he wa grave, benevolent, and pious, and 
 nothing was known against his character, 
 except that he had the reputation of possessing 
 some secrets that were not altogether l-iwful. 
 Many extraordinary stories were told of him, 
 and amongst the rest, the following : The 
 wife of a ship captain, whose husband was on 
 a voyage to Europe and Africa, and from 
 whom she had been long without tidings, over- 
 whelmed with anxiety for his safety, was in- 
 duced to address herself to this person. Having 
 listened to her story, he begged h e to excuse 
 him for awhile, when he would bring her the 
 intelligence she required. He then passed into 
 an inner room, and she sat herself down to 
 wait; but his absence continuing longer 
 than she expected, she became impatient, 
 thinking he had forgotten her ; and so, 
 softly approaching the door, she peeped 
 through some aperture, and, to her surprise, 
 beheld him lying on a sofa, as motionless as if 
 he was dead. She, of course, did not think it 
 advisable to disturb him, but waited his return, 
 when he told her that her husband had not 
 been able to write to her for such and such 
 reasons ; but that he was then in a coffee -houc
 
 CASES OF TRANCE. 205 
 
 in London, and would very shortly be home 
 again. Accordingly, he arrived, and as the 
 lady learnt from him that the causes of his 
 unusual silence had been precisely those al- 
 leged by the man, she felt extremely desirous 
 of ascertaining the truth of the rest of the in- 
 formation ; and in this she was gratified ; for 
 he no sooner set his eyes on the magician than 
 he said that he had seen him before, on a cer- 
 tainday, in a coffee-house in London ; and that 
 he had told him that his wife was extremely 
 uneasy about him ; and that he, the captain, 
 had thereon mentioned how he had been pre- 
 vented writing; adding that he was on the 
 eve of embarking for America. He had then 
 lost sight of the stranger amongst the throng, 
 and knew nothing more about him. 
 
 I have no authority for this story, but that 
 of Jung Stilling ; and if it stood alone, it 
 might appear very incredible ; but it is sup- 
 ported by so many parallel examples of infor- 
 mation given by people in somnambulic states, 
 that we are not entitled to reject it on> the 
 score of impossibility. 
 
 The late Mr. John Holloway, of the Bank 
 of England, brother to the engraver of that 
 name, related of himself that being one night 
 in bed, with his wife, and unable to sleep, he 
 
 VOL. i. T
 
 206 CASES OF TRANCE. 
 
 had fixed his eyes and thoughts with uncom- 
 mon intensity on a beautiful star that was 
 shining in at the window, when he suddenly 
 ibund his spirit released from his body and 
 soaring into that bright sphere. But, instantly 
 seized with anxiety for the anguish of his wife, 
 if she discovered his body apparently dead be- 
 side her, he returned, and re-entered it with 
 difficulty (hence, perhaps, the violent convul- 
 sions with w r hich some somnambules of the 
 highest order are awakened). He described 
 that returning, was returning to darkness ; and 
 that whilst the spirit was free, he was alter- 
 nately in the light or the dark, accordingly as 
 Us thoughts were with his wife or u-ith the 
 star. He said that he always avoided any- 
 thing that could produce a repetition of this 
 accident, the consequences of it being very 
 distressing. 
 
 We know that by intense contemplation of 
 this sort, the Dervishes produce a state of 
 extacy, in which they pretend to be transported 
 to other spheres ; and not only the Seeress of 
 Prevorst, but many other persons in a highly 
 magnetic state, have asserted the same thing 
 of themselves ; and certainly the singular con- 
 formity of the intelligence they bring is not a 
 little remarkable.
 
 CASES OP TRANCE. 207 
 
 Dr. Kerner relates of his somnambule, 
 Frederica Hauffe, that one day, at Weinsberg, 
 she exclaimed in her sleep, " Oh ! God !" She 
 immediately awoke, as if aroused by the ex- 
 clamation, and said that she seemed to have 
 heard two voices proceeding from herself. At 
 this time, her father was lying dead in his 
 coffin, at Oberstenfeld, and Dr. Fohr, the 
 physician, who had attended him in his illness, 
 was sitting with another person in an adjoin- 
 ing room, with the door open ; when he heard 
 the exclamation," Oh,God I" so distinctly, that, 
 feeling certain there was nobody there, he 
 hastened to the coffin, from whence the sound 
 had appeared to proceed, thinking that Mr. 
 W.'s death had been only apparent, and that 
 he was reviving. The other person, who was 
 an uncle of Frederica's, had heard nothing. 
 No person was discovered from whom the ex- 
 clamation could have proceeded, and the cir- 
 cumstance remained a mystery till an expla- 
 nation ensued. Plutarch relates, that a certain 
 man, called Thespesius, having fallen from a 
 great height, was taken up apparently dead 
 from the shock, although no external wound 
 was to be discovered. On the third day after 
 the accident, however, when they were about 
 to bury him, he unexpectedly revived ; and it
 
 209 CASES OF TRA.NCE. 
 
 was afterwards observed, to the surprise of all 
 
 who knew him, that, from being a vicious 
 
 reprobate, he became one of the most virtuous 
 
 of men. On being interrogated with respect 
 
 to the cause of the change, he related that, 
 
 during the period of his bodily insensibility, it 
 
 appeared to him that he was dead, and that he 
 
 had been first plunged into the depths of an 
 
 ocean, out of which, however, he soon emerged, 
 
 and then, at one view, the whole of space was 
 
 disclosed to him. Everything appeared in a 
 
 different aspect, and the dimensions of the 
 
 planetary bodies, and the intervals betwixt 
 
 them, was tremendous ; whilst his spirit 
 
 seemed to float in a sea of light, like a ship in 
 
 calm waters. He also described many other 
 
 things that he had seen ; he said that the souls 
 
 of the dead, on quitting the body, appeared 
 
 like a bubble of light, out of which a human 
 
 form was quickly evolved. That, of these, 
 
 some shot away at once in a direct line, with 
 
 great rapidity, whilst others, on the contrary, 
 
 seemed unable to find their due course, and 
 
 continued to hover about, going hither and 
 
 thither, till at length they also darted away in 
 
 one direction or another. He recognized few 
 
 of these persons he saw, but those whom he 
 
 did, and sought to address, appeared as if they
 
 CASES OF TRANCE. 
 
 were stunned and amazed, and avoided him 
 with terror. Their voices were indistinct, and 
 seemed to be uttering vague lamentings. 
 There were others, also, who floated farther 
 from the earth, who looked bright, and were 
 gracious; these avoided the approach of the 
 last. In short, the demeanour and appearance 
 of these spirits manifested clearly their degrees 
 of joy or grief. Thespesius was then informed 
 by one of them, that he was not dead, but that 
 he had been permitted to come there by a 
 divine decree, and that his soul, which was 
 yet attached to his body, as by an anchor, 
 would return to it again. Thespesius then 
 observed, that he was different to the dead, by 
 whom he was surrounded, and this observation 
 seemed to restore him to his recollection. 
 They were transparent, and environed by a 
 radiance, but he seemed to trail after him a 
 dark ray, or line of shadow. These spirits 
 also presented very different aspects ; some 
 were entirely pervaded by a mild, clear, ra- 
 diance, like that of the full moon ; through 
 others there appeared faint streaks, that 
 diminished this splendour ; whilst others, on 
 the contrary, were distinguished by spots, or 
 stripes of black, or of a dark colour, like the 
 marks on the skin of a viper. 
 T 5
 
 210 CASES OF TRANCE. 
 
 There is a circumstance which I cannot help 
 here mentioning in connexion with this history 
 of Thespesius, which on first reading it struck 
 me very forcibly. 
 
 About three years ago, I had several oppor- 
 tunities of seeing two young girls, then 
 under the care of a Mr. A., of Edinburgh, who 
 hoped, chiefly by means of magnetism, to re- 
 store them to sight. One was a maid-servant 
 afflicted with amaurosis, whom he had taken 
 into his house from a charitable desire to be of 
 use to her ; the other, who had been blind 
 from her childhood, was a young lady in better 
 circumstances, the daughter of respectable 
 tradespeople in the north of England. The 
 girl with amaurosis was restored to sight, and 
 the other was so far benefitted that she could 
 distinguish houses, trees, carriages, &c., and, 
 at length, though obscurely, the features of a 
 person near her. At this period of the cure 
 she was unhappily removed, and may possibly 
 have relapsed into her former state. My 
 reason, however, for alluding to these young- 
 women on this occasion, is, that they were in 
 the habit of saying, when in the magnetic 
 state for they were both, more or less, clair- 
 voyantes that the people, whom Dr. A. was 
 magnetising in the same room, presented very
 
 CASES OF TRANCE. 211 
 
 different appearances. Some of them they 
 described as looking 1 bright ; whilst others 
 were in different degrees, streaked with black. 
 One or two they mentioned over whom there 
 seemed to hang a sort of cloud, like a ragged 
 veil of darkness. They also said, though this 
 was before any tidings of Baron von Reichen- 
 bach's discoveries had reached this country, that 
 they saw light streaming from the fingers of 
 Mr. A., when he magnetised them; and that 
 sometimes his whole person seemed to them 
 radiant. Now, I am positively certain that 
 neither Mr. A., nor these girls, had ever 
 heard of this story of Thespesius ; neither had 
 I, at that time ; and I confess, when I did 
 meet with it, I was a good deal struck by the 
 coincidence. These young people said, that it 
 was the " goodness or badness," meaning the 
 moral slate, of the persons that was thus indi- 
 cated. Now, surely this concurrence betwixt 
 the man, mentioned by Plutarch, and these two 
 girls the one of whom had no education 
 whatever, and the other very little is worthy 
 of some regard. 
 
 I once asked a young person, in a highly 
 clairvoyante state, whether she ever saw" the 
 spirits of them that had passed away ;" for so 
 die designated the dead, never using the word
 
 212 CASES OF TRANCE. 
 
 death herself, in any of itsforms. She answered 
 me, that she did. 
 
 "Then where are they?' 1 1 enquired. 
 
 " Some are waiting, and some are gone on 
 before." 
 
 " Can you speak to them ?" I asked. 
 
 " No," she replied, <: there is no meddling nor 
 no diretion." 
 
 In her waking state, she would have been 
 quite incapable of these answers ; and that 
 " some are waiting and some gone on before," 
 seems to be much in accordance with the 
 vision of Thespesius. 
 
 Dr. Passavent mentions a peasant boy, who, 
 after a short but painful illness, apparently 
 died, his body being perfectly stiff. He, how- 
 ever, revived, complaining bitterly of being 
 called bock to life. He said he had been in a 
 delightful place, and seen his deceased rela- 
 tions. There was a great exaltation of the 
 faculties after this ; and having been before 
 rather stupid, he now, whilst his body 
 lay stiff and immoveable and his eyes 
 closed, prayed and discoursed with eloquence. 
 He continued in this state for seven weeks, but 
 finally recovered. 
 
 In the year 1733, Johann Sehwerzeger fell 
 into a similar state of trance, af;er an illness,
 
 CASES OF TRANCE. 2 13 
 
 I 
 
 but revived. He said he had seen his .whole 
 life, and every sin he had committed, even 
 those he had quite forgotten everything had 
 been as present to him as when it happened. 
 He also lamented being recalled from the 
 happiness he was about to enter into ; but said 
 that he had only two days to spend in this 
 valley of tears, during which time he wished 
 everybody that would, should come and listen 
 to what he had to tell them. His before 
 sunken eyes now looked bright, his face had 
 the bloom of youth, and he discoursed so elo- 
 quently that the minister said, they had ex- 
 changed offices, and the sick man had become 
 his teacher. He died at the time he had fore- 
 told. 
 
 The most frightful cases of trance rcorded, 
 are those in which the patient retains entire con- 
 sciousness, although utterly unable to exhibit 
 any evidence of life ; and it is dreadful to think 
 how many persons may have been actually 
 buried, hearing every nail that was screwed 
 into their own coffin, and as perfectly aw r are of 
 the whole ceremony as those who followed 
 them to the grave. 
 
 Dr. Binns mentions a girl, at Canton, who 
 lay in this statf, hearing every word that was 
 said around her, but utterly unable to move a
 
 CASES OF TRANCE. 
 
 finger. She tried to cry out, but could not, 
 and supposed that she was really dead. The 
 horror of finding herself about to be buried, 
 at length caused a perspiration to appear on 
 her skin, and she finally revived. She de_ 
 scribed that she felt that her soul had no power 
 to act upon her body ; and that it seemed to 
 be in her body and out of it, at the same time. 
 
 Now, this is very much what the somnam- 
 bulists say their soul is out of the body, but 
 is still so far in rapport with it, that it does not 
 leave it entirely. Probably, magnetism would 
 be the best means of reviving^ a person from 
 this state. 
 
 The custom of burying people before there 
 are unmistakable signs of death, is a very con- 
 demnable one. A Mr. M'G. fell into a trance, 
 some few years since, and remained insensible 
 for five days, his mother being, meanwhile, 
 quite shocked that the physician would not 
 allow him to be buried. He had, afterwards, 
 a recurrence of the malady, which continued 
 seven days. 
 
 A Mr. S., who had been some time out of 
 the country, died, apparently, two days after 
 his return. As he had eaten of a pudding 
 which his step-mother had made for his dinner) 
 with her own hands, people took into their
 
 CASES OF TRANCE. 215 
 
 heads she had poisoned him ; and, the grave 
 being opened for purposes of investigation, 
 the body was found lying on its face. 
 
 One of the most frightful cases extant, is 
 that of Dr. Walker, of Dublin, who had so 
 strong a presentiment on this subject, that he 
 had actually written a treatise against the Irish 
 customs of hasty burial. He himself, subse- 
 quently died, as was believed, of a fever. His 
 decease took place in the night, and on the 
 following day he was interred. At this time, 
 Mrs. Bellamy, the once celebrated actress, was 
 in Ireland ; and as she had promised him, in 
 the course of conversation, that she would 
 take care he should not be laid in the earth 
 till unequivocal signs of dissolution had ap- 
 peared, she no sooner heard of what had hap- 
 pened, than she took measures to have the 
 grave re-opened ; but it was, unfortunately, 
 too late; Dr. Walker had evidently revived, 
 and had turned upon his side ; but life was now 
 quite extinct. The case related by Lady Fan- 
 shawe, of her mother, is very remarkable, from 
 the confirmation furnished by the event of her 
 death. 
 
 " My mother, being sick of a fever," says 
 Lady F., in her memoirs, " her friends and 
 servants thought lie? deceased, and she lay in
 
 216 CASES OF TRANCE. 
 
 that state for two days and a night ; but Mr- 
 Winslow, coming to comfort my father, went 
 into my mother's room, and, looking earnestly 
 in her face, said, ' She was so handsome, and 
 looked so lovely, that he could not think her 
 dead ; and, suddenly taking a lancet ont of 
 his pocket, he cut the sole of her foot, which 
 bled, upon this he immediately caused her to 
 be removed to the bed again, and to be rubbed, 
 and such means used that she came to life, and 
 opening her eyes, saw two of her kinswomen 
 standing by her, Lady Knollys and Lady 
 Russell, both with great wide sleeves, as the 
 fashion then was ; and she said, ' Did you 
 not promise me fifteen years, and are you come 
 again already?' which they, notunderstanding, 
 bade her keep her spirits quiet in that great 
 weakness wherein she was ; but, some hours 
 after, she desired my father and Dr. Howies- 
 worth might l)e left alone with her, to whom 
 she said, I will acquaint you, that, during my 
 trance, I was in great grief, but in a place I 
 could neither distinguish nor describe ; but 
 the sense of leaving my girl, who is dearer to 
 me than all my children, remained a trouble 
 upon my spirits. Suddenly I saw two by me, 
 clothed in long white garments, and methought 
 I fell down upon my face in the dust, and they
 
 TUANCE. 217 
 
 asked me why I was so troubled in so great 
 happiness. I replied, ' Oh, let me have the 
 same grant given to Hezekiah, that I may live 
 fifteen years to see my daughter a woman,' 
 to which they answered, * It is done !' and 
 then at that instant I awoke out of my trance !' 
 And Dr. Howlesworth did affirm, that that day 
 she died, made just fifteen years from that time.'' 
 
 I have met with a somewhat similar case to 
 this, which occurred to the mother of a very 
 respectable person, now living in Edinburgh. 
 She having been ill, was supposed to be dead, 
 and preparations were making for her funeral, 
 when one of her fingers were seen to move, 
 and, restoratives being applied, she revived. 
 As soon as she could speak, she said that she 
 had been at the gates of heaven, where she 
 saw some going in, but that they told her she 
 was not ready. Amongst those who had passed 
 her, and been admitted, she said, she had seen 
 Mr. So-and-so, the baker, and the remarkable 
 thing was, that during the time she had been 
 in the trance, this man had died. 
 
 On the 10th of January, 1717, Mr. John 
 Gardner, a minister, at Elgin, fell into a trance, 
 and, being to all appearance dead, he was put 
 into a coffin, and on the second day was carried 
 to the grave. But fortunately a noise being 
 
 VOL. i. u
 
 218 TRANCE. 
 
 heard, the coffin was opened, and he was found 
 alive and taken home again ; where, according 
 to the record, " he related many strange and 
 amazing things which he had seen in the other 
 world." 
 
 Not to mention somnamhules, there are 
 numerous other cases recorded of persons who 
 have said, on awaking from a trance, that they 
 had been in the other world ; though fre- 
 quently the freed spirit, supposing that to be 
 the interpretation of the mystery, seems 
 busied with the affairs of the earth and brings 
 tidings from distant places, as in the case of 
 the American above-mentioned. Perhaps, in 
 these latter cases, the disunion is less complete. 
 Dr. Werner relates, of his somnambule, that 
 it was after those attacks of catalepsy, in 
 which her body had lain stiff and cold, that 
 she used to say she had been wandering away 
 through other spheres. Where the catalepsy 
 is spontaneous and involuntary, and resembles 
 death so nearly as not to be distinguished 
 from it, we may naturally conclude, if we ad- 
 mit this hypothesis at all, that the seeing of 
 the spirit would be clear in proportion to its 
 disentanglement from the flesh. 
 
 I have spoken above of dream compelling' 
 or suggesting, and I have heard of persons
 
 WITCH POTIONS. 219 
 
 who have a power of directing their own dreams 
 to any particular subject. 
 
 This faculty may be, in some degree, analo- 
 gous to that possessed by the American, and a 
 few somnambulic persons, who appear to carry 
 the recollections of one state into the other. 
 The effects produced by the witch potions 
 seem to have been somewhat similar, inasmuch 
 as they dreamt what they expected or wished 
 to dream. Jung Stilling mentions, that a 
 woman gave in evidence, on a witch trial, that 
 having visited the so-called witch, she had 
 found her concocting a potion over the tire, of 
 which she had advised her, the visitor, to 
 drink, assuring her that she would then accom- 
 pany her to the Sabbath. The woman said, 
 lest she should give offence, she had put the 
 vessel to her lips, but had not drank of it ; the 
 witch, however, swallowed the whole, and 
 immediately afterwards sunk down upon the 
 hearth in a profound sleep, where she had left 
 her. When she went to see her on the fol- 
 lowing day, she declared she had been to the 
 Brocken. 
 
 Paolo Minucci relates, that a woman ac- 
 cused of sorcery, being brought before a cer- 
 tain magistrate, at Florence, she not only 
 confessed her guilt, but she declared that, pro-
 
 2'20 WITCH POTIONS. 
 
 vided they would let her return home and anoint 
 herself, she would attend the Sabbath that 
 very night. The magistrate, a man more en- 
 lightened than the generality of his contem- 
 poraries, consented. The woman went home, 
 used her unguent, and fell immediately into a 
 profound sleep ; whereupon they tied her to 
 the bed, and tested the reality of the sleep by 
 burns, blows, and pricking her with sharp 
 instruments. When she awoke on the follow- 
 ing day, she related that she had attended 
 the Sabbath. 1 could quote several similar 
 facts ; and Gassendi actually endeavoured to 
 undeceive some peasants who believed them- 
 selves witches, by composing an ointment that 
 produced the same effects as their own magical 
 applications, 
 
 In the year 1 545, Andre Laguna, physician 
 to Pope Julius III., anointed a patient of his, 
 who was suffering from phrenzy and sleep- 
 lessness, with an unguent found in the house 
 of a sorcerer, who had been arrested. The 
 patient slept for thirty-six hours consecutively, 
 and when, with much difficulty, she was 
 awakened, she complained that they had torn 
 her from the most ravishing delights ; delights 
 which seem to have rivalled the Heaven of the 
 Mahometan. According to Llorente, the women
 
 WITCH POTIONS. 321 
 
 who were dedicated to the service of the 
 Mother of the Gods, heard continually the 
 sounds of flutes and tambourines, beheld the 
 joyous dances of the fauns and satyrs, and 
 tasted of intoxicating pleasures, doubtless from 
 a similar cause. 
 
 It is difficult to imagine, that all the unfor- 
 tunate wretches who suffered death at the 
 stake in the middle ages, for having attended 
 the unholy assemblies they described, had no 
 faith in their own stories ; yet, in spite of the 
 unwearied vigilance of public authorities, and 
 private malignity, no such assemblage was ever 
 detected. Ho\v, then, are we to account for 
 the pertinacity of their confessions, but by 
 supposing them the victims of some extraor- 
 dinary delusion ? In a paper addressed to the 
 Inquisition, by Llorente, he does not scruple to 
 assert, that the crimes imputed to, and con- 
 fessed by, witches, have most frequently no 
 existence but in their dreams ; and that 
 their dreams are produced by the drugs with 
 which they anointed themselves. 
 
 The recipes for these compositions, which 
 had descended traditionally from age to age, 
 have been lost since witchcraft went out of 
 fashion, and modern science has no time to 
 investigate secrets which appear to be more
 
 222 WITCH POTIONS. 
 
 curious than profitable ; but in the profound 
 sleep produced by these applications, it is not 
 easy to say what phenomena may have occurred 
 to justify, or, at least, account for, their self- 
 accusations.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 WRAITHS. 
 
 SUCH instances as that of Lady Fanshawe, and 
 other similar ones, certainly seem to favour 
 the hypothesis, that the spirit is freed from 
 the body, when the latter becomes no longer 
 a fit habitation for it. It does so when actual 
 death supervenes, and the reason of its depar- 
 ture we may naturally conclude to be, that the 
 body has ceased to be available for its manifes- 
 tations ; and in these cases, which seem so 
 nearly allied to death, that, frequently, there 
 would actually be no revival but for the exer- 
 tions used, it does not seem very difficult to
 
 224 WRAITHS. 
 
 conceive that this separation may take place. 
 When we are standing by a death bed, all we 
 see is the death of the body, of the going- forth 
 of the spirit we see nothing ; so in cases of 
 apparent death, it may depart and return, 
 whilst we are aware of nothing but the re- 
 animation of the organism. Certain it is, that 
 the Scriptures countenance this view of the 
 case in several instances; thus, Luke says, 
 Chap, viii., 34, "And he put them all out, and 
 took her by the hand, and called, saying, 
 * Maid, arise !' And her spirit came again, 
 and she arose straightway," &c., &c. 
 
 Dr. Wigan observes, when speaking of the 
 effects of temporary pressure on the brain, that 
 the mind is not annihilated, because, if the pres- 
 sure is timely removed, it is restored, though, 
 if continued too long, the body will be resolved 
 into its primary elements ; and he compares the 
 human organism to a watch, which we can 
 either stop or set going at will, which watch, 
 he says, will also be gradually resolved into its 
 ultimate elements by chemical action ; and, he 
 adds, that, to ask where the mind is, during the 
 interruption, is like asking where the motion 
 of the watch is. I think a wind instrument 
 would be a better simile, for the motion of the 
 watch is purely mechanical. It require^ no
 
 WKAITHS. 225 
 
 informing, intelligent spirit to breathe into its 
 apertures and make it the vehicle of the harsh- 
 est discords, or of the most eloquent discourses. 
 " The divinely mysterious essence, which we 
 call the soul," he adds, "is not then the mind, 
 from which it must be carefully distinguished, 
 if we would hope to make any progress in 
 mental philosophy. Where the soul resides 
 during the suspension of the mental powers 
 by asphyxia, I know not, any more than I 
 know where it resided before it was united 
 with that specific compound of bones, muscles, 
 and nerve." 
 
 By a temporary pressure on the brain, the 
 mind is certainly not annihilated, but its 
 manifestations by means of the brain are sus- 
 pended ; the source of these manifestations 
 being the soul or anima, in which dwells 
 the life, fitting the temple for its divine 
 inhabitant, the spirit. The connexion of the 
 soul and the body is probably a much more 
 intimate one than that of the latter with the 
 spirit ; though the soul, as well as the spirit, is 
 immortal and survives when the body dies. 
 Somnambulic persons seem to intimate that 
 the soul of the fleshly body becomes, here- 
 after, the body of the spirit, as if the imago or 
 idolon were the soul. 
 
 Dr. Wigan, and indeed physiologists in
 
 226 WRAITHS. 
 
 general, do not appear to recognise the old 
 distinction betwixt the pneuma or anima and 
 the psyche the soul and the spirit ; and in- 
 deed the Scriptures occasionally seem to use 
 the terms indifferently ; but still there are pas- 
 sages enough which mark the distinction ; as 
 where St. Paul speaks of a " living soul and 
 a quickening spirit," 1 Cor. xv., 45 ; again, 
 1 Thess. T., 23, " I pray God your whole spirit, 
 and soul, and body, &c,;" and also, Hebrews 
 iv. 12. Where he speaks of the sword of God 
 " dividing asunder the soul and spirit." In 
 Genesis, chap, ii., we are told that " man be- 
 came a living soul ;" but it is distinctly said, 
 1 Cor. xii., that the gifts of prophecy, the dis-r 
 cerniug of spirits, &c. &c. belong to the spirit. 
 Then, with regard to the possibility of the 
 spirit absenting itself from the body, St. Paul 
 says, in referring to his own vision, 2 Cor. xii., 
 " I knew a man in Christ, about fourteen 
 years ago (whether in the body, I cannot tell ; 
 or out of the body, I cannot tell; God 
 knoweth) ; such an one caught up to the third 
 heaven ;" and we are told, also, that to be 
 " absent from the body is to be present with 
 the Lord," and that when we are " at home in 
 the body we are absent from the Lord-" We 
 are told, also, " the spirit returns to God, who 
 gave it ;" but it depends on ourselves whether
 
 WRAITHS. 227 
 
 or not our souls shall perish. We must suppose, 
 however, that even in the worst cases some 
 remnant of this divine spirit remains with the 
 soul as long as the latter is not utterly per- 
 verted and rendered incapable of salvation. 
 
 St. John also says, that when he prophesied, 
 he was in the spirit ; but it was the " Souls of 
 the Slain" that he saw, and that " cried with 
 a loud voice, &c. &c." Souls, here, being pro- 
 bably used in the sense of individuals ; as 
 we say, " So many souls perished by ship- 
 wreck, &c." 
 
 In the "Revue de Paris," 29th July, 1838, 
 it is related that a child saw the soul of a 
 woman who was lying insensible in a mag- 
 netic crisis in which death nearly ensued, 
 depart out of her; and I find recorded in 
 another work that a somnambule who was 
 brought to give advice to a patient, said, " It 
 is too late ; her soul is leaving her. I see the 
 vital flame quitting her brain." 
 
 From some of the cases I have above re- 
 lated, we are led to the conclusion, that in 
 certain conditions of the body, the spirit, in a 
 manner unknown to us, resumes a portion of 
 its freedom, and is enabled to exercise more or 
 less of its inherent properties. It is somewhat 
 released from those inexorable conditior.s of
 
 2'28 WRAITHS. 
 
 time and space, which bound and limit its 
 powers, whilst in close connexion with matter, 
 and it communes with other spirits who are 
 also liberated. How far this liberation (if such 
 it be), or re-integration of natural attributes, 
 may take place in ordinary sleep, we can only 
 conclude from examples. In prophetic dreams, 
 and in those instances of information appa- 
 rently received from the dead, this condition 
 seems to occur ; as, also, in such cases as that 
 of the gentleman mentioned in a former chap- 
 ter, who has several times been conscious on 
 awaking, that he had been conversing with 
 some one, whom he has been subsequently 
 startled to hear had died at that period, and 
 this is a man apparently in excellent health, 
 endowed with a vigorous understanding, and 
 immersed in active business. 
 
 In the story of the American, quoted in a 
 former chapter from Jung Stilling, there was 
 one point which I forbore to comment on at 
 the moment, but to which I must now revert; 
 this is the assertion, that the voyager had seen 
 the man, and even conversed with him, in the 
 coffee-house, in London, whence the desired 
 intelligence was brought. Now, this single 
 case standing alone, would amount to nothing, 
 although Jung Stilling, who was one of the
 
 WRAITHS. 229 
 
 most conscientious of men, declares himself to 
 have been quite satisfied with the authority on 
 which he relates it ; but, strange to say for 
 undoubtedly the thing is very strange there 
 are numerous similar instances recorded ; and 
 it seems to have been believed in all ages of 
 the world, that people were sometimes seen, 
 where bodily they were not; seen not by 
 sleepers alone, but by persons in a perfect state 
 of vigilance ; and that this phenomenon, 
 though more frequently occurring at the 
 moment that the individual seen is at the 
 point of death, does occasionally occur at in- 
 definite periods anterior to the catastrophe ; 
 and sometimes where no such catastrophe is 
 impending. In some of these cases, an earnest 
 desire seems to be the cause of the pheno- 
 menon. It is not very long since a very esti- 
 mable lady, who was dying in the Mediter- 
 ranean, expressed herself perfectly ready to 
 meet death, if she could but once more- behold 
 her children, who were in England. She 
 soon afterwards fell into a comatose state, and 
 the persons surrounding her were doubtful 
 whether she had not already breathed her last; 
 at all events, they did not expect her to revive. 
 She did so, however, and now cheerfully an- 
 nounced that having seen her children, she 
 VOL. i. x
 
 230 WRAITHS. 
 
 was ready to depart. During the interval 
 that she lay in this state, her family saw her 
 in England, and were thus aware of her 
 death before the intelligence reached them. 
 As it is a subject, I understand, they are un- 
 willing to speak of, I do not know precisely 
 under what circumstances she was seen ; but 
 this is an exactly analogous case to that al- 
 ready recorded of Maria Goffe, of Rochester, 
 who, when dying, away from home, expressed 
 precisely the same feelings. She said she 
 could not die happy till she had seen her chil- 
 dren. By and by, she fell into a state of coma, 
 which left them uncertain whether she was 
 dead or alive. Her eyes were open and fixed, 
 her jaw fallen, and there was no perceptible 
 respiration. When she revived, she told her 
 mother, who attended her, that she had been 
 home and seen her children ; which the other 
 said was impossible, since she had been lying 
 there in the bed the whole time. " Yes," re- 
 plied the dying woman, et but I was there in 
 my sleep." A widow woman, called Alexander, 
 who had the care of these children, declared 
 herself ready to take oath upon the sacrament, 
 that during this period, she had seen the form 
 of Maria Goffe come out of the room, where 
 the eldest child slept, and approach the bed 
 where she herself lay with the younger beside
 
 WRAITHS. 231 
 
 her. The figure had stood there nearly a 
 quarter of an hour, as far as she could judge ; 
 and she remarked that the eyes and the mouth 
 moved, though she heard no sound. She de- 
 clared herself to have been perfectly awake, 
 and that as it was the longest night in the 
 year, it was quite light. She sat up in bed, 
 and whilst she was looking on the figure, the 
 clock on the bridge struck two. She then 
 adjured the form in the name of God, where- 
 upon it moved. She immediately arose and 
 followed it ; but could not tell what had be- 
 come of it. She then became alarmed, and 
 throwing on her clothes, went out and walked 
 on the quay, returning to the house ever and 
 anon to look at the children. At five o'clock, 
 she knocked at a neighbour's door, but they 
 would not let her in. At six, she knocked 
 again, and was then admitted, and related to 
 them what she had seen, which they, of 
 course, endeavoured to persuade her was a 
 dream or an illusion. She declared herself, 
 however, to have been perfectly awake ; and 
 said, that if ever she had seen Maria Goffe in 
 her life, she had seen her that night. 
 
 The following story has been currently re- 
 lated in Rome, and is already in print. I take 
 it from a German work, and I do not know
 
 232 WRAITHS. 
 
 how far its authenticity can be established. 
 
 It is to the effect that two friends having 
 agreed to attend confession together, one of 
 them went at the appointed time to the Abbate 
 B., and made his confession; after which the 
 priest commenced the usual admonition, in the 
 midst of which he suddenly ceased speaking. 
 After waiting a short time, the penitent stept 
 forward and perceived him lying in the con- 
 fessional in a state of insensibility. Aid was 
 summoned and means used to restore him, 
 which were for some time ineffectual ; at 
 length, when he opened his eyes, he bade the 
 penitent recite a prayer for his friend, who had 
 just expired. This proved to be the case, on 
 enquiry; and when the young man, Avho had 
 naturally hastened to his friend's house, ex- 
 pressed a hope that he had not died without 
 the last offices of the church, he was told to 
 his amazement, that the Abbate B. had arrived 
 just as he was in extremis, and had remained 
 with him till he died. 
 
 These appearances seem to have taken place 
 when the corporeal condition of the person 
 seen elsewhere permits us to conceive the pos- 
 sibility of the spirit's having withdrawn from 
 the body ; but the question then naturally arises, 
 what is it that was seen ; and I confess, that of
 
 WRAITHS. 233 
 
 all the difficulties that surround the subject, I 
 have undertaken to treat of, this seems to me 
 the greatest ; for we cannot suppose that a 
 spirit can be visible to the human eye, and 
 both in the above instances and several others 
 I have to narrate, there is nothing that can 
 lead us to the conclusion, that the persons 
 who saw the wraith or double, were in any 
 other than a normal state; the figure, in short, 
 seems to have been perceived through their 
 external organs of sense. Before I discuss this 
 question, however, any further, I will relate 
 some instances of a similar kind, only with this 
 difference, that the wraith appearing as nearly 
 as could be ascertained at the moment of death, 
 it remains uncertain whether it was seen before 
 or after the dissolution had taken place. As 
 both in these cases above related and those 
 that follow, the material body was visible in 
 one place, whilst the wraith was visible in 
 another, they appear to be strictly analogous ; 
 especially, as in both class of examples, the 
 body itself was either dead or in a state that 
 closely resembled death. 
 
 Instances of people being seen at a distance 
 from the spot on which they are dying, are so 
 numerous, that in this department I have po- 
 sitively an emlarras de richesses, and find it 
 x 5
 
 234 WRAITHS. 
 
 difficult to make a selection ; more especially 
 as there is in each case little to relate, the whole 
 phenomenon being comprised in the fact of the 
 form being observed and the chief variations 
 consisting in this, that the seer, or seers, fre- 
 quently entertain no suspicion that what they 
 have seen is any other than a form of flesh and 
 blood; whilst on other occasions the assurance 
 that the person is far away, or some peculiarity 
 connected with the appearance itself, produces 
 the immediate conviction that the shape is not 
 corporeal. 
 
 Mrs. K., the sister of Provost B., of Aber- 
 deen, was sitting one day with her husband, 
 Dr. K., in the parlour of the manse, when she 
 suddenly said, " Oh ! there's my brother 
 come ! he has just passed the window," and, 
 followed by her husband, she hastened to the 
 door to meet the visitor. He was however not 
 there. " He is gone round to the back door," 
 said she ; and thither they went ; but neither 
 was he there, nor had the servants seen any 
 thing of him. Dr. K. said she must be mis- 
 taken ; but she laughed at the idea; her brother 
 had passed the window and looked in; he must 
 have gone somewhere, and would doubtless be 
 back directly. But he came not ; and the intel- 
 ligent shortly arrived from St. Andrew's, that
 
 WRAITHS. 235 
 
 at that precise time, as nearly as they could 
 compare circumstances, he had died quite sud- 
 denly at his own place of residence. I have 
 heard this story from connexions of the family t 
 and also from an eminent professor of Glasgow, 
 who told me that he had once asked Dr. K., 
 whether he believed, in these appearances. 
 "I cannot choose but believe," returned Dr. K., 
 and then he accounted for his conviction by 
 narrating the above particulars. 
 
 Lord and Lady M. were residing on their 
 estate in Ireland ; Lord M. had gone out 
 shooting in the morning ; and was not expected 
 to return till towards dinner time. In the 
 course of the afternoon, Lady M. and a friend 
 were walking on the terrace that forms a 
 promenade in front of the castle, when she 
 said, "Oh, there is M. returning!" whereupon 
 she called to him to join them. He, however, 
 took no notice, but walked on before them, till 
 they saw him enter the house, whither they 
 followed him ; but he was not to be found ; 
 and before they had recovered their surprise 
 at his sudden disappearance, he was brought 
 home dead; having been killed by his own 
 gun. It is a curious fact in this case, that 
 whilst the ladies were walking behind the 
 figure, on the terrace, Lady M. called the
 
 236 WRAITHS. 
 
 attention of her companion to the shooting 
 jacket, observing that it was a particularly 
 convenient one, and that she had the credit 
 of having contrived it for him herself. 
 
 A person in Edinburgh, busied about her 
 daily work, saw a woman enter her house with 
 whom she was on such ill terms that she could 
 not but be surprired at the visit ; but whilst 
 she was expecting an explanation, and under 
 the influence of her resentment avoiding to 
 look at her, she found she was gone. She re- 
 mained quite unable to account for the visit, 
 and as she said, " Was wondering what had 
 brought her there," when she heard that the 
 woman had expired at that precise time. 
 
 Madame O. B. was engaged to marry an 
 officer who was with his regiment in India ; 
 and wishing to live in privacy till the union 
 took place, she retired to the country and 
 boarded with some ladies of her acquaintance, 
 awaiting his return. She, at length, heard 
 that he had obtained an appointment, which, 
 by improving his prospects, had removed some 
 difficulties out of the way of the marriage, and 
 that he was immediately coming home. A 
 short time after the arrival of this intelligence, 
 this lady and one of those with whom she was 
 residing, were walking over a bridge, when
 
 WRAITHS. '237 
 
 / 
 
 the friend said, alluding to an officer, she saw 
 on the other side of the way, " what an ex- 
 traordinary expression of face." But without 
 pausing to answer, Madame O. B. darted 
 across the road to meet the stranger but he 
 was gone ! Where? They could not conceive. 
 They ran to the toll-keepers at the ends of the 
 bridge to enquire if they had observed such a 
 person ; but they had not. Alarmed and per- 
 plexed, for it was her intended husband that 
 she had seen, Madame O. B. returned home ; 
 and in due time the packet that should have 
 brought himself, brought the sad tidings of his 
 unexpected death. 
 
 Madame O. B. never recovered the shock, 
 and died herself of a broken heart not long 
 afterwards. 
 
 Mr. H., an eminent artist, was walking arm 
 in arm, with a friend, in Edinburgh, when he 
 suddenly left him, saying, " Oh, there's my 
 brother!" He had seen him with the most 
 entire distinctness, but was confounded by 
 losing sight of him, without being able to 
 ascertain whither he had vanished. News 
 came, ere long, that at that precise period his 
 brother had died. 
 
 Mrs. T., sitting in her drawing-room, saw 
 her nephew, then at Cambridge, pass across
 
 238 WRAITHS. 
 
 the adjoining room. She started up to meet 
 him, and, not finding him, summoned the ser- 
 vants to ask where he was. They, however, 
 had not seen him, and declared he could not be 
 there; whilst she as positively declared he 
 was. The young man had died, at Cambridge, 
 quite unexpectedly. 
 
 A Scotch minister went to visit a friend, 
 who was dangerously ill. After sitting with 
 the invalid for some time, he left him to take 
 some rest, and went below. He had been 
 reading in the library some little time, when, 
 on looking up, he saw the sick man standing 
 at the door. " God bless me !" he cried, start- 
 ing up, " how can you be so imprudent ?" The 
 figure disappeared ; and hastening upstairs, he 
 found his friend had expired. 
 
 Three young men, at Cambridge, had been 
 out hunting, and afterwards dined together in 
 the apartments of one of them. After dinner, 
 two of the party, fatigued with their morning's 
 exercise, fell asleep, whilst, the third, a Mr. 
 M., remained awake. Presently the door 
 opened, and a gentleman entered and placed 
 himself behind the sleeping owner of the 
 rooms, and, after standing there a minute, pro- 
 ceeded into the gyp-room a small inner 
 chamber, from which there was no egress.
 
 WRAITHS. 239 
 
 Mr. M. waited a little while, expecting the 
 stranger would come out again ; but as he did 
 not, he awoke his host, saying, "There's 
 somebody gone into your room ; I don't know 
 who it can be." 
 
 The young man rose and looked into the 
 gyp-room, but there being nobody there he 
 naturally accused Mr. M. of dreaming ; but 
 the other assured him he had not been asleep. 
 He then described the stranger an elderly 
 man, &c. &c. dressed like a country squire, 
 with gaiters on, and so forth. " Why that's 
 my father," said the host, and he imme- 
 diately made enquiry, thinking it possible 
 the old gentleman had slipt out unobserved 
 by Mr. M. He was not, however, to be heard 
 of ; and the post shortly brought a letter an- 
 nouncing that he had died at the time he had 
 been seen in his son's chamber at Cambridge. 
 Mr. C. F. and some young ladies were not 
 long ago, standing together looking in at a 
 shop window, at Brighton, when he suddenly 
 darted across the way and they saw him 
 hurrying along the street, apparently in pur- 
 suit of somebody. After waiting a little while, 
 as he did not return, they went home with- 
 out him ; and when he come, they of course 
 arraigned him for his want of gallantry.
 
 240 WRAITHS. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said he ; " but I saw an 
 acquaintance of mine that owes me some 
 money, and I wanted to get hold of him." 
 
 " And did you ?" enquired the ladies. 
 
 " No," returned he ; "I kept sight of him 
 some time ; but I suddenly missed him. I can't 
 think how." 
 
 No more was thought of the matter ; but by 
 the next morning's post, Mr. C. F. received a 
 letter, enclosing a draught from the father of 
 the young man he had seen, saying, that his 
 son had just expired ; and that one of his last 
 requests had been that he would pay Mr. C. 
 F. the money that he owed him. 
 
 Two young ladies staying at the Queen's 
 Ferry, arose one morning early, to bathe ; as 
 they descended the stairs, they each exclaimed, 
 " There's my uncle ! They had seen him 
 standing by the clock. He died at that time. 
 
 Very lately, a gentleman living in Edin- 
 burgh, whilst sitting with his wife, suddenly 
 arose from his seat, and advanced towards the 
 door, with his hand extended, as if about to 
 welcome a visitor. On his wife's enquiring 
 what he was about, he answered that he had 
 seen so-and-so enter the room. She had seen 
 nobody. A day or two afterwards the post 
 brought a letter announcing the death of the 
 person seen.
 
 WRAITHS. 241 
 
 A regiment, not very long since, stationed at 
 New Orleans, had a temporary mess-room 
 erected, at one end of which was a door for 
 the officers ; and at the other, a door and a 
 space railed off for the messman. One day, 
 two of the officers were playing at chess, or 
 draughts, one sitting with his face towards the 
 centre of the room, the other with his back to 
 it. "Bless me! why, surely that is your 
 brother !" exclaimed the former to the latter, 
 who looked eagerly round, his brother being 
 then, as he believed, in England. By this 
 time, the figure having passed the spot where 
 the officers were sitting, presented only his 
 back to them. " No," replied the second, 
 " that is not my brother's regiment ; that's the 
 uniform of the Rifle Brigade. By heavens ! it 
 is my brother, though ;" he added, starting up, 
 and eagerly pursuing the stranger, who at 
 that moment turned his head and looked at 
 him, and then, somehow, strangely disappeared 
 amongst the people standing at the messman's 
 end of the room. Supposing he had gone out 
 that way, the brother pursued him, but he was 
 not to be found ; neither had the messman, nor 
 any body there, observed him. The young 
 man died at that time in England, having just 
 exchanged into the Rifle Brigade. 
 
 VOL. i. Y
 
 242 WRAITHS. 
 
 I could fill pages with similar instances, not 
 to mention those recorded in other collections 
 and in history. The case of Lord Balcarres 
 is perhaps worth alluding to, from its being so 
 perfectly well established. Nobody has ever 
 disputed the truth of it, only they get out of 
 the difficulty by saying that it was a spectral 
 illusion 1 Lord B. was in confinement in the 
 castle of Edinburgh, under suspicion of Jaco- 
 bitism, when one morning, whilst lying in bed, 
 the curtains were drawn aside by his friend, 
 Viscount Dundee, who looked upon him stead- 
 fastly, leaned for some time on the mantle - 
 piece and then walked out of the room. Lord B. 
 not supposing that what he saw was a spectre, 
 called to Dundee to come back and speak to 
 him, but he was gone; and shortly afterwards 
 the news came that he had fallen about that 
 same hour at Killicranky. 
 
 Finally, I have met with three instances of 
 persons who are so much the subjects of this 
 phenomenon, that they see the wraith of most 
 persons that dies belonging to them, and fre- 
 quently of those who are merely accuiaintance. 
 They see the person as if he were alive, and 
 unless they know him positively to be else- 
 where, they have no suspicion but that it is 
 himself, in the flesh, that is before them, till
 
 WRAITHS. 243 
 
 the sudden disappearance of the figure brings 
 the conviction. Sometimes, as in the case of 
 Mr. C. F. above alluded to, no suspicion arises, 
 till the news of the death arrives, and they 
 mention, without reserve, that they have met 
 so and so, but he did not stop to speak, and so 
 forth. 
 
 On- other occasions, however, the circum- 
 stances of the appearance are such, that the 
 seer is instantly aware of its nature. In the 
 first place, the time and locality may produce 
 the conviction. 
 
 Mrs. J. wakes her husband in the night, and 
 tells him she has just seen her father pass 
 through the room she being in the West 
 Indies and her father in England. He died 
 that night. Lord T. being at sea, on his way 
 to Calcutta, saw his wife enter his cabin. 
 
 Mrs. Mac..., of Sky, went from Lynedale 
 where she resided, to pay a visit in Perthshire. 
 During her absence, there was a ball given at 
 L. ; and when it was over, three young ladies, 
 two of them her daughters, assembled in their 
 bedroom to talk over the evening's amusement. 
 Suddenly, one of them cried, " O God ! my 
 mother." They all saw her pass across the 
 room towards a chest of drawers, where she 
 vanished. They immediately told their friends
 
 244 WRAITHS. 
 
 what they had seen ; and afterwards learnt 
 that the lady died that night. 
 
 Lord M. being from home, saw Lady M., 
 whom he had left two days before, perfectly 
 well, standing at the foot of his bed ; aware 
 of the nature of the appearance, but wishing 
 to satisfy himself that it was not a mere spectral 
 illusion, he called his servant, who slept in the 
 dressing-room, and said to him, " John, who's 
 that ?" " It's my lady !'' replied the man. Lady 
 M. had been seized with inflammation and died 
 after a few hours illness. This circumstance 
 awakened so much interest at the time, that I 
 am informed by a member of the family, George 
 theThird was not satisfied without hearing the 
 particulars both from Lord M. and the ser- 
 vant, also. 
 
 But, besides time and locality, there are 
 very frequently other circumstances accom- 
 panying the appearance, which not only show 
 the form to be spectral, but also make known 
 to the seer the nature of the death that has 
 taken place. 
 
 A lady, with whose family I am acquainted, 
 had a son abroad. One night she was lying 
 in bed, with a door open which led into an 
 adjoining room, where there was a fire. She 
 had not been to sleep, when she saw her son
 
 WRAITHS. 245 
 
 cross this adjoining room and approach the 
 fire, over which he leant, as if very cold. She 
 saw that he was shivering and dripping wet- 
 She immediately exclaimed, " That's my 
 G. !" The figure turned its face round, looked 
 at her sadly, and disappeared. That same night 
 the young man was drowned. 
 
 Mr. P., the American manager, in one of his 
 voyages to England, being in bed, one night, 
 between sleeping and waking, was disturbed 
 by somebody coming into his cabin, dripping 
 with water. He concluded that the person 
 had fallen overboard, and asked him why he 
 came there to disturb him, when there were 
 plenty of other places for him to go to ? The 
 man muttered something indistinctly, and Mr. 
 P. then perceived that it was his own brother. 
 This roused him completely, and feeling quite 
 certain that somebody had been there, he got 
 out of bed to feel if the carpet was wet on 
 the spot where his brother stood. It was not, 
 however; and when he questioned his ship- 
 mates, the following morning, they assured 
 him that nobody had been overboard, nor had 
 anybody been in his cabin. Upon this, he 
 noted down the date and the particulars of the 
 event, and, on his arrival at Liverpool, sent - 
 the paper sealed, to a friend in London, de- 
 Y 5
 
 246 WRAITHS. 
 
 siring it might not be opened till he wrote 
 again. The Indian post, in due time, brought 
 the intelligence that on that night Mr. P.'s 
 brother was drowned. 
 
 A similar case to this is that of Captain 
 Kidd, which Lord Byron used to say he heard 
 from Captain K. himself. He was, one night 
 awakened in his hammock, by feeling some- 
 thing heavy lying upon him. He opened his 
 eyes, and saw, or thought he saw, by the in- 
 distinct light in the cabin, his brother, in 
 uniform, lying across the bed. Concluding 
 that this was only an illusion arising out of 
 some foregone dream, he closed his eyes again 
 to sleep ; but again he felt the weight, and 
 there was the form still lying across the bed. 
 He now stretched out his hand, and ielt the 
 uniform, which was quite wet. Alarmed, he 
 called out for somebody to come to him ; and, 
 as one of the officers entered, the figure dis- 
 appeared. He afterwards learnt, that his 
 brother was drowned on that night in the 
 Indian Ocean. 
 
 Ben Jonson told Drummond, of Hawthorn- 
 den, that, being at Sir Robert Cotton's house, 
 in the country, with old Cambden, he saw, in 
 a vision, his eldest son, then a child at Lon- 
 don, appear to him with a mark of a bloody
 
 WRAITHS. 247 
 
 cross on his forehead ; at which, amazed, he 
 prayed to God ; and, in the morning 1 , mentioned 
 the circumstance to Mr. Cambden, who per- 
 suaded him it was fancy. In the mean time, 
 came letters announcing that the boy had died 
 of the plague. The custom of indicating an 
 infected house by a red cross, is here suggested ; 
 the cross, apparently, symbolizing the manner 
 of the death. 
 
 Mr. S. C. a gentleman of fortune, had a 
 son in India. One fine calm summer's morning, 
 in the year 1780, he and his wife were sitting 
 at breakfast, when she aiose and went to the 
 window ; upon which, turning his eyes in the 
 same direction, he started up and followed her, 
 saying, "My dear, do you see that ?" "Surely," 
 she replied, " it is our son. Let us go to him !" 
 As she was very much agitated, however, he 
 begged her to sit down and recover herself ; 
 and when they looked again, the figure was gone. 
 The appearance was that of their son, precisely 
 as they had last seen him. They took note of 
 the hour, and afterwards learnt that he had 
 died in India at that period. 
 
 A lady, with whose family I am acquainted, 
 was sitting with her son, named Andrew, when 
 she suddenly exclaimed that she had seen him 
 pass the window, in a white mantle. As the
 
 248 WRAITHS. 
 
 window was high from the ground, and over- 
 hung a precipice, no one could have passed ; 
 else, she said, " Had there been a path, and he 
 not beside her at the moment, she should have 
 thought he had walked by on stilts." Three 
 days afterwards, Andrew was seized with a 
 fever which he had caught from visiting some 
 sick neighbours ; and expired after a short 
 illness. 
 
 In 1807, when several people were killed in 
 consequence of a false alarm of fire, at Sadler's 
 Wells, a woman named Price, in giving her 
 evidence at the inquest, said, that her little 
 girl had gone into the kitchen about half-past 
 ten o'clock, and was surprised to see her brother 
 there, whom she supposed to be at the Theatre. 
 She spoke to him ; whereupon, he disappeared. 
 The child immediately told her mother, who, 
 alarmed, set off to the theatre and found the 
 boy dead. 
 
 In the year 1813, a young lady in Berlin, 
 whose intended husband was with the army 
 at Dusseldorf, heard some one knock at the 
 door of her chamber, and her lover entered in 
 a white neglige, stained with blood. Thinking 
 that this vision proceeded from some disorder 
 in herself, she arose and quitted the room to 
 call the servant; who not being at hand, she
 
 WRAITHS. 249 
 
 returned, and found the figure there still. She 
 now became much alarmed, and having- men- 
 tioned the circumstance to her father, enquiries 
 were made of some prisoners that were march- 
 ing- through the town, and it was ascertained, 
 that the young man had been wounded and 
 had been carried to the house of Dr. Ehrlick, 
 in Leipsick, with great hopes of recoveiy. It 
 afterwards proved, howevei, that he had died 
 at that period, and that his last thoughts were 
 with her. This lady earnestly wished and 
 prayed for another such visit ; but she never 
 saw him again. 
 
 In the same year, a woman in Bavaria, who 
 had a brother with the army in Russia, was 
 one day at field-work, on the skirts of a forest, 
 and everything- quiet around her, when she 
 repeatedly felt herself hit by small stones, 
 though, on looking round, she could see no- 
 body. At length, supposing it was some jest, 
 she threw down her implements and stept into 
 the wood whence they had proceeded, when 
 she saw a headless figure, in a soldier's mantle, 
 leaning against a tree. Afraid to approach, 
 she summoned some labourers from a neigh- 
 bouring field, who also saw it ; but on going 
 up to it, it disappeared. The woman declared 
 her conviction that the circumstance indicated
 
 250 WRAITHS. 
 
 her brother's death ; and it was afterwards 
 ascertained that he had, on that day, fallen 
 in a trench. 
 
 Some few years ago, a Mrs. H., residing in 
 Limerick, had a servant whom she much 
 esteemed, called Nelly Haulon. Nelly was a 
 very steady person, who seldom asked for a 
 holiday, and consequently Mrs. H. was the 
 less disposed to refuse her, when she requested 
 a day's leave of absence for the purpose of 
 attending a fair, that was to take place a few 
 miles off. The petition was therefore favorably 
 heard, but when Mr. H. came home and was 
 informed of Nelly's proposed excursion, he 
 said she could not be spared, as he had invited 
 some people to dinner for that day, and he had 
 nobody he could trust with the keys of the 
 cellar except Nelly ; adding, that it was not 
 likely his business would allow him to get 
 home time enough tobring up the wine himself. 
 
 Unwilling, however, after giving her con- 
 sent, to disappoint the girl, Mrs. H. said that 
 she would herself undertake the cellar depart- 
 ment on the day in question ; so when the 
 wished for morning arrived, Nelly departed in 
 great spirits, having faithfully promised to re- 
 turn that night, if possible, or at the latest, the 
 following morning.
 
 WRAITHS. 251 
 
 The day passed as usual and nothing was 
 thought about Nelly, till the time arrived for 
 fetching up the wine, when Mrs. H, proceeded 
 to the cellar stairs with the key, followed by a 
 servant carrying a bottle-basket. She had, 
 however, scarcely begun to descend when she 
 uttered a loud scream and dropt down in a 
 state of insensibility. She was carried up 
 stairs and laid upon the bed, whilst, to the 
 amazement of the other servants, the girl who 
 had accompanied her, said, that they had seen 
 Nelly Hanlon, dripping with water, standing 
 at the bottom of the stairs. Mr. H. being 
 sent for, or coming home at the moment, this 
 story was repeated to him ; whereupon he re- 
 proved the woman for her folly ; and, proper 
 restoratives being applied, Mrs. H. at length 
 began to revive. As she opened her eyes, she 
 heaved a deep sigh saying, " Oh, Nelly Han- 
 lon," and as soon as she was sufficiently re- 
 covered to speak, she corroborated what the 
 girl had said ; she had seen Nelly at the foot 
 of the cellar stairs, dripping as if she had just 
 come out of the water. Mr. H. used his ut- 
 most efforts to persuade his wife out of what 
 he looked upon to be an illusion ; but in vain. 
 " Nellj," said he, " will come home by and
 
 2o*2 .WRAITHS. 
 
 by and laugh at you," whilst she, on the con- 
 trary, felt sure that Nelly was dead. 
 
 The night came, and the morning came, but 
 there was no Nelly. When two or three days 
 had passed, enquiries were made; and it was 
 ascertained that she had been seen at the fair, 
 and had started to return home in the even- 
 ing ; but from that moment all traces of her 
 were lost, till her body was ultimately found 
 in the river. How she came by her death, 
 was never known. Now, in most of these 
 cases, which I have above detailed, the person 
 was seen where his dying thoughts might 
 naturally be supposed to have flown, and the 
 visit seems to have been made either imme- 
 diately before or immediately after the disso- 
 lution of the body ; in either case we may 
 imagine that the final parting of the spirit had 
 taken place, even if the organic life was not 
 quite extinct. I have met with some cases in 
 which we are not loft in any doubt, with re- 
 spect to what were the last wishes of the 
 dying person : for example, a lady, with 
 whom I am acquainted, was on her way to 
 India, when near the end of her voyage, she 
 was one night awakened by a rustling in her 
 cabin, and a consciousness that there was some- 
 thing hovering about her. She sat up, and
 
 WRAITHS. 253 
 
 saw a bluish cloudy form moving away ; but 
 persuading herself it must be fancy, she ad- 
 dressed herself again -to sleep; but as soon as 
 she lay down, she both heard and felt the 
 same thing : it seemed to her as if this cloudy 
 form hung over and enveloped her. Overcome 
 with horror, she screamed. The cloud then 
 moved away, assuming distinctly a human 
 shape. The people about her naturally per- 
 suaded her that she had been dreaming ; and 
 she wished to think so ; but when she arrived 
 in India, the first thing she heard was, that a 
 very particular friend had come down to Cal- 
 cutta to be ready to receive her on her landing, 
 but that he had been taken ill and died, say- 
 ing, he only wished to live to see his old friend 
 once more. He had expired on the night she 
 saw the shadowy form in her room. 
 
 A very frightful instance of this kind of 
 phenomenon is related by Dr. H. Werner, of 
 Baron Emilius von O. This young man had 
 been sent to prosecute his studies in Paris; 
 but forming some bad connexions, he became 
 dissipated, and neglected them. His father's 
 counsels were unheeded, and his letters re- 
 mained unanswered. One day the young baron 
 was sitting alone on a seat, in the Bois de 
 Boulogne, and had fallen somewhat into a reve- 
 
 VOL. i. z
 
 254 WRAITHS. 
 
 rie, when, onraisinghis eyes, he saw his father's 
 form before him. Believing 1 it to be a mere spec- 
 tral illusion, he struck at the shadow with his 
 riding-whip, upon which it disappeared. The 
 next day brought him a letter urging his 
 return home instantly, if he wished to see his 
 parent alive. He went, but found the old man 
 already in his grave. The persons who had 
 been about him said, that he had been quite 
 conscious, and had a great longing to see his 
 son ; he had, indeed, exhibited one symptom 
 of delirium, which was, that after expressing 
 this desire, he had suddenly exclaimed, " My 
 God ! he is striking at me with his riding- 
 whip 1" and immediately expired. In this 
 case, the condition of the dying man resembles 
 that of a somnambulist, in which the patient 
 describes what he sees taking place at a dis- 
 tance; and the archives of magnetism furnish 
 some instances, especially that of Auguste 
 Miiller, of Karlsruhe, in which, by the force 
 of will, the sleeper has not only been able to 
 bring intelligence from a distance, but also, like 
 the American magician, to make himself 
 visible. The faculties of prophecy and clear 
 or far-seeing, frequently disclosed by dying 
 persons, is fully acknowledged by Dr. Aber- 
 crombie, and other physiologists.
 
 WRAITHS. 255 
 
 Mr. F. saw a female relative, one night, by 
 his bed-side. Thinking it was a trick of some 
 one to frighten him, he struck at the figure ; 
 whereon she said, "What have I done? I 
 know I should have told it you before." This 
 lady was dying at a distance, earnestly de- 
 siring to speak to Mr. F, before she departed. 
 
 I will conclude this chapter with the follow- 
 ing extract from "Lockhart's Life of Scott": 
 
 "Walter Scott to Daniel Terry, April 30, 
 1818. (The new house at Abbotsford being 
 then in progress, Scott living in an older 
 part, close adjoining.) 
 
 * The exposed state of my 
 
 house has led to a mysterious disturbance. 
 The night before last we were awakened by a 
 violent noise, like drawing heavy boards along 
 the new part of the house. I fancied some- 
 thing had fallen, and thought no more about 
 it. This was about two in the morning. 
 Last night, at the same witching hour, the 
 very same noise occurred. Mrs. S., as you 
 know, is rather timbersome ; so up I got, with 
 Beardie's broad sword under my arm 
 
 " Bolt upright, 
 And ready to fight."
 
 256 WRAITHS. 
 
 But nothing was out of order, neither can I 
 discover what occasioned the disturbance. 
 
 Mr. Lockhart adds, " On the morning that 
 Mr. Terry received the foregoing letter, in 
 London, Mr. William Erskine was breakfast- 
 ing w r ith him, and the chief subject of their 
 conversation was the sudden death of George 
 Bullock, which had occurred on the same 
 night, and, as nearly as they could ascertain, 
 at the very hour when Scott was roused from 
 his sleep by the ' mysterious disturbance' 
 here described. This coincidence, when 
 Scott received Erskine's minute detail of what 
 had happened in Tenterd on -street (that is the 
 death of Bullock, who had the charge of fur- 
 nishing the new rooms at Abbotsford), made a 
 much stronger impression on his mind than 
 might be gathered from the tone of an ensuing 
 communication/' 
 
 It appears that Bullock had been at Abbots- 
 ford, and made himself a great favourite with 
 old and young. Scott, a week or two after- 
 wards, wrote thus to Terry, " Were you not 
 struck with the fantastical coincidence of our 
 nocturnal disturbances at Abbotsford, with the 
 melancholy event that followed ? I protest 
 to you, the noise resembled half-a-do/.en men
 
 WRAITHS. 257' 
 
 hard at work, putting up boards and furni- 
 ture ; and nothing can be more certain than 
 that there was nobody on the premises at the 
 time. With a few additional touches, the 
 story would figure in Glanville or Aubrey's 
 collection. In the mean time, you may set it 
 down with poor Dubisson's warnings, as a 
 remarkable coincidence coming under your 
 own observation." 
 
 z o
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DO PPELG ANGERS, OR DOUIJLES. 
 
 IN the instances detailed in the last chapter 
 the apparition has shown itself, as nearly as 
 conld be discovered, at the moment of dissolu- 
 tion ; but there are many cases in which the 
 wraith is seen at an indefinite period before or 
 after the catastrophe. Of these, I could quote 
 a great number, but as they generally resolve 
 themselves into simply seeing a person where 
 they were not, and death ensuing very shortly 
 afterwards, a few will suffice. 
 
 There is a very remarkable story of this 
 kind, related by Macnish, which he calls " a
 
 DOPPELGANGERS. 259 
 
 case of hallucination, arising without the indi- 
 vidual being conscious of any physical cause 
 by which it might be occasioned." If this case 
 stood alone, strange as it is, I should think so, 
 too ; but when similar instances abound, as 
 they do, I cannot bring myself to dispose of it 
 so easily. The story is as follows : Mr. H. 
 was one day walking along the street, appa- 
 rently in perfect health, when he saw, or sup- 
 posed he saw, his acquaintance, Mr. C., 
 walking before him. He called to him, aloud, 
 but he did not seem to hear him, and con- 
 tinued moving on. Mr. H. then quickened 
 his pace for the purpose of overtaking him, 
 but the other increased his, also, as if to keep 
 ahead of his pursuer, and proceeded at such a 
 rate that Mr. H. found it impossible to make 
 up to him. This continued for some time, till, 
 on Mr. C. reaching a gate, he opened it and 
 passed in, slamming it violently in Mr. H/s 
 face. Confounded at such treatment from a 
 friend, the latter instantly opened the gate, and 
 looked down the long lane into which it led, 
 where, to his astonishment, no one was to be 
 seen. Determined to unravel the mystery, he 
 then went to Mr. C.'s house, and his surprise 
 was great to hear that he was confined to his 
 bed, and had been so for several davs. A
 
 260 DOPPELGANGERS, 
 
 week or two afterwards, these gentlemen met 
 at the house of a common friend, when Mr. H. 
 related the circumstance, jocularly telling Mr. 
 C. that, as he had seen his wraith, he of course 
 could not live long. The person addressed, 
 laughed heartily, as did the rest of the party ; 
 but in a few days, Mr. C. was attacked with 
 putrid sore throat, and died ; and, within a, 
 short period of his death, Mr. H. was also in 
 the grave. 
 
 This is a very striking case : the hastening 
 on and the actually opening and shutting the 
 gate, evincing not only will but power to pro- 
 duce mechanical effects, at a time the person 
 was bodily elsewhere. It is true he was ill, 
 and, it is highly probable, was at the time 
 asleep. The showing himself to Mr. H., who 
 was so soon to follow him to the grave, is 
 another peculiarity which appears frequently 
 to attend these cases, and which seems like 
 what was in old English, and is still, in Scotch, 
 called a tryst an appointment to meet again 
 betwixt those spirits, so soon to be free. Sup- 
 posing Mr. C. to have been asleep, he was 
 possibly, in that state, aware of what impended 
 over both. 
 
 There is a still more remarkable case, given 
 by Mr. Barnaul, in his reminiscences. I have
 
 DOPPELGANGERS. 2()l 
 
 no other authority for it ; but he relates, as a 
 fact, that a respectable young woman was 
 awaked, one night, by hearing somebody in 
 her room, and that on looking up, she saw a 
 young man, to whom she was engaged. 
 Extremely offended by such an intrusion, she 
 bade him instantly depart, if he wished her 
 ever to speak to him again. Whereupon, he 
 bade her not be frightened ; but said he was 
 come to tell her that he was to die that day 
 six weeks, and then disappeared. Having 
 ascertained that the young man himself 
 could not possibly have been in her room, 
 she was naturally much alarmed, and, her 
 evident depression leading to some enquiries, 
 she communicated what had occurred to the 
 family with whom she lived I think as dairy- 
 maid ; but I quote from memory. They at- 
 tached little importance to what seemed so 
 improbable, more especially as the young man 
 continued in perfectly good health, and entirely 
 ignorant of this prediction, which his mistress 
 had the prudence to conceal from him. When 
 the fatal d*y arrived, these ladies saw the girl 
 looking very cheerful, as they were going for 
 their morning's ride, and observed to each 
 other that the prophecy did not seem likely to 
 be fulfilled ; but when they returned, they saw
 
 262 DOPPELGANGERS. 
 
 her running up the avenue towards the house, 
 in great agitation, and learned that her lover 
 was either dead, or dying, I think, in conse- 
 sequence of an accident. 
 
 The only key I can suggest as the expla- 
 nation of such a phenomenon as this, is, that 
 the young man, in his sleep, was aware of the 
 fate that awaited him; and that whilst his 
 body lay in his bed, in a state approaching to 
 trance or catalepsy, the freed spirit free as 
 the spirits of the actual dead went forth to 
 tell the tale to the mistress of his soul. 
 
 Franz von Baader, says in a letter to Dr. 
 Kemer, that Eckartshausen, shortly before his 
 death, assured him that he possessed the power 
 of making a person's double or wraith appear, 
 whilst his body lay elsewhere, in a state of 
 trance or catalepsy. He added that the ex^ 
 periment might be dangerous, if care were not 
 taken to prevent intercepting the rapport of 
 the etherial form with the material one. 
 
 A lady, an entire disbeliever in these spiri- 
 tual phenomena, was one day walking in her 
 own garden with her husband, who was indis- 
 posed, leaning on her arm, when seeing a man 
 with his back towards them, and a spade in 
 bishand,digging,she exclaimed, "Look there ! 
 Who's that r" " Where ?" said her companion ;
 
 DOPPELG ANGERS. 263 
 
 and at that moment, the figure leaning on the 
 spade, turned round, and looked at her, sadly 
 shaking its head ; and she saw it was her hus- 
 band. She avoided an explanation, by pre- 
 tending she had made a mistake. Three days 
 afterwards the gentleman died ; leaving her 
 entirely converted to a belief she had previously 
 scoffed at. 
 
 Here, again, the foreknowledge and evident 
 design, as well as the power of manifesting it, 
 is extremely curious. More especially, as the 
 antitype of the figure was neither in a trance 
 nor asleep, but perfectly conscious, walking 
 and talking. If any particular purpose were 
 to be gained, by the information indicated, the 
 solution might be less difficult. One object, 
 it is true, may have been, and indeed, was 
 attained, namely, the change in the opinions 
 of the wife ; and it is impossible to say, what 
 influence such a conversion may have had on 
 her after life. 
 
 It must be admitted that these cases are 
 very perplexing. We might, indeed, get rid 
 of them by denying them, but the instances are 
 too numerous, and the phenomenon has been 
 too well known in all ages to be set aside so 
 easily. In the above examples the apparition, 
 or wraith, has been in some way connected
 
 264 DOPPELGANGERS. 
 
 with the death of the person whose visionary 
 likeness is seen ; and, in most of these in- 
 stances, the earnest longing to behold those be- 
 loved, seems to have been the means of effect- 
 ing the object. The mystery of death is to 
 us so awful and impenetrable, and we know so 
 little of the mode in which the spiritual and 
 the corporeal are united and kept together 
 during the continuance of life, or what con- 
 dition may ensue when this connexion is about 
 to be dissolved, that whilst we look with 
 wonder upon such phenomena as these above 
 alluded to, we yet find very few persons who are 
 disposed to reject them as utterly apocryphal. 
 They feel that in that department, already so 
 mysterious, there may exist a greater mystery 
 still ; and the very terror with which the 
 thoughts of present death inspires most minds, 
 deters people from treating this class of facts 
 with that scornful scepticism with which many 
 approximate ones are denied and laughed at. 
 Nevertheless, if we suppose the person to have 
 been dead, though it be but an inappreciable 
 instant of time, before he appears, the appear- 
 ance comes under the denomination of what 
 is commonly called a ghost; for, whether the 
 spirit has been parted from the body one 
 second or fifty years, ought to make no differ-
 
 DOPPELGANGERS. 265 
 
 ence in our appreciation of ttie fact, nor is the 
 difficulty less in one case than the other. 
 
 I mention this, because I have met with, 
 and do meet with, people constantly, who 
 admit this class of facts, whilst they declare 
 they cannot believe in ghosts ; the instances, 
 they say, of people being- seen at a distance at 
 the period of their death, are too numerous to 
 permit of the fact being denied. In granting 
 it, however, they seem to me to grant every- 
 thing. If. as I have said above, the person be 
 dead, the form seen is a ghost or spectre, 
 whether he has been dead a second or a 
 century; if he be alive, the difficulty is cer- 
 tainly not diminished, on the contrary, it 
 appears to me to be considerably augmented ; 
 and it is to this perplexing class of facts I 
 shall next proceed ; namely, those in which 
 the person is not only alive, as in some of the 
 cases above related, but where the phenomenon 
 seems to occur without any reference to the 
 death of the subject, present or prospective. 
 
 In either case, we are forced to conclude 
 that the thing seen is the same ; the ques- 
 tions are, what is it that we see, and how does 
 it render itself visible ; and, still more difficult 
 to answer, appears the question, of how it can 
 communicate intelligence, or exert a mechani- 
 
 VOL. i. 2 A
 
 266 DOPPELGANGERS. 
 
 cal force. As, however, this investigation will 
 be more in its place when I have reached that 
 department of my subject commonly called 
 ghosts, I will defer it for the present, and 
 merely confine myself to that of Doubles, or 
 Doppelgangers, as the Germans denominate 
 the appearance of a person out of his body. 
 
 In treating of the case of Auguste Muller, a 
 remarkable sonmambule, who possessed the 
 power of appearing elsewhere, whilst his body 
 lay cold and stiff" in his bed. Professor Kieser, 
 who attended him, says, that the phenomenon, 
 as regards the seer, must be looked upon as 
 purely subjective that is, that there was no 
 outstanding form of Auguste Muller visible 
 to the sensuous organs, but that the magnetic 
 influence of the sonmambule, by the force of 
 his will, acted on the imagination of the seer, 
 and called up the image which he believed he 
 saw. But then, allowing this to be possible, 
 as Dr. Werner sajs, how are we to account 
 for those numerous eases in which there is no 
 fcomnambule concerned in the matter, and no 
 especial rapport, that we are aware of, esta- 
 blished betwixt the parties ? And yet these 
 latter cases are much the most frequent ; for, 
 although I have met with numerous instances 
 recorded by the German physiologists of what
 
 DOPPELGANGERS. 267 
 
 I 
 
 is called far-working on the part of their som- 
 nambtiles, this power of appearing out of the 
 body seems to be a very rare one. Many 
 persons will be surprised at these allusions to 
 a kind of magnetic phenomena, of which, in 
 this country, so little is known or believed ; but 
 the physiologists and psychologists of Ger- 
 many have been studying this subject for the 
 last fifty years, and the volumes filled with 
 their theoretical views and records of cases, 
 are numerous beyond anything the English 
 public has an idea of. 
 
 The only other theory I have met with, 
 which pretends to explain the mode of this 
 double appearance, is that of the spirit leav- 
 ing the body, as we have supposed it to do in 
 cases of dreams and catalepsy ; in which in- 
 stances, the nerve-spirit, which seems to be the 
 archaeus or astral spirit of the ancient philoso- 
 phers, has the power of projecting a visible 
 body out of the imponderable matter of the 
 atmosphere. According to this theory, this 
 nerve-spirit, which seems to be an embodi- 
 ment of or rather, a body constructed out of 
 the nervous fluid, or ether in short, the 
 spiritual body of St. Paul, is the bond of 
 union betwixt the body and the soul, or spirit; 
 and has the plastic force of raising up an-
 
 2C8 DOPPELGAXGERS. 
 
 aerial form. Being the highest organic power, 
 it cannot by any other, physical or chemical, 
 be destroyed ; and when the body is cast off, 
 it follows the soul ; and as, during life, it is 
 the means by which the soul acts upon the 
 body, and is thus enabled to communicate with 
 the external world, so when the spirit is dis- 
 embodied, it is through this nerve-spirit, that 
 it can make itself visible, and even exercise 
 mechanical powers. 
 
 It is certain, that not only somnambules, 
 but sick persons, are occasionally sensible of a 
 feeling that seems to lend some countenance to 
 this latter theory. 
 
 The girl at Canton, for example, mentioned 
 in a former chapter, as well as many somnam- 
 bulic patients, declare, whilst their bodies are 
 lying stiff and cold, that they see it, as if out 
 of it ; and, in some instances, they describe 
 particulars of its appearance, which they could 
 not see in the ordinary way. There are also 
 numerous cases of sick persons seeing them- 
 selves double, where no tendency to delirium 
 or spectral illusion had been observed. These 
 are, in this country, always placed under the 
 latter category ; but I find various instances 
 recorded by the German physiologists, where 
 this appearance has been seen by others, and
 
 DOPPELGANGERS. 2()9 
 
 even by children, at the same time that it was 
 felt by the invalid. In one of these cases, I 
 find the sick person saying, " I cannot think, 
 how I am lying. It seems to me that I am 
 divided and lying in two places at once." It 
 is remarkable, that a friend of my own, during 
 an illness in the autumn of 1845, expressed 
 precisely the same feeling ; we however, saw 
 nothing of this second ego ; but it must be re- 
 membered, that the seeing these things, as I 
 have said in a former chapter, probably de- 
 pends on a peculiar faculty or condition of the 
 seer. The servant of Elisha was not blind, 
 but yet he could not see what his master saw, 
 till his eyes were opened that is, till he was 
 rendered capable of perceiving spiritual ob- 
 jects. 
 
 When Peter was released from prison by the 
 angel and it is not amiss here to remark, that 
 even he " wist not that it was true which was 
 done by the angel, but thought he saw a 
 vision," that is, he did not believe his senses, 
 but supposed himself the victim of a spectral 
 illusion but when he was released, and went 
 and knocked at the door of the gate, where 
 many of his friends were assembled, they not 
 conceiving it possible he could have escaped, 
 said, when the girl who had opened the door, 
 2 A 5
 
 270 DOITELGAXGERir. 
 
 insisted that he was there, " It is his angel." 
 What did they mean by this ? The expression 
 is not an angel, but /*/* angel. Now, it is not 
 a little remarkable, that in the East, to this 
 day, a double, or doppleganger, is called a 
 man's angel, or messenger. As we cannot 
 suppose that this term was used otherwise 
 than seriously by the disciples that were 
 gathered together in Mark's house, for they 
 were in trouble about Peter, and when he 
 arrived were engaged in prayer, we are en- 
 titled to believe that they alluded to some re- 
 cognized phenomenon. They knew, either that 
 the likeness of a man his spiritual self 
 sometimes appeared where bodily he was 
 not ; and that this imago or idolon was capable 
 of exerting a mechanical force, or else that 
 other spirits sometimes assumed a mortal 
 form, or they would not have supposed it to 
 be Peter's angel that had knocked at the gate. 
 Dr. Ennemoser, who always leans to the 
 physical, rather than the psychical explanation 
 of a phenomenon, says, that the faculty of 
 self-seeing, which is analogous to seeing 
 another person's double, is to be considered 
 an illusion ; but that this imago of another 
 seen at a distance, at the moment of death, 
 must be supposed to have an objective reality
 
 DOPPELGANGEKS. 271 
 
 But if we are capable of thus perceiving the 
 imago of another person, I cannot comprehend 
 why we may not see our own ; unless, indeed, 
 the former was never perceived, hut when the 
 body of the person seen, was in a state of in- 
 sensibility ; but this does not always seem to 
 be a necessary condition, as will appear by 
 some examples I ain about to detail. The 
 faculty of perceiving- the object,Dr. Ennemoser 
 considers analogous to that of second sight, 
 and thinks it may be evolved by local, as well 
 as idiosyncratical, conditions. The difficulty 
 arising from the fact,that some persons are in the 
 habit of seeing the wraiths of their friends and 
 relations must be explained by his hypothesis. 
 The spirit, as soon as liberated from the body, 
 is adapted for communion with all spirits ; 
 embodied or otherwise, but all embodied spirits 
 are not prepared for communion with it. 
 
 A Mr. R., a gentleman who has attracted 
 public attention by some scientific discoveries, 
 had had a fit of illness at Rotterdam. He 
 was in a state of convalescence, but was still 
 so far taking care of himself as to spend part 
 of the day in bed, when, as he was lying there 
 one morning, the door opened, and there en- 
 tered, in tears, a lady with whom he was inti- 
 mately acquainted, but whom at the time he
 
 272 DOPPELGAXGERS. 
 
 believed to be in England. She walked has- 
 tily up to the side of his bed, wrung her hands, 
 evincing by her gestures extreme anguish of 
 mind, and before he could sufficiently recover 
 his surprise to enquire the cause of her dis- 
 tress and sudden appearance, she was gone. 
 She did not disappear, but walked out of the 
 room again, and Mr. R. immediately sum- 
 moned the servants of the hotel, for the pur- 
 pose of making enquiries about the English 
 lady when she came, what had happened 
 to her, and where she had gone to, on quitting 
 his room ? The people declared there was no 
 such person there ; he insisted there was, but 
 they at length convinced him that they, at 
 least, knew nothing about her. When his 
 physician visited him, he naturally expressed 
 the great perplexity into which he had been 
 thrown by this circumstance : and, as the 
 doctor could find no symptoms about his 
 patient that could warrant a suspicion of spec- 
 tral illusion, they made a note of the date and 
 hour of the occurrence, and Mr. R. took the 
 earliest opportunity of ascertaining if anything 
 had happened to the lady in question. No- 
 thing had happened to herself, but at that 
 precise period her son had expired, and she 
 was actuallv in the state of distress in which
 
 DOPPELGANGERS. 273 
 
 Mr. R. beheld her. It would be extremely 
 interesting to know whether her thoughts had 
 been very intensely directed to Mr. R. at the 
 moment ; but that is a point which I have 
 not been able to ascertain. At all events, the 
 impelling cause of the form projected, be the 
 mode of it what it may, appears to have been 
 violent emotion. The following circumstance, 
 which is forwarded to me by the gentleman 
 to whom it occurred, appears to have the same 
 origin : 
 
 " On the evening of the 12th of March, 1792," 
 says Mr. H., an artist, and a man of science, "I 
 had been reading in the 'Philosophical Transac- 
 tions,' and retired to my room somewhat fatigued, 
 but not inclined to sleep. It was a bright moon- 
 light night, and I had extinguished my candle 
 and was sitting on the side of the bed, deliber- 
 rately taking off my clothes, when I was 
 amazed to behold the visible appearance of 
 my half-uncle, Mr. R. Roberston, standing be- 
 fore me ; and, at the same instant, I heard the 
 words, ' Twice will be sufficient ! ' The face 
 was so distinct that I actually saw the pock- 
 pits. His dress seemed to be made of a 
 strong twilled sort of sackcloth, and of the 
 same dingy colour. It was more like a 
 woman's dress than a man's resembling a
 
 274 DOPPELGANGERS. 
 
 petticoat, the neck-band close to the chin, and 
 the garment covering the whole person, so 
 that I saw neither hands nor feet. Whilst the 
 figure stood there, I twisted ray fingers till 
 they cracked, that I might be sure I was 
 awake. 
 
 " On the following morning, I enquired if 
 anybody had heard lately of Mr. R., and was 
 well laughed at when I confessed the origin of 
 my enquiry. I confess I thought he was 
 dead ; but when my grandfather heard the 
 story, he said that the dress I described, re- 
 sembled the straight-jacket Mr. R. had been 
 put in formerly, under an attack of insanity. 
 Subsequently, we learnt that on the night, 
 and at the very hour I had seen him, he had 
 attempted suicide, and been actually put into a 
 straigh t-j acket. 
 
 "He afterwards recovered, and went to Egypt 
 with Sir Ralph Abercrombie. Some people 
 laugh at this story, and maintain that it was a 
 delusion of the imagination ; but surely this is 
 blinking the question ! Why should my 
 imagination create such an image, whilst my 
 mind was entirely engrossed with a mathe- 
 matical problem ?" 
 
 The words " Twice will be sufficient" pro- 
 bably embodied the thought, uttered or not, of
 
 DOPPELGAXGERS. 275 
 
 the maniac, under the influence of his emotion 
 two blows or two stabs would be sufficient 
 for his purpose. 
 
 Dr. Kerner relates a case of a Dr. John B., 
 who was studying medicine in Paris, seeing 
 his mother, one night, shortly after he had got 
 into bed, and before he had put out his light. 
 She was dressed after a fashion in which he 
 had never seen her; but she vanished; and 
 thus aware of the nature of the appearance, 
 he became much alarmed, and wrote home to 
 enquire after her health. The answer he re- 
 ceived was, that she was extremely unwell, 
 having been under the most intense anxiety 
 on his account, from hearing that several me- 
 dical students in Paris had been arrested as 
 resurrectionists ; and, knowing his passion for 
 anatomical investigations, she had appre- 
 hended he might be amongst the number. 
 The letter concluded with an earnest request 
 that he would pay her a visit. He did so, and 
 his surprise was so great on meeting her, to 
 perceive that she was dressed exactly as he 
 had seen her in his room at Paris, that he 
 could not, at first, embrace her, and was 
 obliged to explain the cause of his astonish- 
 ment and repugnance. 
 
 An analogous case to these is that of Dr.
 
 276 DOPPELGANGERS. 
 
 Donne, which is already mentioned in so 
 many publications, that I should not allude to 
 it here, but for the purpose of showing that 
 these examples belong to a class of facts, and 
 that it is not to be supposed that similarity 
 argues identity, or that one and the same story- 
 is reproduced with new names and localities. 
 I mention this, because when circumstances of 
 this kind are related, I sometimes hear people 
 say, " Oh, I have heard that story before, but 
 it was said to have happened to Mr. So-and-so, 
 or at such a place ; the truth being, that these 
 things happen in all places, and to a great 
 variety of people. 
 
 Dr. Donne was with the embassy, in Paris, 
 where he had been but a short time, when his 
 friend Mr. Roberts entering the salon, found 
 him in a state of considerable agitation. As 
 soon as he was sufficiently recovered to speak, 
 he said that his wife had passed twice through 
 the room, with a dead child in her arms. An 
 express was immediately dispatched to Eng- 
 land to enquire for the lady, and the intelli- 
 gence returned was, that, after much suffering, 
 she had been delivered of a dead infant. The 
 delivery had taken place at the time that her 
 husband had seen her in Paris. Nobody has 
 disputed Dr. Donne's assertion that he
 
 DOPPELGAXGERS. 277 
 
 saw his wife, but, as usual, the case is crammed 
 into the theory of spectral illusions. They 
 say, Dr. Donne was naturally very anxious 
 about his wife's approaching confinement, of 
 which he must have been aware; and that his 
 excited imagination did all the rest. In the 
 first place, I. do not find it recorded that he 
 was suffering- any particular anxiety on the 
 subject ; and even if he were, the coincidences 
 in time and in the circumstance of the dead 
 child, remain unexplained. Neither are we 
 led to believe that the doctor was unwell, or 
 living the kind of life that is apt to breed 
 thick-coming fancies. He was attached to the 
 embassy in the gay city of Paris; he had just 
 been taking luncheon with others of the mite, 
 and had been left alone but a short time, when 
 he was found in the state of amazement above 
 described. If such extraordinary cases of 
 spectral illusion as this, and many others I am 
 recording, can suddenly arise in constitutions 
 apparently healthy, it is certainly high time 
 that the medical world reconsider the subject, 
 and give us some more comprehensible theory 
 of it; if they are not cases of spectral illusion, 
 but are to be explained under that vague and 
 abused term Imagination, let us be told some- 
 thing more about Imagination a service 
 VOL. r. 2 B
 
 278 DOPPELGANGERS 
 
 which those who consider the word sufficient to 
 account for these strange phenomena, must, of 
 course, be qualified to perform. If, however, 
 both these hypotheses for they are but simple 
 hypotheses, unsupported by any proof what- 
 ever, only being delivered with an air of 
 authority in a rationalistic age, they have been 
 allowed to pass unquestioned if, however, 
 they are not found sufficient to satisfy a vast 
 number of minds, which I know to be the 
 case, I think the enquiry I am instituting can- 
 not be wholly useless or unacceptable, let it 
 lead us where it may. The truth is all I 
 seek; and I think there is a very important 
 truth to be educed from the further investiga- 
 tion of this subject in its various relations in 
 short, a truth of paramount importance to all 
 others ; one which contains evidence of a fact, 
 in which we are more deeply concerned than 
 in any other ; and which, if well established, 
 brings demonstration to confirm intuition and 
 tradition. I am very well aware of all the 
 difficulties in the way difficulties internal 
 and external ; many inherent to the subject 
 itself; and others extraneous, but inseparable 
 from it ; and I am very far from supposing 
 that my book is to settle the question, even 
 with a single mind. All I hope or expect is,
 
 AND SELF-SEEING. 279 
 
 to show that the question is not disposed of yet, 
 either by the rationalists or the physiologists ; 
 and that it is still an open one ; and all I desire 
 is, to arouse enquiry and curiosity ; and that 
 thus some mind, better qualified than mine, to 
 follow out the investigation, may be incited to 
 undertake it. 
 
 Dr. Kerner mentions the case of a lady, 
 named Dillenius, who was awakened one 
 night by her son, a child of six years of age ; 
 her sister-in-law, who slept in the same room, 
 also awakened at the same time, and all three 
 saw Madame Dillenius enter the room, attired 
 in a black dress, which she had lately bought. 
 The sister said, " I see you double ! you are in 
 bed, and yet you are walking about the room." 
 They were both extremely alarmed, whilst the 
 figure stood between the doors, in a melan- 
 choly attitude, with the head leaning on the 
 hand. The child, who also saw it, but seems 
 not to have been terrified, jumped out of bed, 
 and running to the figure, put his hand through 
 it as he attempted to push it, exclaiming, " Go 
 away, you black woman." The form, how- 
 ever, remained as before ; and the child, be- 
 coming alarmed, sprung into bed again. 
 Madame Dillenius expected that the appear-
 
 280 DOPPELGANGERS 
 
 ance foreboded her own death ; but that did 
 not ensue. A serious accident immediately 
 afterwards occurred to her husband, and she 
 fancied there might be some connexion betwixt 
 the two events. 
 
 This is one of those cases that, from their 
 extremely perplexing 1 nature, have induced 
 some psychologists to seek an explanation in 
 the hypothesis, that other spirits may for some 
 purpose or under certain conditions, assume 
 the form of a person with a view to giving- an 
 intimation or impression, which the gulf sepa- 
 rating the material from the spiritual world 
 renders it difficult to convey. As regards such 
 instances as that of Madame Dillenius, how- 
 ever, we are at a loss to discover any motive 
 unless, indeed, it be sympathy for such 
 an exertion of power, supposing it to be pos- 
 sessed ; but in the famous case of Catherine of 
 Russia, who is said, whilst lying in bed, to 
 have been seen by the ladies to enter the 
 throne-room and being informed of the cir- 
 cumstance, went herself and saw the figure 
 seated on the throne, and bade her guards lire 
 on it, we may conceive it possible that her 
 guardian spirit, if such she had, might adopt 
 this mode of warning her to prepare for a
 
 AND SELF-SEEING, 281 
 
 change, which, after such a life as hers, we 
 are entitled to conclude, she was not very fit to 
 encounter. 
 
 There are numerous examples of similar 
 phenomena to be met with. Professor Stilling 
 relates that he heard from the son of a Madame 
 M., that his mother, having sent her maid up 
 stairs, on an errand, the woman came running 
 down in a great fright, saying that her mistress 
 was sitting above, in her arm-chair, looking 
 precisely as she had left her below. The lady 
 went up stairs, and saw herself as described by 
 the woman, very shortly after which she died. 
 
 Dr. Wernei relates, that a jeweller at Lud- 
 wigsburg, named Ratzel, when in perfect 
 health, one evening, on turning the comer of 
 a street, met his own form, face to face ; the 
 figure seemed as real and life-like as himself; 
 and he was so close as to look into its very 
 eyes. He was seized with terror, and it va- 
 nished. He related the circumstance to several 
 people, and endeavoured to laugh, but, never- 
 theless, it was evident he was painfully im- 
 pressed with it. Shortly afterwards, as he 
 was passing through a forest, he fell in with 
 some wood-cutters, who asked him to lend a 
 hand to the ropes with which they were pull- 
 2 B 5
 
 282 DOPPELGAXGERS 
 
 ing down an oak tree. He did so, and was 
 killed by its fall. 
 
 Becker, professor of mathematics at Rostock, 
 having fallen into argument with some friends, 
 regarding a disputed point of theology, on 
 going to his library to fetch a book which he 
 wished to refer to, saw himself sitting at the 
 table in the seat he usually occupied. He ap- 
 proached the figure, which appeared to be 
 reading, and, looking over its shoulder, he 
 observed that the book open before it was a 
 Bible, and that, with one of the fingers of the 
 right hand, it pointed to the passage, " Make 
 ready thy house, for thou must die." He re- 
 turned to the company, and related what he 
 had seen, and, in spite of all their arguments 
 to the contrary, remained fully persuaded that 
 his death was at hand. He took leave of his 
 friends, and expired on the following day, at 
 six o'clock in the evening. He had already 
 attained a considerable age. Those who 
 would not believe in the appearance, said he 
 had died of the fright; but, whether he did so 
 or not, the circumstance is sufficiently remark- 
 able ; and, if this were a real, outstanding ap- 
 parition, it would go strongly to support the 
 hypothesis alluded to above, whilst, if it were
 
 AND SELF-SEEING. 283 
 
 a spectral illusion, it is, certainly, an infinitely 
 strange one. 
 
 As I am aware how difficult it is, except 
 where the appearance is seen by more persons 
 than one, to distinguish case's of actual self- 
 seeing from those of spectral illusion, I do not 
 linger longer in this department, but, returning 
 to the analogous subject of Doppelgangers, I 
 will relate a few curious instances of this kind 
 of phenomenon. 
 
 Stilling relates, that a Government officer, 
 of the name of Triplin, in Weimar, on going to 
 his office to fetch a paper of importance, saw 
 his own likeness sitting there, with the deed 
 before him. Alarmed, he returned home, and 
 desired his maid to go there and fetch the 
 paper she would find on the table. The maid 
 saw the same form, and imagined that her 
 master had gone by another road, and got there 
 before her ; his mind seems to have preceded 
 his body. 
 
 The Landrichter, or Sheriff F., in Frankfort, 
 sent his secretary on an errand ; presently 
 afterwards, the secretary re-entered the room, 
 and laid hold of a book. His master asked 
 him what had brought him back, whereupon 
 the figure vanished, and the book fell to the 
 ground, it was a volume of Linnaeus. In the
 
 284 DOPPELGANGERS 
 
 evening, when the secretary returned, and was 
 interrogated with regard to his expedition, he 
 said that he had fallen into an eager dispute 
 with an acquaintance, as he went along, about 
 some botanical question, and had ardently 
 wished he had had his Linnaeus with him to 
 refer to. 
 
 Dr. Werner relates, that Professor Happach 
 had an elderly maid-servant, who was in the 
 habit of coming every morning to call him, 
 and on entering the room, which he generally 
 heard her do, she usually looked at a clock 
 which stood under the mirror. One morning, 
 she entered so softly that though he saw her, 
 he did not hear her foot ; she went, as was her 
 custom, to the clock, and came to his bedside, 
 but suddenly turned round and left the room. 
 He called after her, but she not answering, he 
 jumped out of bed and pursued her. He 
 could not see her, however, till he reached her 
 room, where he found her fast asleep in bed. 
 Subsequently, the same thing occurred fre- 
 quently with this woman. 
 
 An exactly parallel case was related to me 
 as occurring to himself, by a publisher in 
 Edinburgh. His housekeeper \vas in the 
 habit of calling him every morning. On one 
 occasion, being perfectly awake, he saw her
 
 AND SELF-SEEING. 285 
 
 enter, walk to the window, and go out 
 again without speaking. Being in the habit 
 of fastening his door, he supposed he had 
 omitted to do so ; but presently afterwards he 
 heard her knocking to come in, and he found 
 the door was still locked. She assured him 
 she had not been there before. He was 
 in perfectly good health at the time this 
 happened. 
 
 Only a few nights since, a lady, with whom 
 I am intimately acquainted, was in bed, and 
 had not been to sleep, when she saw one of her 
 daughters, who slept in an upper room, and 
 who had retired to rest some time before, 
 standing at the foot of her bed. " H /' she 
 said, " what is the matter ? what are you 
 come for ?" The daughter did not answer, but 
 moved away. The mother jumped out of bed, 
 but not seeing her, got in again : but the 
 figure was still there. Perfectly satisfied it 
 was really her daughter, she spoke to her, asking 
 if anything had happened ; but again the figure 
 moved silently away, and again the mother 
 jumped out of bed, and actually went part of 
 the way up stairs ; and this occurred a third 
 time. The daughter was during the whole of 
 this time asleep in her bed ; and the lady her- 
 self is quite in her usual state of health ; not
 
 286 DOPPELGANGERS 
 
 robust, but not by any means sickly, nor in 
 the slightest degree hysterical or nervous ; yet, 
 she is perfectly convinced that she saw the 
 figure of her daughter on that occasion, though 
 quite unable to account for the circumstance. 
 Probably the daughter was dreaming of the 
 mother. 
 
 Edward Stem, author of some German 
 works, had a friend, who was frequently seen 
 out of the body, as the Germans term it; and 
 the father of that person was so much the sub- 
 ject of this phenomenon, that he was fre- 
 quently observed to enter his house, whilst he 
 was yet working in the fields. His wife 
 used to say to him, " Why, papa, you came 
 home before ;" and he would answer, "I dare 
 say ; I was so anxious to get away earlier, 
 but it was impossible." 
 
 The cook in a convent of nuns, at Ebers- 
 dorf, was frequently seen picking herbs in the 
 garden, when she was in the kitchen and 
 much in need of them. 
 
 A Danish Physician, whose name Dr. 
 Werner does not mention, is said to have been 
 frequently seen entering a patient's room, and 
 on being spoken to, the figure would disappear, 
 with a sigh. This used to occur when he had 
 made an appointment which he was prevented
 
 AND SELF SEEING. 287 
 
 keeping 1 , and was rendered uneasy by the 
 failure. The hearing of it, however, occa- 
 sioned him such an unpleasant sensation that 
 he requested his patients never to tell him 
 when it happened. 
 
 A president of the Supreme Court, in Ulm, 
 named Pfizer, attests the truth of the follow- 
 ing case : A gentleman, holding an official 
 situation, had a son at Gottingen, who wrote 
 home to his father, requesting him to send him, 
 without delay, a certain book, which he re- 
 quired to aid him in preparing a dissertation 
 lie was engaged in. The father answered, that 
 he had sought but could not find the work, in 
 question. Shortly afterwards, the latter had 
 been taking a book from his shelves, when, 
 on turning round, he beheld, to his amazement, 
 his son just in the act of stretching up his 
 hand towards one on a high shelf in another 
 part of the room. "Hallo!" he exclaimed, 
 supposing it to be the young man himself ; 
 but the figure disappeared ; and, on examining 
 the shelf, the father found there the book that 
 was required, which he immediately forwarded 
 to Gottingen ; but before it could arrive there, 
 he received a letter from his son, describing 
 the exact spot where it was to be found. 
 
 A case of what is called spectral illusion
 
 288 DOPPELG ANGERS 
 
 is mentioned by Dr. Paterson, which appears 
 to me to belong to the class of phenomena 
 I am treating of. One Sunday evening, 
 Miss N. was left at home, the sole inmate of 
 the house, not being permitted to accompany 
 her family to church, on account of her deli- 
 cate state of health. Her father was an in- 
 firm old man, who seldom went from home, 
 and she was not aware whether, on this oc- 
 casion, he had gone out with the rest or not. 
 By and by, there came on a severe storm of 
 thunder, lightning, and rain, and Miss N. 
 is described as becoming very uneasy about 
 her father. Under the influence of this feeling, 
 Dr. Paterson says, she went into the back 
 room, where he usually sat, and there saw him 
 in his arm chair. Not doubting but it was 
 himself, she advanced, and laid her hand upon 
 his shoulder, but her hand encountered 
 vacancy ; and, alarmed, she retired. As she 
 quitted the room, however, she looked back, 
 and there still sat the figure. Not being a 
 believer in what is called the " supernatural," 
 Miss N. resolved to overcome her appre- 
 hensions, and return into the room, which she 
 did, and saw the figure as before. For the 
 space of fully half an hour she went in and 
 out of the room in this manner, before it dis-
 
 AND SELF-SEEING. 
 
 appeared. She did not see it vanish, but the 
 fifth time she returned, it was gone ; Dr. Pa- 
 terson vouches for the truth of this story, and 
 no doubt of its being a mere illusion occurs to 
 him, though the lady had never before or since, 
 as she assured him, been troubled with the 
 malady. It seems to me much more likely 
 that, when the storm came on, the thoughts 
 of the old man would be intensely drawn 
 homewards, he would naturally wish himself 
 in his comfortable arm-chair, and knowing 
 his young daughter to be alone, he would 
 inevitably feel some anxiety about her, too. 
 There was a mutual projection of their spirits 
 towards each other ; and the one that was 
 most easily freed from its bonds, was seen 
 where in the spirit it actually was; for, as I 
 have said above, a spirit out of the flesh, to 
 whom space is annihilated, must be where its 
 thoughts and affections are, for its thoughts 
 and affections are itself. 
 
 I observe that Sir David Brewster, and 
 others, who have written on this subject, and 
 who represent all these phenomena as images 
 projected on the retina from the brain, dwell 
 much on the fact that they are seen alike, 
 whether the eye be closed or open. There are, 
 however, two answers. to be made to this argu- 
 
 VOL. i. 2 c
 
 290 DOPPELGANGERS 
 
 ment ; first, that even if it were so, the proof 
 would not be decisive ; since it is generally with 
 closed eyes that somnambulic persons see 
 whether natural somnambules or magnetic 
 patients ; and, secondly, I find in some in- 
 stances which appear to me to be genuine cases 
 of an objective appearance, that where the 
 experiment has been tried, the figure is not 
 seen when the eyes are closed. 
 
 The author of a work, entitled " An In- 
 quiry into the Nature of Ghosts, who adopts 
 the illusion theory, relates the following story, 
 as one he can vouch for, though not permitted 
 to give the names of the parties : 
 
 " Miss , at the age of seven years, being 
 in a field not far from her father's house, 
 in the parish of Kirklinton, in Cumberland, 
 saw what she thought was her father in the 
 field, at a time that he was in bed, from which 
 he had not been removed for a considerable 
 period. There were in the field, also, at the 
 same moment, George Little, and John, his 
 fellow-servant. One of these cried out, " Go 
 to your father, Miss !" She turned round, and 
 the figure had disappeared. On returning home, 
 she said, " Where is my father ?" The mother 
 answered, " In bed, to be sure, child ;" out of 
 which he had not been.
 
 AND SELF-SEEING. 231 
 
 I quote this case, because the figure was 
 seen by two persons ; I could mention several 
 similar instances, but when only seen by one* 
 they are, of course, open to another ex- 
 planation. 
 
 Goethe, whose family,by the way, were ghost- 
 seers, relates, that as he was once in an un- 
 easy state of mind, riding along the foot-path 
 towards Drusenheim, he saw, " not with the 
 eyes of his body, but with those of his spirit," 
 himself on horseback coming towards him, in 
 a dress that he then did not possess. It was 
 grey, and trimmed with gold ; the figure dis- 
 appeared ; but eight years afterwards he found 
 himself, quite accidentally, on that spot, on 
 horseback, and in precisely that attire." This 
 seems to have been a case of second sight. 
 The story of Byron's being seen in London 
 when he was lying in a fever at Patras, is well 
 known ; but may possibly have arisen from 
 some extraordinary personal resemblance, 
 though so firm was the conviction of its being 
 his actual self that a bet of a hundred guineas 
 was offered on it. 
 
 Some time ago, the "Dublin University 
 Magazine" related a case, I know not on what 
 authority, as having occurred at Rome, to the 
 effect, that a gentleman had, one night on
 
 292 DOPPELGANGERS 
 
 going home to his lodging, thrown his servant 
 into great amazement the man exclaiming, 
 " Good Lord, sir ! you came home hefore ! " 
 He declared that he had let his master into 
 the house, attended him up stairs, and, I think, 
 undressed him, and seen him get into bed. 
 When they went to the room, they found no 
 clothes ; but the bed appeared to have been 
 lain in, and there was a strange mark upon the 
 ceiling, as if from the passage of an elec- 
 trical fluid. The only thing the young man 
 could remember, whereby to account for this 
 extraordinary circumstance was, that whilst 
 abroad, and in company, he had been over- 
 come with ennui, fallen into a deep reverie, and 
 had for a time forgotten that he was not at 
 home. 
 
 When I read this story, though I have learnt 
 from experience to be very cautious how I pro- 
 nounce that impossible which I know nothing 
 about, I confess it somewhat exceeded my re- 
 ceptive capacity, but I have since heard of a 
 similar instance, so well authenticated, that 
 my incredulity is shaken. 
 
 Dr. Kerner relates, that a canon of a catholic 
 cathedral, of somewhat dissipated habits, on 
 coming home one evening, saw a light in his 
 bed-rooui. When the maid opened the door,
 
 AND SELF-SEEING. 293 
 
 she started back with surprise, whilst he en- 
 quired why she had left a candle burning up 
 stairs ; upon vyhich she declared, that he had 
 come home just before, and gone to his room, 
 and she had been wondering at his unusual 
 silence. On ascending to his chamber, he 
 saw himself sitting in the arm-chair. The 
 figure arose, passed him, and went out at the 
 room-door. He was extremely alarmed, ex- 
 pecting his death was at hand. He, how- 
 ever, lived many years afterwards, but the 
 influence on his moral character was very 
 beneficial. 
 
 Not long since, a professor, I think of 
 theology, at a college at Berlin, addressed his 
 class, saying, that, instead of his usual lec- 
 ture, he should relate to them a circumstance 
 which, the preceding evening, had occurred to 
 himself, believing the effects would be no less 
 salutary. 
 
 He then told them that, as he was going 
 home the last evening, he had seen his own 
 imago, or double, on the other side of the 
 street. He looked away, and tried to avoid 
 it, but, finding it still accompanied him, he 
 took a short cut home, in hopes of getting rid 
 of it, wherein he succeeded, till he came oppo- 
 2 c 5
 
 294 DOPPELGANGEKS. 
 
 site his own house, when he saw it at the 
 door. 
 
 It rang, the maid opened, it entered, she 
 handed it a candle, and, as the professor stood 
 in amazement, on the other side of the street, 
 he saw the light passing the windows, as it 
 wound its way up to his own chamber. He 
 then crossed over and rang ; the servant was 
 naturally dreadfully alarmed on seeing him, 
 but, without waiting to explain, he ascended 
 the stairs. Just as he reached his own cham- 
 ber, he heard a loud crash, and, on opening the 
 door, they found no one there, but the ceiling 
 had fallen in, and his life was thus saved. 
 The servant corroborated this statement to 
 the students ; and a minister, now attached to 
 one of the Scotch churches, was present when 
 the professor told his tale. Without admitting 
 the doctrine of protecting spirits, it is difficult 
 to account for these latter circumstances. 
 
 A very interesting case of an apparent 
 friendly intervention occurred to the celebrated 
 Dr. A. T., of Edinburgh. He was sitting up 
 late one night, reading in his study, when he 
 heard a foot in the passage, and knowing the 
 family were, or ought to be, all in bed, he rose 
 and looked out to ascertain who it was, but, 
 seeing nobody, lie sat down again. Presently,
 
 AND SELF-SEEING. 21)5 
 
 the sound recurred, and he was sure there 
 was somebody, though he could not see him. 
 The foot, however, evidently ascended the 
 stairs, and he followed it, till it led him to the 
 nursery door, which he opened, and found the 
 furniture was on fire; and thus, but for this 
 kind office of his good angel, his children 
 would have been burnt in their beds. 
 
 The most extraordinary history of this sort, 
 however, with which I am acquainted, is 
 the following, the facts of which are perfectly 
 authentic : 
 
 Some seventy or eighty years since, the 
 apprentice, or assistant, of a respectable sur- 
 geon in Glasgow, was known to have had an 
 illicit connexion with a servant girl, who 
 somewhat suddenly disappeared. No sus- 
 picion, however, seems to have been enter- 
 tained of foul play. It appears rather to have 
 been supposed that she had retired for the 
 purpose of being confined, and, consequently, 
 no enquiries were made about her. 
 
 Glasgow was, at that period, a very different 
 place to what it is at present, in more respects 
 than one ; and, amongst its peculiarities, was 
 the extraordinary strictness with which the 
 observance of the Sabbath was enforced, ins^- 
 much, that nobody was permitted to show
 
 296 DOPPELGANGERS 
 
 themselves in the streets or public walks 
 during the hours dedicated to the church 
 services; and there were actually inspectors 
 appointed to see that this regulation was 
 observed, and to take down the names of 
 defaulters. 
 
 At one extremity of the city, there is some 
 open ground, of rather considerable extent, on 
 the north side of the river, called " The Green," 
 where people sometimes resort for air and 
 exercise ; and where lovers not unfrequently 
 retire to enjoy as much solitude as the 
 proximity to so large a town can afford. 
 
 One Sunday morning, the inspectors of 
 public piety above alluded to having traversed 
 the city, and extended their perquisitions as 
 far as the lower extremity of the Green, where 
 it was bounded by a wall, observed a young 
 man lying on the grass, whom they imme- 
 diately recognized to be the surgeon's assist- 
 ant. They, of course, enquired why he was 
 not at church, and proceeded to register his 
 name in their books, but, instead of attempting 
 to make any excuse for his offence, he only 
 rose from the ground, saying, " I am a miser- 
 able man ; look in the water ! " He then 
 immediately crossed a style, which divided the 
 wall, and led to a path extending along the
 
 AND SKLF-SKKIXG. 297 
 
 side of the river towards the Rutherglen-road. 
 They saw him cross the style, but, not com- 
 prehending the significance of his words, in- 
 stead of observing hiin further, they naturally 
 directed their attention to the water, where 
 they presently perceived the body of a woman. 
 Having with some difficulty dragged it ashore, 
 they immediately proceeded to carry it into the 
 town, assisted by several other persons, who 
 by this time had joined them. It was now 
 about one o'clock, and, as they passed through 
 the streets, they were obstructed by the congre- 
 gation that was issuing from one of the prin- 
 cipal places of worship ; and, as they stood up 
 for a moment, to let them pass, they saw the 
 surgeon's assistant issue from the church door. 
 As it was quite possible for him to have gone 
 round some other way, and got there before 
 them, they were not much surprised. He did 
 not approach them, but mingled with the 
 crowd, whilst they proceeded on their way. 
 
 On examination, the woman proved to be 
 the missing servant-girl. She was pregnant, 
 and had evidently been murdered with a sur- 
 geon's instrument, which was found entangled 
 amongst her clothes. Upon this, in conse- 
 quence of his known connexion with her, and
 
 298 DOPPELGANGERS 
 
 his implied self-accusation to the inspectors, 
 the young man was apprehended on suspicion 
 of being the guilty party, and tried upon the 
 circuit. He was the last person seen in her 
 company, immediately previous to her dis- 
 appearance ; and there was, altogether, such 
 strong presumptive evidence against him, as 
 corroborated by what occurred on the green 
 would have justified a verdict of guilty. But* 
 strange to say, this last most important item 
 in the evidence failed, and he established an 
 incontrovertible alibi ; it being proved, beyond 
 all possibility of doubt, that he had been in 
 church from the beginning of the service to the 
 end of it. He was, therefore, acquitted ; 
 whilst the public were left in the greatest per- 
 plexity, to account as they could for this extra- 
 ordinary discrepancy. The young man was 
 well known to the inspectors, and it was in 
 broad daylight that they had met him and 
 placed his name in their books. Neither, it 
 must be remembered, were they seeking for 
 him, nor thinking of him, nor of the woman, 
 about whom there existed neither curiosity nor 
 suspicion. Least of all, would they have 
 sought her where she was, but for the hint 
 given to them.
 
 AND SELF-SEEING. 299 
 
 The interest excited, at the time, was very 
 great ; but no natural explanation of the 
 mystery has ever been suggested.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 APPARITIONS. 
 
 THE number of stories on record, which seem 
 to support the views I have suggested in my 
 last chapter, is, I fancy, little suspected by 
 people in general ; and still less is it imagined 
 that similar occurrences are yet frequently 
 taking place. I had, indeed, myself no idea of 
 either one circumstance or the other, till my 
 attention being accidentally turned in this 
 direction, I was led into enquiries, the result 
 of which has extremely surprised me. I do 
 not mean to imply that all my acquaintance 
 are ghost-seers, or that these things happen
 
 APPA1UTIONS. 301 
 
 every day ; but the amount of what 1 do mean, 
 is this: first, that besides the numerous in- 
 stances of such phenomena alluded to in 
 history, which have been treated as fables by 
 those who profess to believe the rest of the 
 narratives, though the whole rests upon the 
 same foundation, i. e., tradition and hear-say ; 
 besides these, there exists in one form or 
 another, hundreds and hundreds of recorded 
 cases, in all countries, and in all languages, 
 exhibiting- that degree of similarity which 
 mark them as belonging to a class of facts, 
 many of these being of a nature which seems 
 to preclude the possibility of bringing them 
 under the theory of spectral illusions ; and, 
 secondly, that I scarcely meet any one man 
 or woman, who, if I can induce them to 
 believe I will not publish their names, and am 
 not going to laugh at them, is not prepared to 
 tell me of some occurrence of the sort, as 
 having happened to themselves, their family, 
 or their friends. I admit that in many in- 
 stances they terminate their narration, by say- 
 ing, that they think it must have been an 
 illusion, because they cannot bring themselves 
 to believe in ghosts ; not unfrequently adding, 
 that they wish to think so ; since to think 
 otherwise, would make them uncomfortable. 
 VOL. r. 2 D
 
 302 APPARITIONS. 
 
 I confess, however, that this seems to me a 
 very unwise, as well as a very unsafe way of 
 treating the matter. Believing the appearance 
 to be an illusion, because they cannot bring 
 themselves to believe in ghosts, simply amounts 
 to saying, " I don't believe, because I don't 
 believe ; " and is an argument of no effect, 
 except to invalidate their capacity for judging 
 the question, at all ; but the second reason for 
 not believing, namely, that they do not wish 
 to do so, has not only the same disadvantage, 
 but is liable to much more serious objections ; 
 for it is our duty to ascertain the truth in an 
 affair that concerns every soul of us so deeply ; 
 and to shrink from looking at it, lest it should 
 disclose something we do not like, is an expedieu t 
 as childish as it is desperate. In reviewing my 
 late novel of "Lilly Dawson," where I announce 
 the present work, I observe, that, whilst some 
 of the reviewers scout the very idea of any 
 body's believing in ghosts, others, less rash, 
 whilst they admit that it is a subject we know 
 nothing about, object to further investigation, 
 on account of the terrors and uncomfortable 
 feelings that will be engendered. Now, cer- 
 tainly, if it were a matter in which we had no 
 personal concern, and which belonged merely 
 to the region of speculative curiosity, every
 
 APPARITIONS. 303 
 
 body would l>c perfectlyjustified in following 
 their inclinations with regard to it ; there 
 would be no reason for frightening themselves, 
 if they did not like it ; but since it is perfectly 
 certain that the fate of these poor ghosts, be 
 what it may, will be ours some day perhaps 
 before another year or another week has passed 
 over our heads to shut our eyes to the truth, 
 because it may, perchance, occasion us some 
 uncomfortable feelings, is surely a strange 
 mixture of contemptible cowardice and daring 
 temerity. If it be true that by some law of 
 nature, departed souls occasionally revisit the 
 earth, we may be quite certain that it was in- 
 tended we should know it, and that the law is 
 to some good end ; for no law of God can be 
 purposeless or mischievous; and is it conceivable 
 that we should say, we will not know it, be- 
 cause it is disagreeable to us ? Is not this 
 very like saying, " Let us eat, drink, and be 
 merry, for tomorrow we die !" and yet re- 
 fusing to enquire what is to become of us 
 when we do die ? refusing to avail ourselves 
 of that demonstrative proof, which God has 
 mercifully placed within our reach ? And 
 with all this obstinacy, people do not get rid 
 of the apprehension ; they go on struggling 
 against it and keeping it down by argument
 
 301 Ari'AiiiTioxs. 
 
 and reason, but there are very few persons in- 
 deed, men or women, who, when placed in a 
 situation, calculated to suggest the idea, do not 
 feel the intuitive conviction striving- within 
 them. In the ordinary circumstances of life, 
 nobody suffers from this terror ; in the extra- 
 ordinary ones, I find the professed disbelievers 
 not much better off than the believers. Not 
 long ago, I heard a lady expressing the great 
 alarm she should have felt, had she been ex- 
 posed to spend a whole night on Ben Lomond, 
 as Margaret Fuller, the American authoress, 
 did lately ; "for," said she, " though I don't be- 
 lieve in ghosts, I should have been dreadfully 
 afraid of seeing one, then !" 
 
 Moreover, though 1 do not suppose that man, 
 in his normal state, could ever encounter an 
 incorporeal spirit without considerable awe, I 
 am inclined to think that the extreme terror 
 thg idea inspires, arises from bad training. 
 The ignorant frighten children with ghosts; 
 and the better educated assure them there is 
 no such thing. Our understanding may be- 
 lieve the latter, but our instincts believe the 
 former; so that., out of this education, we 
 retain the terror, and just belief enough to 
 make it very troublesome whenever we are 
 placed in circumstances that awaken it. Now,
 
 APPARITIONS. 305 
 
 perhaps, if the thing were 'differently managed, 
 the result might be different. Suppose the 
 subject were duly investigated, and it were 
 ascertained that the views I and many others 
 are disposed to entertain with regard to it, 
 are correct ; and suppose, then, children were 
 calmly told that it is not impossible, but that 
 on some occasion they may see a departed 
 friend again ; that the laws of nature esta- 
 blished by an alhvise Providence, admit of the 
 dead sometimes revisiting the earth, doubtless 
 for the benevolent purpose of keeping alive 
 in us our faith in a future state ; that death 
 is merely a transition to another life, which it 
 depends on ourselves to make happy or other- 
 wise ; and that, whilst those spirits which 
 appear bright and blessed, may well be objects 
 of our envy, the others should excite only our 
 intense compassion. I am persuaded that a 
 child so educated would feel no terror at the 
 sight of an apparition, more especially as 
 there very rarely appears to be anything 
 terrific in the aspect of these forms ; they 
 generally come in their "habits as they lived," 
 and appear so much like the living person in 
 the flesh, that where they are not known to be 
 already dead, they are frequently mistaken 
 for them. There are exceptions to this rule, 
 2 i) 5
 
 306 APPARITIONS. 
 
 but it is very rare that the forms in themselves 
 exhibit anything- to create alarm. 
 
 As a proof that a child would not naturally 
 be terrified at the sight of an apparition, 1 
 will adduce the following instance, the au- 
 thenticity of which I can vouch for: 
 
 A lady with her child embarked on board a 
 vessel at Jamaica, for the purpose of visiting 
 her friends in England, leaving her husband 
 behind her quite well. It was a sailing 
 packet ; and they had been some time at sea, 
 when, one evening, whilst the child was 
 kneeling before her, saying his prayers, pre- 
 viously to going to rest, he suddenly said, 
 looking eagerly to a particular spot in the 
 cabin, "Mamma, Papa!" "Nonsense, my 
 dear !" the mother answered ; " You know 
 your papa is not here !" " He is, indeed, 
 mama," returned the child, " he is looking at 
 us now !" Nor could she convince him to the 
 contrary. When she went on deck, she men- 
 tioned the circumstance to the captain, who 
 thought it so strange, that he said he would 
 note down the date of the occurrence. The 
 lady begged him not to do so, saying, it was 
 attaching a significance to it which would 
 make her miserable ; he did it, however, and 
 shortly after her arrival in England, she learnt
 
 APPARITIONS. 307 
 
 that her husband had died exactly at that 
 period. 
 
 I have met with other instances in which 
 children have seen apparitions without ex- 
 hibiting any alarm ; and in the case of Fre- 
 dericka Hauffe, the infant in her arms was 
 frequently observed to point smilingly to those 
 which she herself said she saw. In the above 
 related case, we find a valuable example of an 
 apparition which we cannot believe to have 
 been a mere subjective phenomenon, being 
 seen by one person and not by another. The 
 receptivity of the child may have been greater, 
 or the rapport betwixt it and its father stronger, 
 but this occurrence inevitably leads us to sug- 
 gest, how often our departed friends may be 
 near us, and we not see them ! 
 
 A Mr. B., with whom I am acquainted, 
 informed me that some years ago, he lost 
 two children. There was an interval of two 
 years between their deaths ; and about as long 
 a period had elapsed since the decease of the 
 second, when the circumstance I am about to 
 relate took place. It may be conceived that 
 at that distance of time, however vivid the 
 impression had been at first, it had consi- 
 derably faded from the mind of a man en- 
 gaged in business ; and ha assures me that
 
 308 APPARITION'S. 
 
 on the night this event occurred, he was not 
 thinking of the children at all ; he was, more- 
 over, perfectly well, and had neither eaten or 
 drank anything unusual, nor abstained from 
 eating or drinking anything to which he was 
 accustomed. He was, therefore, in his normal 
 state; when shortly after he had lain down in 
 bed, and before he had fallen asleep, he heard 
 the voice of one of the children say, " Papa ! 
 Papa !" 
 
 "Do you hear that?" he said to his wife, 
 who lay beside him; "I hear Archy calling 
 me, as plain as ever I heard him in my life ! " 
 
 " Nonsense!" returned the lady; " you are 
 fancying it." 
 
 But presently he again heard " Papa ! 
 Papa!" and now both voices spoke. Upon 
 which, exclaiming " I can stand this no 
 longer !" he started up, and drawing back the 
 curtains, saw both children in their night- 
 dresses, standing near the bed. He imme- 
 diately jumped out ; whereupon they retreated 
 slowly, and with their faces towards him, to 
 the window, where they disappeared. He says, 
 that the circumstance made a great impres- 
 sion upon him at the time ; and, indeed, that 
 it was one that could never be effaced ; but he 
 did not know what to think of it, not believing
 
 APPARITION'S. 309 
 
 in ghosts, and therefore concluded it must 
 have been some extraordinary spectral illusion ; 
 especially as his wife heard nothing. It may 
 have been so ; but that circumstance by no 
 means proves it. 
 
 From these varying degrees of susceptibility, 
 or atiinity, there seems to arise another conse- 
 quence, namely, that more than one person 
 may see the same object, and yet see it differ- 
 ently, and I mention* this particularly, because 
 it is one of the objections that unreflecting 
 persons make to phenomena of this kind, 
 second sight especially. In the remarkable 
 instance which is recorded to have occurred at 
 Ripley, in the year 1812, to which I shall 
 allude more particularly in a future chapter, 
 much stress was laid on the fact, that the first 
 seer said, " Look at those beasts !" Whilst 
 the second answered, they were " not beasts, 
 but men." In a former chapter, I mentioned 
 the case of a lady, on board a ship, seeing and 
 feeling a sort of blue cloud hanging over her, 
 which afterwards, as it retired, assumed a 
 human form, though still appearing a vapoury 
 substance. Now, possibly, had her recep- 
 tivity, or the rapport, been greater, she might 
 have seen the distinct image of her dying 
 friend. I have met with seveial instances of
 
 810 APPARITIONS. 
 
 these cloudy figures being seen, as if the spirit 
 had built itself up a form of atmospheric air ; 
 and it is remarkable, that when other persons 
 perceived the apparitions that frequented the 
 Seeress of Prevorst, some saw those as cloudy 
 forms, which she saw distinctly attired in the 
 costume they wore when alive ; and thus, on 
 some occasions, apparitions are represented as 
 being transparent, whilst on others they have 
 not been distinguishable from the real cor- 
 poreal body. All these discrepancies, and 
 others, to be hereafter alluded to, are doubtless 
 only absurd to our ignorance ; they are the 
 results of physical laws, as absolute, though 
 not so easily ascertained, as those by which the 
 most ordinary phenomena around us are found 
 explicable. 
 
 With respect to these cloudy forms, I have 
 met with four instances lately; two occurring 
 to ladies, and two to gentlemen ; the one a 
 minister, and the other a man engaged in 
 business ; and although I am quite aware that 
 these cases are not easily to be distinguished 
 from those of spectral illusion, yet I do not 
 think them so myself ; and as they occurred to 
 persons in their normal state of health, who 
 never before or since experienced anything of 
 the kind, and who could lind nothing in their
 
 APPARITIONS. 311 
 
 own circumstances to account for its happen- 
 ing then, I shall mention them. In the in- 
 stances of the gentleman and one of the ladies, 
 they were suddenly awakened, they could not 
 tell by what, and perceived bending over 
 them a cloudy form, which immediately re- 
 treated slowly to the other end of the room, 
 and disappeared. In the fourth case, which 
 occurred to an intimate friend of my own, she 
 had not been to sleep ; but having been the 
 last person up in the house, had just stept into 
 the bed, where her sister had already been some 
 time asleep. She was perfectly awake, when 
 her attention was attracted by hearing the 
 clink of glass, and on looking up, she saw a 
 figure standing on the hearth, which was ex- 
 actly opposite her side of the bed, and as 
 there was water and a tumbler there, she con- 
 cluded that her sister had stept out at the 
 bottom, unperceived by her, and was drinking. 
 Whilst she was carelessly observing the figure, 
 it moved towards the bed, and laid a heavy 
 hand upon her, pressing her arm in a manner 
 that gave her pain. "Oh, Maria, don't!" 
 she exclaimed ; but as the form retreated, and 
 she lost sight of it, a strange feeling crept over 
 her, and she stretched out her hand to ascer- 
 tain if her sister was beside her. She was, and
 
 .312 APPARITIONS. 
 
 asleep ; hut this movement awoke her, and she 
 found the other now in considerable agitation. 
 She, of course, tried to persuade her that it 
 was a dream, or night-mare, as did the family 
 the next day ; but she was quite clear in her 
 mind at the time, as she then assured me, that 
 it was neither one nor the other ; though now, 
 at the distance of a year from the occurrence, 
 she is very desirous of putting that con- 
 struction upon it. As somebody will be ready 
 to suggest that this was a freak played by one 
 of the family, I can only answer that that is 
 an explanation that no one who is acquainted 
 with all the circumstances, could admit; 
 added to which, the figure did not disappear 
 in the direction of the door, but in quite an 
 opposite one. 
 
 A very singular thing happened to the 
 accomplished authoress of " Letters from the 
 Baltic," on which my readers may put what 
 interpretation they please, but I give it here as 
 a pendant to the last story. The night before 
 she left Petersburgh, she passed in the house 
 of a friend. The room appropriated to her 
 use was a large dining-room, in which a tem- 
 porary bed was placed, and a folding screen 
 was so arranged as to give an air of comfort to 
 the nook where the bed stood. She went to
 
 APPARITIONS. 313 
 
 bed, and to sleep, andno one who knows her can 
 suspect her of seeing spectral illusions, or being 
 incapable of distinguishing her own condition 
 when she saw anything whatever. As she 
 was to commence her journey on the following 
 day, she had given orders to be called at an 
 early hour, and, accordingly, she found herself 
 awakened towards morning by an old woman 
 in a complete Russian costume, who looked at 
 her, nodding and smiling, and intimating, as 
 she supposed, that it was time to rise. Feeling, 
 however, very sleepy, and very unwilling to do 
 so, she took her watch from behind her pillow, 
 and, looking at it, perceived that it was only 
 four o'clock. As, from the costume of the 
 old woman, she knew her to be a Russian, and 
 therefore not likely to understand any lan- 
 guage she could speak, she shook her head, 
 and pointed to the watch, giving her to under- 
 stand that it was too early. The woman looked 
 at her, and nodded, and then retreated, whilst 
 the traveller laid down again and soon fell 
 asleep. By and by, she was awakened by a 
 knock at the door, and the voice of the maid 
 whom she had desired to call her. She bade 
 her come in, but the door being locked on the 
 inside, she had to get out of bed to admit her. 
 It now occurred to her to wonder how the old 
 VOL. i. 2 E
 
 814 APPARITIONS. 
 
 woman had entered, but, taking it for granted 
 there was some other mode of ingress, she 
 did not trouble herself about it, but dressed, 
 and descended to breakfast. Of course, the 
 enquiry usually addressed to a stranger was 
 made, they hoped she had slept well ! " Per- 
 fectly," she said, " only that one of their good 
 people had been somewhat over anxious to get 
 her up in the morning ;" and she then men- 
 tioned the old woman's visit, but to her sur- 
 prise they declared they had no such person in 
 the family. "It must have been some old 
 nurse, or laundress, or somebody of that 
 sort," she suggested. " Impossible I" they 
 answered ; " You must have dreamt the whole 
 thing ; we have no old woman in the house ; 
 nobody wearing that costume ; and nobody 
 could have got in, since the door must have 
 been fastened long after that!" And these 
 assertions the servants fully confirmed ; added 
 to which, I should observe, the house, like 
 foreign houses in general, consisted of a flat, or 
 floor, shut in by a door, which separated it 
 entirely from the rest of the building, and, 
 being high up from the street, nobody could 
 even have gained access by a window. The 
 lady now beginning to be somewhat puzzled, 
 enquired if there were any second entrance
 
 APPARITIONS. 315 
 
 into the room ; but, to her surprise, she heard 
 there was not, and she then mentioned that 
 she had locked the door on going- to bed, and 
 had found it locked in the morning. The 
 thing has ever remained utterly inexplicable, 
 and the family, who were much more amazed 
 by it than she was, would willingly believe it 
 to have been a dream, but, whatever the inter- 
 pretation of it may be, she feels quite certain 
 that that is not the true one. 
 
 1 make no comments on the above case, 
 though a very inexplicable one ; and I scarcely 
 know whether to mention any of those well 
 established tales, which appear certainly to be 
 as satisfactorily attested as any circumstance 
 which is usually taken simply on report. I 
 allude, particularly, to the stories of General 
 Wynyard, Lord Tyrone, and Lady Beresibrd, 
 the case which took place at Havant, in Hamp- 
 shire, and which is related in a letter from Mr. 
 Caswell, the mathematician, to Dr. Bentley ; 
 that which occurred in Cornwall, as narrated 
 by the Rev. Mr. Ruddle, one of the preben- 
 daries of Exeter, whose assistance and advice 
 was asked, and who himself had two inter- 
 views with the spirit ; and many others, which 
 are already published in different works, espe- 
 cially in a little book entitled " Accredited
 
 316 APPARITIONS. 
 
 Ghost Stories." I may however mention, that 
 with respect to those of Lady Beresford and 
 General Wynyard, the families of the parties 
 have always maintained their entire belief in 
 the circumstances ; as do the family of Lady 
 Betty Cobb, who took the ribbon from Lady 
 Beresford's arm, after she was dead ; she 
 having always worn it since her interview with 
 the apparition, in order to conceal the mark he 
 had left by touching her. 
 
 There have been many attempts to explain 
 away the story of Lord Littleton's warning:, 
 although the evidence for it certainly satisfied 
 the family, as we learn from Dr. Johnson, who 
 said, in regard to it, that it was the most ex- 
 traordinary thing that had happened in his 
 day, and that he heard it from the lips of Lord 
 Westcote, the uncle of Lord Littleton. 
 
 There is a sequel however to this story, 
 which is extremely well authenticated, though 
 much less generally known. It appears that 
 Mr. Miles Peter Andrews, the intimate friend 
 of Lord Littleton, was at his house, at Dart- 
 ford, when Lord L., died at Pitt -place, Epsom, 
 thirty miles off'. Mr. Andrews' house was full 
 of company, and he expected Lord Littleton, 
 whom he had left in his usual state of health, 
 to join him the next day, which was Sunday.
 
 APPARITIONS. 317 
 
 Mr. Andrews himself feeling rather indisposed 
 on the Saturday evening, retired early to bed, 
 and requested Mrs. Pigou, one of his guests, 
 to do the honours of his supper- table. He 
 admitted, for he is himself the authority for 
 the story, that he fell into a feverish sleep on 
 going to bed, but was awakened between eleven 
 and twelve by somebody opening his curtains, 
 which proved to be Lord Litttleton, in a 
 night-gown and cap, which Mr. Andrews 
 recognized. Lord L. spoke, saying that he 
 was come to tell him all was over. It appears 
 that Lord Littleton was fond of practical 
 joking, and as Mr. A. entertained no doubt 
 whatever of his visitor being Lord L. himself, 
 in the body, he supposed that this was one of 
 his tricks ; and, stretching his arm out of bed, 
 he took hold of his slippers, the nearest 
 thing he could get at, and threw them at him, 
 whereupon the figure retreated to a dressing- 
 room, which had no ingress nor egress except 
 through the bed-chamber. Upon this, Mr. 
 Andrews jumped out of bed to follow him, in- 
 tending to chastise him further, but he could 
 find nobody in either of the rooms, although 
 the door was locked on the inside, so he rang 
 his bell, and enquired who had seen Lord 
 Littleton. Nobody had seen him ; but, though 
 2 E 5
 
 318 APPARITIONS. 
 
 how he had got in or out of the room, re- 
 mained an enigma, Mr. Andrews asserted that 
 he was certainly there ; and, angry at the sup- 
 posed trick, he ordered that they should give 
 him no bed, but let him go and sleep at the 
 inn. Lord Littleton, however, appeared no 
 more, and Mr. Andrews went to sleep, not 
 entertaining the slightest suspicion that he 
 had seen an apparition. It happened that, 
 on the following morning, Mrs. Pigou had 
 occasion to go at an early hour to London, and 
 great was her astonishment to learn that Lord 
 Littleton had died on the preceding night. 
 She immediately dispatched an express to 
 Dartford with the news, upon the receipt of 
 which, Mr. Andrews, then quite well, and re- 
 membering perfectly all that had happened, 
 swooned away. He could not understand it, 
 but it had a most serious effect upon him, and, 
 to use his own expression, he was not 
 his own man again for three years. There 
 are various authorities for this story, the 
 correctness of which is vouched for by some 
 members of Mrs. Pigou's family, with whom I 
 am acquainted, who have frequently heard the 
 circumstances detailed by herself, and who 
 assure me it was always believed by the family. 
 I really, therefore, do not see what grounds we
 
 APPARITIONS. 319 
 
 have' for doubting- either of these facts. Lord 
 Westcote, on whose word Dr. Johnson founded 
 his belief of Lord Littleton's warning, was a 
 man of strong sense ; and that the story was 
 not looked upon lightly by the family, is 
 proved by the circumstance that the dowager 
 Lady Littleton had a picture, which was seen 
 by Sir Nathaniel Wraxhall in her house in 
 Portugal-street, as mentioned in his memoirs, 
 wherein the event was commemorated. His 
 Lordship is in bed, the dove appears at the 
 window, and a female figure stands at the 
 foot of the couch, announcing to the unhappy 
 profligate his approaching dissolution. That 
 he mentioned the warning to his valet, and 
 some other persons, and that he talked of 
 jockeying the ghost by surviving the time 
 named, is certain ; as, also, that he died with 
 his watch in his hand, precisely at the ap- 
 pointed period. Mr. Andrews says, that he 
 was subject to fits of strangulation, from a 
 swelling in the throat, which might have killed 
 him at any moment ; but his decease having 
 proceeded from a natural and obvious cause, 
 does not interfere one way or the other with 
 the validity of the prediction, which simply 
 foretold his death at a particular period, not
 
 320 APPARITIONS. 
 
 that there was to be anything preternatural in 
 the manner of it. 
 
 As I find so many people willing to believe 
 in wraiths, who cannot believe in ghosts that 
 is, they are overpowered by the numerous 
 examples, and the weight of evidence for the 
 first it would be very desirable if we could 
 ascertain whether these wraiths are seen before 
 the death occurs, or after it j but, though the 
 day is recorded, and seems always to be the 
 one on which the death took place, and the 
 hour about the same, minutes are not suf- 
 ficiently observed to enable us to answer that 
 question. It would be an interesting one, be- 
 cause the argument advanced by those who 
 believe that the dead never are seen, is, that it 
 is the strong will and desire of the expiring 
 person which enables him so to act on the 
 nervous system of his distant friend, that the 
 imagination of the latter projects the form, and 
 sees it as if objectively. By imagination I do 
 not simply mean to convey the common notion 
 implied by that much abused word, which is 
 only fancy, but the constructive imagination, 
 which is a much higher function, and which, 
 inasmuch as man is made in the likeness of 
 God, bears a distant relation to that sublime
 
 APPARITIONS. 321 
 
 power by which the Creator projects, creates, 
 and upholds his universe ; whilst the far- 
 working of the departing spirit seems to con- 
 sist in the strong will to do, reinforced by the 
 strong faith that the thing can be done. 
 We have rarely the strong will, and still more 
 rarely the strong faith, without which the will 
 remains ineffective. In the following case, 
 which is perfectly authentic, the apparition of 
 Major R. was seen several hours after his 
 death had occurred. 
 
 In the year 1785, some cadets were ordered 
 to proceed from Madras, to join their regiments 
 up the country. A considerable part of the 
 journey was to be made in a barge, and they 
 were under the conduct of a senior officer, 
 Major R. In order to relieve the monotony of 
 the voyage, this gentleman proposed, one day, 
 that they should make a shooting excursion 
 inland, and walk round to meet the boat at a 
 point agreed on, which, owing to the windings 
 of the river, it would not reach till evening. 
 They accordingly took their guns, and as they 
 had to cross a swamp, Major R., who was well 
 acquainted with the country, put on a heavy 
 pair of top-boots, which, together with an 
 odd limp he had in his gait, rendered him dis- 
 tinguishable from the rest of the party at a
 
 322 APRAIUTIONS. 
 
 considerable distance. When they reached 
 the jungle, they found there was a wide ditch 
 to leap, which all succeeded in doing except 
 the Major, who being less young and active, 
 jumped short of the requisite distance ; and 
 although he scrambled up unhurt, he found 
 his gun so crammed full of wet sand that it 
 would be useless till thoroughly cleansed. He 
 therefore bade them walk on, saying he would 
 follow ; and taking off his hat, he sat down 
 in the shade, where they left him. When they 
 had been beating about for game some time, 
 they began to wonder the Major did not come 
 on, and they shouted to let him know where 
 abouts they were ; but there was no answer, 
 and hour after hour passed without his appear- 
 ance, till at length they began to feel some- 
 what uneasy. Thus the day wore away, and 
 they found themselves approaching the ren- 
 dezvous ; the boat was in sight, and they were 
 walking down to it, wondering how their 
 friend could have missed them, when suddenly, 
 to their great joy, they saw him before them 
 making towards the barge. He was without 
 his hat or gun, limping hastily along, in his 
 top-boots, and did not appear to observe them. 
 They shouted after him, but as he did not 
 look round, they began to run, in order to
 
 APPARITIONS. 373 
 
 overtake him ; and, indeed, fast as he went, 
 they did gain considerably upon him. Still 
 he reached the boat first, crossing the plank 
 which the boatmen had placed ready for the 
 gentlemen they saw approaching. He ran 
 down the companion stairs, and they after 
 him; but inexpressible was their surprise 
 when they could not find him below. They 
 ascended again, and enquired of the boatmen 
 what had become of him ; but they declared 
 he had not come on board, and that nobody 
 had crossed the plank till the young men 
 themselves had done so. 
 
 Confounded and amazed at what appeared 
 so inexplicable, and doubly anxious about 
 their friend, they immediately resolved to re- 
 trace their steps in search of him ; and, accom- 
 panied by some Indians who knew the jungle, 
 they made their way back to the spot where 
 they had left him. From thence some foot- 
 marks enabled them to trace him, till, at a very 
 short distance from the ditch, they found his 
 hat and his gun. Just then the Indians called 
 out to them to beware, for that there was a 
 sunk well thereabouts, into which they might 
 fall. An apprehension naturally seized them 
 that this might have been the fate of their 
 friend ; and on examining its edge, they saw a
 
 324 APPARITIONS. 
 
 mark as of a heel slipping up ; upon this, one 
 of the Indians consented to go down, having 
 a rope with which they had provided them- 
 selves tied round his waist, for, aware of the 
 existence of the wells, the natives suspected 
 what had actually occurred, namely, that the 
 unfortunate gentleman had slipt into one of 
 these traps, which, being overgrown with bram- 
 bles, were not discernible by the eye. With 
 the assistance of the Indian, the body was 
 brought up and carried back to the boat, 
 amidst the deep regrets of the party, with 
 whom he had been a great favourite. They 
 proceeded with it to the next station, where an 
 enquiry was instituted as to the manner of his 
 death, but of course there was nothing more 
 to be elicited. 
 
 I give this story as related by one of the 
 parties present, and there is no doubt of its 
 perfect authenticity. He says, he can in no 
 way account for the mystery he can only re- 
 late the fact ; and not one, but the whole Jive 
 cadets, saw him as distinctly as they saw each 
 other. It was evident, from the spot where 
 the body was found, which was not many 
 hundred yards from the well, that the accident 
 must have occurred very shortly alter they left 
 him. When the young men reached the boat,
 
 APPARITIONS. 325 
 
 Major R. must have been, for some seven or 
 eight hours, a denizen of the other world, yet 
 he kept the rendezvous ! 
 
 There was a similar occurrence in Devon- 
 shire, some years back, which happened to the 
 well known Dr. Hawker, who, one night, in 
 the street, observed an old woman pass him, 
 to whom he was in the habit of giving a weekly 
 charity. Immediately after she had passed, he 
 felt somebody pull his coat, and, on looking 
 round, saw it was she, whereupon he put his 
 hand in his pocket to seek for a sixpence, but, 
 on turning to give it to her, she was gone. He 
 thought nothing about it, but when he got 
 home, he enquired if she had had her money 
 that week, when, to his amazement, he heard 
 she was dead, but his family had forgotten to 
 mention the circumstance. I have met with 
 two curious cases occurring in Edinburgh, of 
 late years ; in one, a young man and his sister 
 were in their kitchen, warming themselves 
 over the fire, before they retired to bed, when, 
 on raising their eyes, they both saw a female 
 figure dressed in white, standing in the door- 
 way, and looking at them ; she was leaning 
 against one of the door-posts. Miss E., the 
 young lady, screamed, whereupon the figure 
 advanced, crossed the kitchen towards a closet, 
 VOL. i. 2 P
 
 326 APPARITIONS. 
 
 and disappeared. There was no egress at the 
 closet ; and, as they lived in a flat, and the door 
 was closed for the night, a stranger could 
 neither have entered the house nor got out of 
 it. In the other instance, there were two 
 houses on one flat, the doors opposite each 
 other. In one of the houses there resided a 
 person with her two daughters, grown up 
 women j in the other lived a shoemaker and 
 his wife. The latter died, and it was said her 
 husband had ill-treated her, and worried her 
 out of the world. He was a drunken, dissi- 
 pated man, and used to be out till a late houir 
 most nights, whilst this goor woman sat up for 
 him ; and, when she heard a voice on the stairs, 
 or a bell, she used often to come out and look 
 over, to see if it were her husband returned. 
 One night, when she had been dead some 
 weeks, the two young women were ascending 
 the stairs to their own door, when, to their 
 amazement, they both saw her standing at the 
 top, looking over as she used to do in her life 
 time. At the same moment, their mother 
 opened the door, and saw the figure also ; the 
 girls rushed past, overcome with terror, and 
 one, if not both, fainted, as soon as they got 
 into the door. The youngest fell on her face 
 in the passage.
 
 APPARITIONS. 327 
 
 Another case, which occurred in this town, 
 I mention, although I know it is liable to be 
 called a spectral illusion, because it bears a re- 
 markable similarity to one which took place in 
 America. A respectable woman lost her father, 
 for whom she had a great affection ; she was 
 of a serious turn, and much attached to the 
 tenets of her church, in which particulars she 
 thought her father had been deficient. She 
 was therefore very unhappy about him, fear- 
 ing that he had not died in a proper state of 
 mind. A considerable time had elapsed since 
 his death, but her distrust of his condition 
 was still causing her uneasiness, when, one 
 day, whilst she was sitting at her work, 
 she felt something touch her shoulder, and 
 on looking round she perceived her father, 
 who bade her cease to grieve about him, as he 
 was not unhappy. From that moment, she 
 became perfectly resigned and cheerful. The 
 American case I have omitted to write down 
 the name of the place, and forget it was 
 that of a mother and son. She was also a 
 highly respectable person, and was described 
 to me as perfectly trustworthy, by one who 
 knew her. She was a widow, and had one 
 son, to whom she was extremely attached, 
 He however disappeared, one day, and she
 
 328 APPARITIONS. 
 
 never could learn what had become of him ; 
 she always said, that if she did but know his 
 fate, she should be happier. At length, when 
 he had been dead a considerable time, her 
 attention was, one day, whilst reading, at- 
 tracted by a slight noise, which induced her 
 to look round; and she saw her son, dripping 
 with water, and with a sad expression of 
 countenance. The features however presently 
 relaxed, and they assumed a more pleasing 
 aspect before he disappeared. From that time 
 she ceased to grieve, and it was subsequently 
 ascertained that the young man had run away 
 to sea; but no more was known of him. Cer- 
 tain it was, however, that she attributed her 
 recovered tranquillity to having seen her son as 
 above narrated. 
 
 A lady, with whom I am acquainted, when 
 she was a girl, was one day standing at the 
 top of the stairs, with two others, discussing 
 their games, when they each suddenly ex- 
 claimed, "Who's that?" There was a fourth 
 among them ; a girl in a checked pinafore ; 
 but she was gone again. They had all seen 
 her. One day a younger brother, in the same 
 house, was playing with a whip, when he 
 suddenly laughed at something, and cried, 
 "Take that;" and described having seen the
 
 APPARITIONS. 320 
 
 same girl. This led to some enquiry, and it 
 was said that such a girl as they described had 
 lived in that house, and had died from the bite 
 of a mad dog ; or, rather, had been smothered 
 between two feather beds; but whether that 
 was actually done, or was only a report, I 
 cannot say. Supposing this to have been no 
 illusion, and I really cannot see how it could be 
 one, the memory of past sports and pleasures 
 seems to have so survived, as to have attracted 
 the young soul, prematurely cut off, to the spot 
 where the same sports and pleasures were 
 being enjoyed by the living. 
 
 A maid servant, in one of the midland coun- 
 ties of England, being up early one morning, 
 heard her name called in a voice that seemed to 
 be her brother's, a sailor then at sea; and run- 
 ning up, she found him standing in the hall ; he 
 said he was come from afar, and was going 
 again, and mentioned some other things, when 
 her mistress, hearing voices, called to know 
 who she was talking to ; she said, it was her 
 brother, from sea. After speaking to her for 
 some time, she suddenly lost sight of him, and 
 found herself alone. Amazed and puzzled, 
 she told her mistress what had happened, who 
 being led thus to suspect the kind of visitor it 
 was, looked out of the window to ascertain if 
 2 F 5
 
 330 APPARITIONS. 
 
 there were any marks of footsteps, the ground 
 being covered with snow. There were how- 
 ever none, and it was therefore clear that no- 
 body could have entered the house. Intelli- 
 gence afterwards arrived of the young man's 
 death. 
 
 This last is a case of wraith, but a more 
 complicated one, from the circumstance of 
 speech being superadded. But this is not by 
 any means an isolated particular ; there are 
 many such. The author of the book called 
 " Accredited Ghost Stories," whose name I at 
 this moment forget, and I have not the book 
 at hand, gives, on his own authority, the fol- 
 lowing circumstance, professing to be ac- 
 quainted with the parties. A company were 
 visiting l^ork Cathedral, when a gentleman 
 and lady, who had detached themselves from 
 the rest, observed an officer wearing a naval 
 uniform approaching them ; he walked quickly, 
 saying to the lady as he passed, " There is 
 another world." The gentleman, seeing her 
 greatly agitated, pursued the stranger, but lost 
 sight of him, and nobody had seen such a per- 
 son but themselves. On returning to his com- 
 panion, she told him that it was her brother, 
 who was then abroad with his ship, and with 
 whom she had frequently held discussions as
 
 APPARITIONS. 331 
 
 to whether there was or was not a future life. 
 The news of the young man's death shortly 
 reached the family. In this case, the brother 
 must have been dead ; the spirit must have 
 passed out of this world into that other, the 
 existence of which he came to certify. This 
 is one of those cases which, happening not 
 long ago, leads one especially to regret the 
 want of moral courage which prevents people 
 giving up their names, and avowing their ex- 
 perience. The author of the above-mentioned 
 book, from which I borrow this story, says, that 
 the sheet had gone to the press with the real 
 names of the parties attached, but that he was 
 requested to withdraw them, as it would be 
 painful to the family. My view of this case is 
 so different, that, had it occurred to myself, I 
 should have felt it my imperative duty to make 
 it known, and give every satisfaction to 
 enquirers. 
 
 Some years ago, during the war, when Sir 
 Robert H. E. was in the Netherlands, he hap- 
 pened to be quartered with two other officers, 
 one of whom was dispatched into Holland on 
 an expedition. One night, during his absence, 
 Sir R. H. E. awoke, and, to his great sur- 
 prise, saw this absent friend sitting on the bed, 
 which he used to occupy, with a wound in his
 
 332 APPARITIONS. 
 
 breast. Sir R. immediately awoke his com- 
 panion, who saw the spectre also. The latter 
 then addressed them, saying, that he had been 
 that day killed in a skirmish, and that he had 
 died in great anxiety about his family, where- 
 fore he had come to communicate that there 
 was a deed of much consequence to them de- 
 posited in the hands of a certain lawyer in 
 London, whose name and address he men- 
 tioned, adding that this man's honesty was not 
 to be altogether relied on. He therefore re- 
 quested that, on their return to England, they 
 would go to his house and demand the deed, 
 but that, if he denied the possession of it, 
 they were to seek it in a certain drawer in his 
 office, which he described to them. The 
 circumstance impressed them very much 
 at the time, but a long while had elapsed 
 ere they reached England, during which 
 period they had gone through so many 
 adventures and seen so many friends fall around 
 them, that this impression was considerably 
 weakened, insomuch that each went to his 
 own home and his own pursuits without think- 
 ing of fulfilling the commission they had 
 undertaken. Some time afterwards, however, 
 it happened that they both met in London, 
 and they then resolved to seek the street that
 
 APPARITIONS. 333 
 
 had been named to them, and ascertain if such 
 a man lived there. They found him, requested 
 an interview, and demanded the deed, the pos- 
 session of which he denied ; but their eyes 
 were upon the drawer that had been described 
 to them ; where they asserted it to be ; and 
 being there discovered, it was delivered into 
 their hands. Here, also, the soul had parted 
 from the body, whilst the memory of the past 
 and an anxiety for the worldly prosperity of 
 those left behind, survived ; and we thus see 
 that the condition of mind in which this per- 
 son had died, remained unchanged. He wasnot 
 indifferent to the worldly prosperity of his re- 
 latives, and he found.his own state rendered 
 unhappy by the fear that they might suffer 
 from the dishonesty of his agent. It may here 
 be naturally objected that hundreds of much 
 loved widows and orphans have been ruined 
 by dishonest trustees and agents, where no 
 ghost came back to instruct them in the means 
 of obviating the misfortune. This is, no doubt, 
 a very legitimate objection, and one which it 
 is very difficult to answer. I must, however, 
 repeat what I said before ; nature is full of 
 exceptional cases, whilst we know very little 
 of the laws which regulate these exceptions; 
 but we may see a very good reason for the fact
 
 334 APPARITIONS. 
 
 that such communications are the exception, 
 and not the rule; for if they were the latter 
 the whole economy of this earthly life would 
 be overturned, and its affairs must necessarily 
 be conducted in a totally different manner to 
 that which prevails at present. What the 
 effects of such an arrangement of nature would 
 be, had it pleased God to make it, he alone 
 knows; but certain it is, that man's freedom, 
 as a moral agent, would be in a great degree 
 abrogated, were the barriers that impede our 
 intercourse with the spiritual world removed. 
 It may be answered, that this is an argu- 
 ment which may be directed against the fact of 
 such appearances being permitted, at all ; but 
 that is a fallacious objection. Earthquakes 
 and hurricanes are occasionally permitted, 
 which overthrow the work of man's hands 
 for centuries ; but if these convulsions of 
 nature were of every day occurrence, nobody 
 would think it worth their while to build a 
 house or cultivate the earth, and the world 
 would be a wreck and a wilderness. The 
 apparitions that do appear, are not without 
 their use to those who believe in them ; whilst 
 there is too great an uncertainty attending the 
 subject, generally, to allow of its ever being 
 taken into consideration in mundane affairs.
 
 APPARITIONS; 335 
 
 t 
 
 The old, so called, superstition of the people, 
 that a person's " dying with something on his 
 mind," is one of the frequent causes of these 
 revisitings, seems, like most ether of their 
 superstitions, to be founded on experience. I 
 meet with many cases in which some appa- 
 rently trivial anxiety, or some frustrated com- 
 munication, prevents the uneasy spirit flinging 
 off the honds that bind it to the earth. I 
 could quote many examples characterised by 
 this feature, but will confine myself to two or 
 three. 
 
 Jung Stilling gives a very curious one, which 
 occurred in the year 1746, and for the authen- 
 ticity of which he vouches. A gentleman, of 
 the name of Dorrien, of most excellent 
 character and amiable disposition, who was 
 tutor in the Carolina Colleges, at Brunswick, 
 died there in that year ; and, immediately pre- 
 vious to his death, he sent to request an inter- 
 view with another tutor, of the name of Hofer, 
 with whom he had lived on terms of friend- 
 ship. Hofer obeyed the summons, but came 
 too late ; the dying man was already in the 
 last agonies. After a short time, rumours be- 
 gan to circulate that Herr Dorrien had been 
 seen by different persons about the college ; 
 but as it was with the pupils that these rumours
 
 336 APPARITIONS. 
 
 originated, they were supposed to be mere 
 fancies, and no attention whatever was paid to 
 them. At length, however, in the month of 
 October, three months'after the decease of Herr 
 Dorrien, a circumstance occurred that excited 
 considerable amazement amongst the pro- 
 fessors. It formed part of the duty of 
 Hofer to go through the college every 
 night, between the hours of eleven and 
 twelve, for the purpose of ascertaining 
 that all the scholars were in bed, and 
 that nothing irregular was going on amongst 
 *them. On the night in question, on entering 
 one of the anti-rooms in the execution of this 
 duty, he saw, to his great amazement, Herr 
 ^Dorrien, seated, in the dressing-gown and 
 white cap he was accustomed to wear, and 
 holding the latter with his right hand, in such 
 a manner as to conceal the upper part of the 
 face ; from the eyes to the chin, however, it 
 was distinctly visible. This unexpected sight 
 naturally startled Hofer, but, summoning reso- 
 lution, he advanced into the young men's 
 chamber, and, having ascertained that all was 
 in order, closed the door; he then turned h is 
 eyes again towards the spectre, and there it sat 
 as before, whereupon he went up to it, and 
 stretched out his arm towards it ; but he was
 
 APPARITIONS. 337 
 
 now seized with such a feeling of indescribable 
 horror, that he could scarcely withdraw his 
 hand, which became swollen to a degree that 
 for some months he had no use of it. On the 
 following day, he related this circumstance to 
 the professor of mathematics, Oeder, who of 
 course treated the thing as a spectral illusion. 
 He, however, consented to accompany Hofer 
 on his rounds the ensuing night, satisfied that 
 he should be able either to convince him it 
 was a mere phantasm, or else a spectre ot 
 flesh and blood who was playing him a trick. 
 They accordingly went at the usual hour, but 
 no sooner had the professor of mathematics 
 set his foot in that same room, than he ex- 
 claimed, " By Heavens, it is Dorrien himself." 
 Hofer, in the mean time, proceeded into the 
 chamber as before, in the pursuance of his 
 duties, and, on his return, they both contem- 
 plated the figure for some time ; they had, 
 however, neither of them the courage to ad- 
 dress or approach it, and finally quitted the 
 room, very much impressed, and perfectly con- 
 vinced that they had seen Dorrien. This 
 incident soon got spread abroad, and many 
 people came in hopes of satisfying their own 
 eyes of the fact, but their pains were fruitless j 
 and even Professor Oeder, who had made up his 
 VOL. i. 2 G
 
 338 APPARITIONS. 
 
 mind to speak to the apparition, sought it re- 
 peatedly in the same place in vain. At length, 
 he gave it up, and ceased to think of it, saying, 
 " I have sought the ghost long enough ; if he 
 has anything to say, he must now seek me." 
 About a fortnight after this, he was suddenly 
 awakened, between three and four o'clock in 
 the morning, by something moving in his 
 chamber, and, on opening his eyes, he beheld 
 a shadowy form, having the same appearance 
 as the spectre, standing in front of a press 
 which was not more than two steps from his 
 bed. He raised himself, and contemplated 
 the figure, the features of which he saw dis- 
 tinctly for some minutes, till it disappeared. 
 On the following night he was awakened in 
 the same manner, and saw the figure as before, 
 with the addition that there was a sound pro- 
 ceeded from the door of the press, as if some- 
 body was leaning against it. The spectre also 
 staid longer this time, and Professor Oeder, no 
 doubt frightened and angry, addressing it as 
 an evil spirit, bade it begone, whereon it made 
 gestures with its head and hands that alarmed 
 him so much, that he adjured it, in the name 
 of God, to leave him, which it did. Eight 
 days now elapsed without any further disturb- 
 ance, but, after that period, the visits of the
 
 APPARITIONS. 339 
 
 spirit were resumed, and he was awakened by 
 it repeatedly about three in the morning, when 
 it would advance from the press to the bed, and, 
 hang its head over him in a manner so annoy- 
 ing, that he started up and struck at it, where 
 upon it would retire, but presently advance 
 again. Perceiving, now, that the countenance 
 was rather placid and friendly than otherwise, 
 the professor at length addressed it, and, having 
 reason to believe that Dorrien had left some 
 debts unpaid, he asked him if that were the 
 case, upon which the spectre retreated some 
 steps, and seemed to place itself in an attitude 
 of attention. Oeder reiterated the enquiry, 
 whereupon the figure drew its hand across its 
 mouth, in which the professor now observed a 
 short pipe. " Is it to the barber you are in 
 debt ?" he enquired. The spectre slowly shook 
 its head. " Is it to the tobacconist, then ?" 
 asked he, the question being suggested by the 
 pipe. Hereupon the form retreated, and dis- 
 appeared. On the following day, Oeder nar- 
 rated what had occurred to Councillor Erath, 
 one of the curators of the college, and also to 
 the sister of the deceased, and arrangements 
 were made for discharging the debt. Professor 
 Seidler, of the same college, now proposed to 
 pass the night with Oeder for the purpose of
 
 340 APPARITIONS. 
 
 observing if the ghost came again, which it 
 did about five o'clock, and awoke Oeder as 
 usual, who awoke his companion, but just then 
 the form disappeared, and Seidler said he only 
 saw something white. They then both dis- 
 posed themselves to sleep, but presently Seidler 
 was aroused by Oeder's starting up and striking 
 out, whilst he cried, with a voice expressive of 
 rage and horror, "Begone ! You have tor- 
 mented me long enough ! If you want any- 
 thing of me, say what it is, or give me an 
 intelligible sign, and come heie no more !" 
 
 Seidler heard all this, though he saw nothing ; 
 but as soon as Oeder was somewhat appeased, 
 he told him that the figure had returned, and 
 not only approached the bed, but stretched 
 itself upon it. After this, Oeder burnt alight, 
 and had some one in the room with him every 
 night. He gained this advantage by the light } 
 that he saw nothing ; but between the hours 
 of three and five, he was generally awakened 
 by noises in his room, and other symptoms 
 that satisfied him the ghost was there. At 
 length, however, this annoyance ceased also ; 
 and trusting that his unwelcome guest had 
 taken his leave, he dismissed his bedfellow, 
 and dispensed with his light. Two nights 
 passed quietly over: on the third, however,
 
 APPARITIONS. 341 
 
 the spectre returned; but very perceptibly 
 darker. It now presented another sign, or 
 symbol, which seemed to represent a picture, 
 with a hole in the middle, through which it 
 thrust its head. Oeder was now so little 
 alarmed, that he bade it express its wishes more 
 clearly, or approach nearer. To these requi- 
 sitions the apparition shook its head, and 
 then vanished. This strange phenomenon 
 recurred several times, and even in the pre- 
 sence of another curator of the college; but 
 it was with considerable difficulty they dis- 
 covered what the symbol was meant to convey. 
 They at length, however, found that Dorrien, 
 just before his illness, had obtained, on trial, 
 several pictures for a magic lantern, which 
 had never been returned to their owner. This 
 was now done, and from that time the appari- 
 tion was neither seen nor heard again. Pro- 
 fessor Oeder made no secret of these circum- 
 stances; he related them publicly in court 
 and college ; he wrote the account to several 
 eminent persons, and declared himself ready 
 to attest the facts upon his oath. 
 
 Stilling, who relates this story, has been 
 
 called superstitious ; he may be so ; but his 
 
 piety and his honesty are above suspicion ; he 
 
 says the facts are well known, and that he can 
 
 2 G 5
 
 342 APPARITIONS. 
 
 vouch for their authenticity ; and as he must 
 have heen a cotemporary of the parties con- 
 cerned, he had, doubtless, good opportunities 
 of ascertaining what foundation there was for 
 the story. It is certainly a very extraordinary 
 one, and the demeanour of the spirit as little 
 like what we should have naturally appre- 
 hended as possible ; but, as I have said before, 
 we have no right to pronounce any opinion on 
 this subject, except from experience, and 
 there are two arguments to be advanced in 
 favour of this narration ; the one being, that I 
 cannot imagine anybody setting about to in- 
 vent a ghost-story, would have introduced cir- 
 cumstances so apparently improbable and 
 inappropriate; and the other consisting in 
 the fact, that I have met with numerous re- 
 lations, coming from very opposite quarters, 
 which seem to corroborate the one in question. 
 With respect to the cause of the spectre's 
 appearance, Jung Stilling, I think, reasonably 
 enough, suggests, that the poor man had in- 
 tended to commission Hofer to settle these 
 little affairs for him, but that delaying this 
 duty too long, his mind had been oppressed by 
 the recollection of them in his last moments 
 he had carried his care with him, and it bound 
 him to the earth. Wherefore, considering how
 
 APPARITIONS. 343 
 
 many persons die with duties unperformed, 
 this anxiety to repair the neglect, is not more 
 frequently manifested, we do not know ; some 
 reasons we have already suggested as possible ; 
 there may be others of which we can form no 
 idea, any more than we can solve the question, 
 why in some cases communication and even 
 speech seems easy, whilst in this instance, the 
 spirit was only able to convey its wishes by 
 gestures and symbols. Its addressing itself to 
 Oeder instead of Hofer, probably arose from 
 its finding communication with him less diffi- 
 cult ; the swelling of Hofer's arm indicating 
 that his physical nature, was not adapted for 
 this spiritual intercourse. With respect to 
 Oeder's expedient of burning a light in his 
 room, in order to prevent his seeing this 
 shadowy form, we can comprehend, that the 
 figure would be discerned more easily on the 
 dark ground of comparative obscurity, and that 
 clear light would render it invisible. Dr. Kerner 
 mentions, on one occasion, that whilst sitting in 
 an adjoining room, with the door open, he had 
 seen a shadowy figure, to whom his patient 
 was speaking, standing beside her bed ; and 
 catching up a candle, he had rushed towards 
 it ; but as soon as he had thus illuminated the 
 chamber, he could no longer distinguish it.
 
 344 APPARITIONS. 
 
 The ineffective and awkward attempts of 
 this apparition, to make itself understood, are 
 not easily to be reconciled to our ideas of a 
 spirit, whilst at the same time, that which it 
 could do, and that which it could not the 
 powers it possessed and those it wanted tend 
 to throw some light on its condition. As regards 
 space, we may suppose, that in this instance, 
 what St. Martin said of ghosts in general, 
 may be applicable, " Je ne crois pas aux reve- 
 nants, maisje croix aux restants ;" that is, he 
 didnot believe, that spirits who had once quitted 
 the earth, returned to it, but he believed that 
 some did not quit it, and thus, as the somnam- 
 bule mentioned in a former chapter said to 
 me, " Some are waiting and some are gone on 
 before." Dorrien's uneasiness and worldly 
 care chained him to the earth, and he was a 
 restant, but, being a spirit, he was inevitably 
 inducted into some of the inherent properties 
 of spirit; matter to him was no impediment, 
 neither doors nor walls could keep him out ; 
 he had the intuitive perception of whom he 
 could most easily communicate with, or he 
 was brought into rapport with Oeder by the 
 latter's seeking him ; and he could either so 
 act on Oeder's constructive imagination, as 
 to enable it to project his own figure, with
 
 APPARITIONS. 345 
 
 the short pipe and the pictures, or he could, 
 by the magical power of his will, build up 
 these images out of the constituents of the 
 atmosphere. The last seems the most proba- 
 ble, because, had the rapport with Oeder, or 
 Oeder's receptivity, been sufficient to enable 
 the spirit to act potently upon him, it would 
 have been also able to infuse into his mind the 
 wishes it desired to- convey, even without 
 speech, for speech, as a means of communi- 
 cation betwixt spirits, must be quite unneces- 
 sary. Even in spite of these dense bodies of 
 ours, we have great difficulty in concealing 
 our thoughts from each other; and the som- 
 nambule reads the thoughts not only of his 
 magnetiser, but of others, with whom he is 
 placed in rapport. In cases where speech 
 appears to be used by a spirit, it is frequently 
 not audible speech, but only this transference 
 of thought, which appears to be speech from 
 the manner in which the thought is borne in 
 and enters the mind of the receiver ; but it is 
 not through his ears, but through his universal 
 supplementary sense, that he receives it; and 
 it is no more like what we mean by hearing, 
 than is the seeing of a clairvoyant, or a spirit, 
 like our seeing by means of our bodily organs. 
 In those cases where the speech is audible to
 
 346 APPARITIONS. 
 
 other persons, we must suppose that the 
 magical will of the spirit can, by means of the 
 atmosphere, simulate these sounds as it can 
 simulate others, of which I shall have to treat 
 by and by. It is remarkable, that, in some 
 instances, this magical power seems to extend 
 so far as to represent to the eye of the seer a 
 form apparently so real, solid, and life-like, 
 that it is not recognizable from the living 
 man ; whilst in other cases the production of 
 a shadowy figure seems to be the limit of its 
 agency, whether limited by its own faculty, or 
 the receptivity of its subject ; but we must be 
 quite sure that the form is, in either instance, 
 equally ethereal or immaterial. And it will 
 not be out of place here to refer to the standing 
 joke of the sceptics, about ghosts appearing in 
 coats and waistcoats. Bentham thought he 
 had settled the question for ever by that ob- 
 jection ; and I have heard it since frequently 
 advanced by very acute persons, but, properly 
 considered, it has not the least validity. 
 
 Whether or not the soul on leaving its earthly 
 tabernacle finds itself at once clothed with that 
 spiritual body, which St. Paul refers to, is 
 what we cannot know, though it seems highly 
 probable ; but if it be so, we must be sure 
 that this body resembles in its nature, that
 
 APPARITIONS; 347 
 
 fluent subtle kind of matter, called by us im- 
 ponderables, which are capable of penetrating 
 all substances ; and unless there be no visible 
 body at all, but only the will of a disembodied 
 spirit acting upon one yet in the flesh, in which 
 case it were as easy to impress the imagination 
 with a clothed figure as an unclothed one, we 
 must conclude that this ethereal flexible form, 
 whether permanent or temporary, may be 
 held together and retain its shape by the 
 volition of the spirit, as our bodies are held 
 together by the principle of life that is in 
 them ; and we see in various instances, where 
 the spectator has been bold enough to try the 
 experiment, that though the shadowy body 
 was pervious to any substance passed through 
 it, its integrity was only momentarily inter- 
 rupted, and it immediately recovered its pre- 
 vious shape. Now, as a spirit, provided there 
 be no especial law to the contrary, partial or 
 universal, absolute or otherwise, governing the 
 spiritual world must be where its thoughts 
 and wishes are, just as we should be at the 
 place we intently think of, or desire, if our 
 solid bodies did not impede us, so must a spirit 
 appear as it is, or as it conceives of itself; 
 morally, it can only conceive of itself as it is, 
 good or bad, light or dark ; but it may con-
 
 348 APPARITIONS. 
 
 ceive of itself clothed as well as unclothed ; 
 and if it can conceive of its former body, it can 
 equally conceive of its former habiliments ; and 
 so represent them, by its power of will to the 
 eye, or present them to the constructive ima- 
 gination of the seer ; and it will be able to do 
 this with a degree of distinctness proportioned 
 to the receptivity of the latter, or to the in- 
 tensity of the rapport which exists between 
 them. Now, considered in this way, the 
 appearance of a spirit " in its habit as it 
 lived," is no more extraordinary than the 
 appearance of a spirit at all, and it adds no 
 complexity to the phenomenon. If it appears 
 at all, in a recognizable form, it must come 
 naked or clothed ; the former, to say the least 
 of it, would be much more frightful and 
 shocking ; and if it be clothed, I do not see 
 what right we have to expect it shall be in a 
 fancy costume, conformable to our ideas, which 
 are no ideas at all, of the other world; nor 
 why, if it be endowed with the memory of 
 the past, it should not be natural to suppose it 
 would assume the external aspect it wore, 
 during its earthly pilgrimage. Certain it is, 
 whether consistent with our notions or not, 
 all tradition seems to show that this is the 
 appearance they assume; and the very fact,
 
 APPARITIONS. 319 
 
 that on the first view of the case, and until 
 the question is philosophically considered, the 
 addition of a suit of clothes to the phenome- 
 non, not only renders its acceptance much 
 more difficult, but throws an air of absurdity 
 and improbability on the whole subject, fur- 
 nishes a very strong argument in favour of the 
 persuasion, that this notion has been founded 
 on experience, and is not the result either of 
 fancy or gratuitous invention. The idea of 
 spirits appearing like angels, with wings, &c. 
 seems to be drawn from these relations in the 
 Bible, when messengers were sent from God 
 to man ; but those departed spirits are not 
 angels, though probably destined in the course 
 of ages to become so ; in the mean time, their 
 moral state continues as when they quitted the 
 body, and their memories and affections are 
 with the earth, and so, earthly they appear, 
 more or less. We meet with some instances 
 in which bright spirits have been seen ; pro- 
 tecting spirits, for example, who have shaken 
 ofl their earth entirely, clinging to it yet but by 
 some holy affection or mission of mercy, and 
 these appear, not with wings, which whenever 
 seen are merely symbolical, for we cannot 
 imagine they are necessary to the motion of a 
 spirit, but clothed in robes of light. Such 
 TOT., i. 2 H
 
 350 APPARITIONS. 
 
 appearances, however, seem much more rare 
 than the others. It will seem to many per- 
 sons very inconsistent with their ideas of the 
 dignity of a spirit that they should appear and 
 act in the manner I have descrihed, and shall 
 describe further ; and I have heard it objected 
 that we cannot suppose God would permit the 
 dead to return merely to frighten the living, 
 and that it is showing him little reverence to 
 imagine he would suffer them to come on 
 such trifling errands, or demean themselves in 
 so undignified a fashion. But God permits 
 men of all degrees of wickedness, and of even- 
 kind of absurdity, to exist, and to harrass and 
 disturb the earth, whilst they expose them- 
 selves to its obloquy or its ridicule. 
 
 Now, as I have observed in a former 
 chapter, there is nothing more perplexing to 
 us in regarding man as a responsible being, 
 than the degree to which we have reason to 
 believe his moral nature is influenced by his 
 physical organization ; but leaving this diffi- 
 cult question to be decided if ever it can be de- 
 cided in this world by wiser heads than mine, 
 there is one thing of which we may rest per- 
 fectly assured, namely, that let the fault of an 
 impure, or vicious, or even merely sensuous 
 Jife, lie where it will whether it be the wicked
 
 APPARITIONS. 351 
 
 spirit within, or the ill-organized body with- 
 out, or a tertium quid of both combined, still, 
 the soul that has been a party to this earthly 
 career, must be soiled and deteriorated by its 
 familiarity with evil ; and there seems much 
 reason to believe that the dissolution of the 
 connexion between the soul and body, pro- 
 duces far less change in the former than has 
 been commonly supposed. People generally 
 think, if they think on the subject at all, that 
 as soon as they are dead, provided they have 
 lived tolerably virtuous lives, or indeed been 
 free from any great crimes, they will imme- 
 diately find themselves provided with wings, 
 and straightway fly up to some delightful place, 
 which they call heaven, forgetting how unfit 
 they are for heavenly fellowship ; and although 
 I cannot help thinking that the Almighty has 
 mercifully permitted occasional relaxations of 
 the boundaries that separate the dead from the 
 living, for the purpose of showing us our 
 error, we are determined not to avail ourselves 
 of the advantage. I do not mean that these 
 spirits these revenantsorrestants are special 
 messengers sent to warn us ; I only mean that 
 their occasionally " revisiting the glimpses of 
 the moon" form the exceptional cases in a 
 great general law of nature, which divides the
 
 352 APPARITIONS. 
 
 spiritual from the material world ; and that in 
 framing this law, these exceptions may have 
 been designed for our benefit. 
 
 There are several stories extant in the 
 English, and a vast number in the German 
 records, which, supposing them to be well 
 founded and I repeat, that for many of them 
 we have just as good evidence as for anything 
 else we believe as hearsay or tradition would 
 go to confirm the fact that the spirits of the 
 dead are sometimes disturbed by what, appear 
 to us very trifling cares. I give the following 
 case from Dr. Kernel*, who says it was related 
 to him by a very respectable man, on whose 
 word he can entirely rely. 
 
 " I was," said Mr. St. S., of S , the son 
 of a man who had no fortune but his business, 
 in which he was ultimately successful. At first, 
 however, his means being narrow, he was per- 
 haps too anxious and inclined to parsimony ; 
 so that when my mother, careful housewife as 
 she was, asked him for money, the demand 
 generally led to a quarrel. This occasioned 
 her great uneasiness, and having mentioned 
 this characteristic of her husband to her father, 
 the old man advised her to get a second key 
 made to the money-chest, unknown to her 
 husband, considering this expedient allowabl e
 
 APPARITIONS. 353 
 
 and even preferable to the destruction of their 
 conjugal felicity, and feeling satisfied that she 
 would make no ill use of the power possessed. 
 My mother followed his advice, very much to 
 the advantage of all parties ; and nobody sus- 
 pected the existence of this second key, except 
 myself, whom she had admitted into her con- 
 fidence. Two and twenty years my parents 
 lived happily together, when I, being at the 
 time about eighteen hours journey from home, 
 received a letter from my father informing me 
 that she was ill ; that he hoped for her speedy 
 amendment; but that if she grew worse he 
 would send a horse to fetch me home to see 
 her. I was extremely busy at that time, and 
 therefore waited for further intelligence, and as 
 several days elapsed without any reaching me, I 
 trusted my mother was convalescent. One night, 
 feeling myself unwell, I had lain down on the 
 bed with my clothes on to take a little rest. 
 It was between eleven and twelve o'clock, and 
 I had not been to sleep, when some one 
 knocked at the door, and my mother entered, 
 dressed as she usually was. She saluted me, 
 and said, ' We shall see each other no more in 
 this world, but I have an injunction to give 
 you. I have given that key to R. (naming a 
 servant \ve then had), and she will remit it tcf 
 2 H 5
 
 354 APPARITIONS. 
 
 you. Keep it carefully, or throw it into the 
 water, but never let your father see it; it would 
 trouble him. Farewell, and walk virtuously 
 through life !' And with these words she 
 turned and quitted the room by the door, as 
 she had entered it. I immediately arose, 
 called up my people, expressed my apprehen- 
 sion that my mother was dead, and, without 
 further delay, started for home. As I ap- 
 proached the house, R., the maid, came put, 
 and informed me that my mother had expired 
 betwixt the hours of eleven and twelve on the 
 preceding night. As there was another 
 person present at the moment, she said nothing 
 further to me, but she took an early oppor- 
 tunity of remitting me the key, saying that 
 rny mother had given it to her just before she 
 expired, desiring her to place it in my hands, 
 with an injunction that I should keep it care- 
 fully, or fling it into the water, so that my 
 father might never know anything about it. I 
 took the key, kept it for some years, and at 
 length threw it into the Lahne." 
 
 I am aware that it may be objected by those 
 who believe in wraiths, but in no other kind 
 of apparition, that this phenomenon occurred 
 before the death of the lady, and that it was 
 produced by her energetic anxiety with regard
 
 APPARITIONS. 355 
 
 to the key ; it may be so, or it may not ; but at 
 all events, we see in this case how a compara- 
 tively trifling uneasiness may disturb a dying 
 person, and how therefore if memory remains 
 to them, they may carry it with them, and 
 seek by such means as they have, to obtain re- 
 lief from it. 
 
 A remarkable instance of anxiety for the 
 welfare of those left behind, is exhibited in 
 the following story, which I received from a 
 member of the family concerned : Mrs. R., a 
 lady very well connected, lost her husband 
 when in the prime of life, and found herself 
 with fourteen children, unprovided for. The 
 overwhelming nature of the calamity depressed 
 her energies to such a degree as to render her 
 incapable of those exertions which could alone 
 redeem them from ruin. The flood of mis- 
 fortune seemed too strong for her, and she 
 yielded to it without resistance. She had thus 
 given way to despondency some time, when one 
 day, as she was sitting alone, the door opened 
 and her mother, who had been a considerable 
 time dead, entered the room and addressed her, 
 reproving her for this weak indulgence of use- 
 less sorrow, and bidding her exert herself for 
 the sake of her children. From that period 
 she threw off the depression, set actively to
 
 356 APPARITIONS. 
 
 work to promote the fortunes of her family, 
 and succeeded so well that they ultimately 
 emerged from all their difficulties. I asked 
 the gentleman who related this circumstance 
 to me, whether he believed it. He answered 
 that he could only assure me that she herself 
 affirmed the fact, and that she avowedly attri- 
 buted the sudden change in her character and 
 conduct to this cause for his own part, he did 
 not know what to say finding it difficult to 
 believe in the possibility of such a visit from 
 the dead. 
 
 A somewhat similar instance is related by 
 Dr. Kerner, which, he says, he received from 
 the party himself, a man of sense and probity. 
 This gentleman, Mr. F., at an early age lost 
 his mother. Two and twenty years afterwards 
 he formed an attachment to a young person, 
 whose hand he resolved to ask in marriage. 
 Having, one evening, seated himself at his 
 desk, for the purpose of writing his proposal, 
 he was amazed, on accidentally lifting his eyes 
 from the paper, to see his mother looking ex- 
 actly as if alive, seated opposite to him; whilst 
 she, raising her finger with a warning gesture, 
 said, "Do not that thing!" Not the least 
 alarmed, Mr. F. started up to approach her, 
 whereupon she disappeared. Being very much
 
 APPARITIONS. 357 
 
 attached to the lady however, he did not feel 
 disposed to follow her counsel; but having 
 read the letter to his father, who highly 
 approved of the match and who laughed at 
 the ghost, he returned to his chamber to seal 
 it, when whilst he was adding the superscrip- 
 tion, she again appeared as before, and 
 reiterated her injunction. But love conquered ; 
 the letter was dispatched, the marriage ensued, 
 and after ten years of strife and unhappiness 
 Avas dissolved by a judicial process. 
 
 A remarkable circumstance occurred, about 
 forty years ago, in the family of Dr. Paulus at 
 Stuttgard. The wife of the head of the family 
 having died, they, with some of their con- 
 nexions, were sitting at table a few days 
 afterwards, in the room adjoining that in which 
 the corpse lay, when, suddenly the door of the 
 latter apartment opened, and the figure of the 
 mother, clad in white robes, entered, and 
 saluting them as she passed, walked slowly 
 and noiselessly through the room, arid then 
 disappeared again through the door by which 
 she had entered. The whole company saw 
 the apparition ; but the father who was at that 
 time quite in health, died eight days after- 
 wards. 
 
 Madame R. had promised an old wood-
 
 358 APPARITIONS. 
 
 cutter, who had a particular horror of dying 
 in the poor-house, because he knew his body 
 would be given to the surgeons, that she 
 would take care to see him properly interred. 
 The old man lived some years afterwards, and 
 she had quite lost sight of him, and indeed 
 forgotten the circumstance, when she was one 
 night awakened by the sound of some one 
 cutting wood in her bed-chamber; and so 
 perfect was the imitation, that she heard every 
 log flung aside as separated. She started up, 
 exclaiming, " The old man must be dead !" and 
 so it proved; his last anxiety having been 
 that Madame R. should remember her promise. 
 That our interest in whatever has much 
 concerned us in this life, accompanies us 
 beyond the grave, seems to be proved by many 
 stories I meet with, and the following is of 
 undoubted authenticity : Some years ago, a 
 music-master died at Erfrert at the age of 
 seventy. He was a miser, and had never 
 looked with very friendly eyes on Professor 
 Rinck, the composer who he knew was likely 
 to succeed to his classes. The old man had 
 lived and died in an apartment adjoining the 
 class-room ; and the first day that Rinck 
 entered on his office, whilst the scholars were 
 singing Aus der tiefe ruf iclt dich, which is a
 
 APPARITIONS. 359 
 
 paraphrase of the De profundis, he thought he 
 saw through a hole or bull's eye there was in 
 the door something moving about the inner 
 chamber. As the room was \oid of every kind 
 of furniture, and nobody could possibly be in 
 it, Rinck looked more fixedly; when he 
 distinctly saw a shadow, whose movements 
 were accompanied by a strange rustling sound. 
 Perplexed at the circumstance, he told his 
 pupils that on the following day he should 
 require them to repeat the same choral. They 
 did so; and whilst they were singing, Rinck 
 saw a person walking backwards and forwards 
 in the next room, who frequently approached 
 the hole in the door. Very much struck with 
 so extraordinary a circumstance, Rinck had 
 the choral repeated on the ensuing day ; and 
 this time his suspicions were fully confirmed ; 
 the old man, his predecessor, approaching the 
 door, and gazing steadfastly into the class- 
 room. " His face," said Rinck, in relating the 
 story to Dr. Mainzer, who has obligingly fur- 
 nished it to me as entered in his journal at the 
 time, " his face was of an ashy grey. The 
 apparition," he added " never more appeared 
 to me, although I frequently had the choral 
 repeated/' 
 "I am no believer in ghost-stories," he added,
 
 :3(50 APPARITIONS. 
 
 " nor in the least superstitious ; nevertheless I 
 cannot help admitting that I have seen this, it 
 is impossible for me ever to doubt or to deny 
 that which I know I saw."
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE FUTURE THAT AWAITS US. 
 
 IN all ages of the world, and in all parts of it, 
 mankind have earnestly desired to learn the 
 fate that awaited them when they had " shuf- 
 fled off this mortal coil ;" and those pretend- 
 ing to be their instructors have built up dif- 
 ferent systems which have stood in the stead 
 of knowledge, and more or less satisfied the 
 bulk of the people. The interest on this sub- 
 ject is, at the present period, in the most highly 
 civilized portions of the globe, less than it has 
 been at any preceding one. The great pro- 
 portion of us live for this world alone, and 
 VOL. i. 2 i
 
 362 THE FUTURE 
 
 think very little of the next ; we are in too 
 great a hurry of pleasure or business to be- 
 stow any time on a subject of which we have 
 such vague notions notions so vague, that, 
 in short, we can scarcely by any effort of the 
 imagination bring the idea home to ourselves; 
 and when we are about to die we are seldom 
 in a situation to do more than resign ourselves 
 to what is inevitable, and blindly meet our 
 fate ; whilst, on the other hand, what is gene- 
 rally called the religious world, is so engrossed 
 by its struggles for power and money, or by 
 its sectarian disputes and enmities; and so 
 narrowed and circumscribed by dogmatic 
 orthodoxies, that it has neither inclination nor 
 liberty to turn back or look around, and en- 
 deavour to gather up from past records and 
 present observation such hints as are now and 
 again dropt in our path, to give us an inti- 
 mation of what the truth may be. The ration- 
 alistic age, too, out of which we are only just 
 emerging, and which succeeded one of gross 
 superstition, having settled, beyond appeal, 
 that there never was such a thing as a ghost 
 that the dead never do come back to tell us 
 the secrets of their prison-house, and that no- 
 body believes such idle tales but children and 
 old women, seemed to have shut the door
 
 THAT AWAITS US. 363 
 
 against the only channel through which any 
 information could be sought. Revelation tells 
 us very little on this subject, reason can tell us 
 nothing ; and if nature is equally silent, or if 
 we are to be deterred from questioning her 
 from the fear of ridicule, there is certainly no 
 resource left for us but to rest contented in 
 our ignorance ; and each wait till the awful 
 secret is disclosed to ourselves. A great many 
 things have been pronounced untrue and 
 absurd, and even impossible, by the highest 
 authorities in the age in which they lived, 
 which have afterwards, and indeed within a 
 very short period, been found to be both pos- 
 sible and true. I confess myself, for one, to 
 have no respect whatever for these dogmatic 
 denials and affirmations, and I am quite ot 
 opinion that vulgar incredulity is a much 
 more contemptible thing than vulgar credulity. 
 We know very little of what is, and still less of 
 what may be ; and till a thing has been proved, 
 by induction logically impossible, we have no 
 right whatever to pronounce that it is so* As I 
 have said before, d priori conclusions are per- 
 fectly worthless j and the sort of investigation 
 that is bestowed upon subjects of the class of 
 which I am treating, something worse; inasmuch 
 as they deceive the timid and the igtforant, and
 
 364 THE FUTHJKE 
 
 that very numerous class which pins its 
 faith on authority and never ventures to think 
 for itself, by an assumption of wisdom and 
 knowledge, which, if examined and analysed, 
 would very frequently prove to be nothing- 
 more respectable than obstinate prejudice and 
 rash assertion. 
 
 For my own part, I repeat, I insist upon 
 nothing. The opinions I have formed from 
 the evidence collected, may be quite erroneous; 
 if so, as I seek only the truth, I shall be glad 
 to be undeceived and shall be quite ready to 
 accept a better explanation of these facts, 
 whenever it is offered to me ; but it is in vain 
 to tell me that this explanation is to be found 
 in what is called imagination, or in a morbid 
 stale of the nerves, or an unusual excitement 
 of the organs of colour and form, or in im- 
 posture ; or in all these together. The existence 
 of all such sources of error and delusion,! am far 
 from denying, but I find instances that it is 
 quite impossible to reduce under any one of 
 those categories, as we at present understand 
 them. The multiplicity of these instances, 
 too for not to mention the large number that 
 are never made known or carefully concealed, 
 if I were to avail myself liberally of cases 
 already recorded in various works, many ot
 
 THAT AWAITS US. 305 
 
 which I know, and many others I hear of as 
 existing, but which I cannot conveniently get 
 access to, I might fill volumes German lite- 
 rature abounds in them the number of the 
 examples, I repeat, even on the supposition 
 that they are not facts, would of itself form 
 the subject of a very curious physiological or 
 psychological enquiry. If so many people in 
 respectable situations of life, and in apparently 
 a normal state of health, are either capable of 
 such gross impostures, or the subjects of such 
 extraordinary spectral illusions, it Would cer- 
 tainly be extremely satisfactory to learn some* 
 thing of the conditions that induce these 
 phenomena in such abundance ; and all I 
 expect from my book at present is, to induce 
 a suspicion that we are not quite so wise as we 
 think ourselves ; and that it might be worth 
 while to enquire a little seriously into reports, 
 which may perchance turn out to have a 
 deeper interest for us, than all those various 
 questions, public and private, put together, 
 with which we are daily agitating ourselves* 
 
 I have alluded in an earlier part of this 
 work, to the belief entertained by the ancients, 
 that the souls of men on being disengaged 
 from the bodies, passed into a middle state, 
 called Hades, in which their portions seemed 
 2 i o
 
 866 THE FUTURE 
 
 neither to be that of complete happiness nor 
 of insupportable misery. They retained their 
 personality, their human form, their memory 
 of the past, and their interest in those that had 
 been dear to them on earth. Communications 
 were occasionally made by the dead to the 
 living ; they mourned over their duties ne- 
 glected and their errors committed ; many of 
 their mortal feelings, passions and propen- 
 sities, seemed to survive ; and they sometimes 
 sought to repair, through the instrumentality 
 of the living, the injuries they had formerly 
 inflicted. In short, death was merely a tran- 
 sition from one condition of life to another ; 
 but in this latter state, although we do not 
 see them condemned to undergo any torments, 
 we perceive that they are not happy. There 
 are indeed compartments in this dark region ; 
 there is Tartarus for the wicked, and the 
 Elysian fields for the good, but they are com- 
 paratively thinly peopled. It is in the mid 
 region that these pale shades abound, con- 
 sistently with the fact, that here on earth, 
 moral, as well as intellectual, mediocrity is the 
 rule; and extremes of good or evil the ex- 
 ceptions. 
 
 With regard to the opinion entertained oi a 
 future state by the Hebrews, the Old Testa-
 
 THAT AWAITS US. 307 
 
 ment gives us very little information ; but 
 what glimpses we do obtain of it, appears to 
 exhibit notions analogous to those of the 
 heathen nations, inasmuch as that the person- 
 ality and the form seem to be retained, and 
 the possibility of these departed spirits re- 
 visiting the earth and holding commune with 
 the living is admitted. The request of the 
 rich man, also, that Lazarus might be sent to 
 warn his brethren, yet alive, of his own 
 miserable condition, testifies to the existence of 
 these opinions ; and it is worthy of remark, 
 that the favour is denied, not because its per- 
 formance is impossible, but because the mission 
 would be unavailing a prediction which, it 
 appears to me, time has singularly justified. 
 Altogether, the notion that in the state entered 
 upon after we leave this world, the personality 
 and form are retained, that these shades some- 
 times revisit the earth, and that the memory 
 of the past still survives, seems to be universal; 
 for it is found to exist amongst all people, 
 savage and civilized ; and if not founded on 
 observation and experience, it becomes difficult 
 to account for such unanimity on a subject 
 Avhich I think, speculatively considered, would 
 not have been productive of such results ; and 
 one proof of this is, that those who reject such
 
 368 THE FUTURE 
 
 testimony and tradition as we have in regard 
 to it, and rely only on their own understand- 
 ings, appear to be pretty uniformly led to form 
 opposite conclusions. They cannot discern 
 the mode of such a phenomenon ; it is open 
 to all sorts of scientific objections, and the cui 
 bono sticks in their teeth. 
 
 This position being admitted, as I think it 
 must be, we have but one resource left, where- 
 by to account for the universability of this 
 persuasion ; which is, that in all periods and 
 places, both mankind and womenkind, as well 
 in health as in sickness, have been liable to a 
 series of spectral illusions of a most extra- 
 ordinary and complicated nature, and bearing 
 such a remarkable similarity to each other, in 
 regard to the objects supposed to be seen or 
 heard, that they have been universally led to 
 the same erroneous interpretation of the phe- 
 nomenon. It is manifestly not impossible 
 that this may be the case ; and if it be so, it 
 becomes the business of physiologists to en- 
 quire into the matter, and give us some account 
 of it. In the mean time, we may be permitted 
 to take the other view of the question, and 
 examine what probabilities seem to be in its 
 favour. 
 
 When the body is about to die, that which
 
 THAT AWAITS US. 369 
 
 cannot die, and which, to spare words, I will 
 call the soul, departs from it ; whither ? We 
 do not know ; but, in the first place, we have 
 no reason to believe that the space destined 
 for its habitation is far removed from the earth, 
 since, knowing nothing about it, we are equally 
 entitled to suppose the contrary ; and, in the 
 next, that which we call distance is a condition 
 that merely regards material objects, and of 
 which a spirit is quite independent, just as our 
 thoughts are, which can travel from here to 
 China, and back again, in a second of time. 
 Well, then, supposing this being to exist 
 somewhere, and it is not unreasonable to sup- 
 pose that the souls of the inhabitants of each 
 planet continue to hover within the sphere of 
 that planet, to which, for anything we can tell, 
 they may be attached by a magnetic attraction, 
 supposing it to find itself in space, free of the 
 body, endowed with the memory of the past, 
 and consequently with a consciousness of its 
 own deserts, able to perceive that which we do 
 not ordinarily perceive, namely, those who 
 have passed into a similar state with itself, will 
 it not naturally seek its place amongst those 
 spirits which most resemble itself, and with 
 whom, therefore, it must have the most affinity ? 
 On earth, the good seek the good, and the
 
 370 THE FUTURE 
 
 wicked the wicked : and the axiom that " like 
 associates with like," we cannot doubt will be 
 as true hereafter as now. " In my father's 
 house there are many mansions," and our in- 
 tuitive sense of what is fit and just mnst needs 
 assure us that this is so. There are too many 
 degrees of moral worth and of moral unworth 
 amongst mankind, to permit of our supposing 
 that justice could be satisfied by an abrupt 
 division into two opposite classes. On the 
 contrary, there must be infinite shades of 
 desert, and,as we mustconsider that that which 
 a spirit enters into on leaving the body, is not 
 so much a place as a condition^ so there must 
 be as many degrees of happiness or suffering 
 as there are individuals, each carrying with 
 him his own Heaven or Hell. For it is a 
 vulgar notion to imagine that Heaven and Hell 
 are places ; they are states ; and it is in our- 
 selves we must look for both. When we leave 
 the body, we carry them with us ; " as the tree 
 falls, so it shall lie." The soul which here 
 has wallowed in wickedness or been sunk in 
 sensuality, will not be suddenly purified by 
 the death of the body ; its moral condition 
 remains wbat its earthly sojourn has trained 
 it to, but its means of indulging its propen- 
 sities are lost. If it has had no godly aspira-
 
 THAT AWAITS US. 371 
 
 tions here, it will not be drawn to God there ; 
 and if it has so bound itself to the body that it 
 has known no happiness but that to which the 
 body ministered, it will be incapable of hap- 
 piness when deprived of that means of enjoy- 
 ment. Here we see at once what a variety 
 of conditions must necessarily ensue; how 
 many comparatively negative states there must 
 be betwixt those of positive happiness or 
 positive misery. 
 
 We may thus conceive how a soul, on en- 
 tering upon this new condition, must find its 
 own place or state; if its thoughts and aspi- 
 rations here have been heavenward, and its pur- 
 suits noble, its conditions will be heavenly. 
 The contemplation of God's works, seen not as 
 by our mortal eyes, but in their beauty and 
 their truth, and ever-glowing sentiments 
 of love and gratitude, and, for aught we know, 
 good offices to souls in need, would constitute 
 a suitable heaven, or happiness for such a 
 being ; an incapacity for such pleasures, and 
 the absence of all others, would constitute a 
 negative state, in which the chief suffering 
 would consist in mournful regrets and a vague 
 longing for something better, which the un- 
 trained soul that never lifted itself from the 
 earth, knows not how to seek ; whilst malig-
 
 372 THE FUTURE 
 
 nant passions and unquenchable desires would 
 constitute the appropriate hell of the wicked ; 
 for we must remember, that although a spirit is 
 independent of those physical laws which are 
 the conditions of matter, the moral law, which 
 is indestructible, belongs peculiarly to it that 
 is, to the spirit, and is inseparable from it. 
 
 We must next remember, that this earthly 
 body we inhabit is more or less a mask, by 
 means of which we conceal from each other 
 those thoughts which, if constantly exposed, 
 would unfit us for living in community ; but 
 when we die, this mask falls away, and the 
 truth' shows nakedly. There is no more dis- 
 guise ; we appear as we are, spirits of light or 
 spirits of darkness ; and there can be no diffi- 
 culty, I should think, in conceiving this, since 
 we know that even our present opaque and 
 comparatively inflexible features, in spite of 
 all efforts to the contrary, will be the index 
 of the mind ; and that the expression of the 
 face is gradually moulded to the fashion of the 
 thoughts. How much more must this be the case 
 with the fluent and diaphanous body which 
 we expect is to succeed the fleshly one ! 
 
 Thus, I think, we have arrived at forming 
 some conception of the state that awaits us 
 hereafter ; the indestructible moral law fixes
 
 THAT AWAITS US. 373 
 
 our place or condition ; affinity governs our 
 associations; and the mask under which we 
 conceal ourselves having fallen away, we ap- 
 pear to each other as we are : and I must here 
 observe, that in this last circumstance, must be 
 comprised one very important element of 
 happiness or misery ; for the love of the pure 
 spirits for each other will be for ever excited 
 by simply beholding that beauty and bright- 
 ness which will be the inalienable expression 
 of their goodness ; whilst the reverse will be the 
 case with the spirits of darkness ; for no one 
 loves wickedness, either in themselves or 
 others, however we may practice it. We must 
 also understand, that the words dark and light, 
 which in this world of appearance we use 
 metaphorically to express good and evil, must 
 be understood literally when speaking of that 
 other world where everything will be seen as 
 it is. Goodness is truth, and truth is light ; 
 and wickedness is falsehood, and falsehood is 
 darkness, and so it will be seen to be. Those 
 who have not the light of truth to guide them 
 will wander darkly through this valley of the 
 shadow of death; those in whom the light 
 of goodness shines will dwell in the light, 
 which is inherent in themselves. The former 
 will be in the kingdom of darkness, the latter in 
 VOL. i. 2 K
 
 374 THE FUTURE 
 
 the kingdom of light. All the records existing 
 of the blessed spirits that have appeared, 
 ancient or modern, exhibit them as robed in 
 light, whilst their anger or sorrow is sym- 
 bolised by their darkness. Now, there appears 
 to me nothing incomprehensible in this view 
 of the future ; on the contrary, it is the only 
 one which I ever found myself capable of con- 
 ceiving or reconciling with the justice and 
 mercy of our Creator, He does not punish us, 
 we punish ourselves ; we have built up a 
 heaven or a hell to our own liking, and we 
 carry it with us. The fire that for ever burns 
 without consuming, is the fiery evil in which 
 we have chosen our part ; and the heaven 
 in which we shall dwell will be the heavenly 
 peace which will dwell in us. We are our own 
 judges and our own chastisers; and here 
 I must say a few words on the subject of that, 
 apparently to us, preternatural memory which 
 is developed under certain circumstances, and 
 to which I alluded in a former chapter. Every 
 one will have heard that persons who have 
 been drowned and recovered have had, in 
 what would have been their last moments, had 
 no means been used to revive them, a strange 
 vision of the past, in which their whole life 
 seemed to float before them in review ; and I
 
 THAT AWAITS US. 375 
 
 have heard of the same phenomenon taking 
 place in moments of impending death, in other 
 forms. Now, as it is not during the struggle 
 for life, but immediately before insensibility 
 ensues, that this vision occurs, it must be the 
 act of a moment ; and this renders compre- 
 hensible to us what is said by the Seeress of 
 Prevorst, and other somnambules of the highest 
 order, namely, that the instant the soul is 
 freed from the body it sees its whole earthly 
 career in a single sign ; it knows that it is 
 good or evil, and pronounces its own sentence. 
 The extraordinary memory occasionally ex- 
 hibited in sickness where the link between 
 the soul and the body is probably loosened, 
 shows us an adumbration of this faculty. 
 
 But this self-pronounced sentence, we are 
 led to hope is not final, nor does it seem con- 
 sistent with the love and mercy of God that it 
 should be so. There must be few, indeed, 
 who leave this earth fit for heaven ; for al- 
 though the immediate frame of mind in which 
 dissolution takes place, is probably very im- 
 portant, it is surely a pernicious error, en- 
 couraged by jail chaplains and philanthropists, 
 that a late repentance and a few parting prayers 
 can purify a soul sullied by years of wicked- 
 ness. Would we at once receive such an one 
 into our intimate communion and love ?
 
 376 THE FUTURE 
 
 Should we not require time for the stains of 
 vice to be washed away and habits of virtue to 
 be formed ? Assuredly we should ! And how 
 can we imagine that the purity of heaven is to 
 be sullied by that approximation that the 
 purity of earth would forbid ? It would be 
 cruel to say, and irrational to think, that this 
 late repentance is of no avail ; it is doubtless 
 so far of avail that the straining upwards and 
 the heavenly aspirations of the parting soul 
 are carried with it, so that when it is free, 
 instead of choosing the darkness, it will flee 
 to as much light as is in itself; and be ready, 
 through the mercy of God and the ministering 
 of brighter spirits, to receive more. But in 
 this case, as also in the innumerable instances 
 of those who die in what may be called a ne- 
 gative state, the advance must be progressive, 
 though wherever the desire exists, I must be- 
 lieve that this advance is possible. If not, 
 wherefore did Christ, after being "put to 
 death in the flesh,'* go and "preach to the 
 spirits in prison ?" It would have been a 
 mockery to preach salvation to those who had 
 no hope ; nor would they, having no hope, have 
 listened to the preacher. 
 
 I think these views are at once cheering, 
 encouraging, and beautiful ; and I cannot but 
 believe, that were they more generally enter-
 
 THAT AWAITS US. 377 
 
 tained and more intimately conceived, they 
 would be very beneficial in their effects. As I 
 have said before, the extremely vague notions 
 people have of a future life, prevent the possi- 
 bility of its exercising any great influence upon? 
 the present. The picture, on one side, is too- 
 revolting and inconsistent with our ideas of 
 Divine goodness to be deliberately accepted ; 
 whilst, with regard to the other, our feelings 
 somewhat resemble those of a little girl, I once 
 knew, who, being told by her mother what 
 was to be the reward of goodness if she were 
 so happy as to reach heaven, put her finger in 
 her eye and began to cry, exclaiming, " Oh, 
 mamma I 1 how tired I shall be singing I'* 
 
 The question which will now naturally 
 arise, and which I am bound to answer, is, 
 How have these views been formed ? and what 
 is the authority for them ? and the answer I 
 have to make will startle many minds, when I 
 say, that they have been gathered from two- 
 sources ; first and chiefly from the state in 
 which those spirits appear to be, and some- 
 ti mes avow themselves to be, who, after quit- 
 ting the earth, return to it and make themselves 
 visible to the living ; and, secondly, from the 
 revelations of numerous somnambules of the 
 highest order, which entirely conform in all 
 2 K 5
 
 378 THE FUTURE 
 
 cases, not only with the revelations of the 
 dead, but with each other. I do not mean to 
 imply, when I say this, that I consider the 
 question finally settled, as to whether sornnam- 
 bulesare really clear-seers or only visionaries ; 
 nor that I have by any means established the 
 fact that the dead do sometimes actually re- 
 turn ; but I am obliged to beg the question 
 for the moment, since whether these sources 
 be pure or impure, it is from them the infor- 
 mation has been collected. It is true, that 
 these views are extremely conformable with 
 those entertained by Plato and his school of 
 philosophers; and also with those of the 
 mystics of a later age ; but the latter certainly, 
 and the former probably, built up their systems 
 on the same foundation ; and I am very far 
 from using the term mystics in the opprobrious, 
 or at least contemptuous, tone in which it has 
 of late years been uttered in this country ; for 
 although abounding in errors, as regarded the 
 concrete, and although their want of an in- 
 ductive methodology led them constantly 
 astray in the region of the real, they were 
 sublime teachers in that of the ideal ; and they 
 seem to have been endowed with a wonderful 
 insight into this veiled department of our 
 nature.
 
 THAT AWAITS US. 379 
 
 It may be here objected, that we only admire 
 their insight, because, being in entire igno- 
 rance of the subject of it, we accept raving 
 for revelation ; and that no weight can be 
 attached to the conformity of later disclosures 
 with theirs, since they have no doubt been 
 founded upon them. As to the ignorance, it 
 is admitted ; and, simply looking at their views, 
 as they stand, they have nothing to support 
 them but their sublimity and consistency ; but, 
 as regards the value of the evidence afforded 
 by conformity, it rests on very different 
 grounds; for the reporters from whom we 
 collect our intelligence are, with very few 
 exceptions, those of whom we may safely 
 predicate, that they were wholly unacquainted 
 with the systems promulgated by the Platonic 
 philosophers, or the mystics either, nor, in 
 most instances, had ever heard of their names ; 
 for, as regards that peculiar somnambulic 
 state which is here referred to, the subjects 
 of it appear to be generally very young people 
 of either sex, and chiefly girls ; and, as re- 
 gards ghost- seeing, although this phenomenon 
 seems to have no connexion with the age of 
 the seer, yet it is not usually from the learned 
 or the cultivated we collect our cases, inas-
 
 380 THE FUTURE 
 
 much as the apprehension of ridicule, on the 
 one hand, and the fast hold the doctrine of 
 spectral illusions has taken of them, on the 
 other, prevent their believing 1 in their own 
 senses, or producing any evidence they might 
 have to furnish. 
 
 And here will be offered another subtle ob- 
 jection, namely, that the testimony of such 
 witnesses as I have above described is per- 
 fectly worthless ; but this I deny. The som- 
 nambulic states I allude to, are such as have 
 been developed, not artificially, but naturally ; 
 and often under very extraordinary nervous 
 diseases, accompanied with catalepsy, and 
 various symptoms far beyond feigning. Such 
 cases are rare, and, in this country, seem to 
 have been very little observed, for doubtless 
 they must occur, and when they do occur, they 
 are very carefully concealed by the families of 
 the patient, and not followed up or investi- 
 gated as a psychological phenomenon by the 
 physician ; for it is to be observed that, with- 
 out questioning no revelations are made ; they 
 are not, as far as I know, ever spontaneous. 
 I have heard of two such cases in this country, 
 both occurring in the higher classes, and both 
 patients being young ladies; but, although
 
 THAT AWAITS US. 381 
 
 surprising phenomena were exhibited, interro- 
 gation was not permitted, and the particulars 
 were never allowed to transpire. 
 
 No doubt there are examples of error and 
 examples of imposture, so there are in every- 
 thing where room is to be found for them ; 
 and I am quite aware of the propensity of 
 hysterical patients to deceive, but it is for the 
 judicious observers to examine the genuineness 
 of each particular instance; and it is perfectly 
 certain and well established by the German 
 physiologists and psychologists, who have 
 carefully studied the subject, that there are 
 many above all suspicion. Provided, then, 
 that the case be genuine, it remains to be de- 
 termined how much value is to be attached to 
 the revelations, for they may be quite honestly 
 delivered, and yet be utterly worthless the 
 mere ravings of a disordered brain ; and it is 
 here that conformity becomes important, for I 
 cannot admit the objection that the simple 
 circumstance of the patient's being diseased 
 invalidates their evidence so entirely as to 
 annul even the value of their unanimity, be- 
 cause although it is not logically impossible, 
 that a certain state of nervous derangement 
 should occasion all somnambules, of the class 
 in question, to make similar answers, when
 
 382 THE FUTURE 
 
 interrogated, regarding a subject of which in 
 their normal condition they know nothing, 
 and on which they have never reflected, and 
 that these answers should be not only con- 
 sistent, but disclosing far more elevated views 
 than are evolved by minds of a very superior 
 order which have reflected on it very deeply 
 I say, although this is not logically impossible, 
 it will assuredly be found, by most persons, an 
 hypothesis of much more difficult acceptance 
 than the one I propose ; namely, that what- 
 ever be the cause of the effect, these patients 
 are in a state of clear-seeing, wherein they 
 have "more than mortal knowledge;" that is, 
 more knowledge than mortals possess in their 
 normal condition : and it must not be for- 
 gotten, that we have some facts confessed by 
 all experienced physicians and physiologists, 
 even in this country, proving that there are 
 states of disease in which preternatural faculties 
 have been developed, such as no theory has 
 yet satisfactorily accounted for. 
 
 But Dr. Passavent, who has written a very 
 philosophical work on the subject of vital 
 magnetism and clear-seeing, asserts, that it is 
 an error to imagine that the extatic condition 
 is merely the product of disease. He says, 
 that it has sometimes exhibited itself in
 
 THAT AWAITS US. 383 
 
 persons of very vigorous constitutions, in- 
 stancing Joan of Arc, a woman, whom his- 
 torians have little understood, and whose 
 memory Voltaire's detestable poem has ridi- 
 culed and degraded, but who was, neverthe- 
 less, a great psychological phenomenon. 
 
 The circumstance, too, that phenomena of 
 this kind are more frequently developed in 
 women than in men, and that they are merely 
 the consequence of her greater nervous irrita- 
 bility has been made another objection to 
 them an objection, however, which Dr. 
 Passavent considers founded on ignorance of 
 the essential difference between the sexes, 
 which is not merely a physical but a psycho- 
 logical one. Man is more productive than 
 receptive. In a state of perfectibility, both 
 attributes would be equally developed in him ; 
 but in this terrestrial life, only imperfect 
 phases of the entire sum of the soul's faculties 
 are so. Mankind are but children, male or 
 female, young or old: of man, in his totality, 
 we have but faint adumbrations, here and there. 
 
 Thus the extatic woman will be more fre- 
 quently a seer, instinctive and intuitive ; man, 
 a doer and a worker ; and as all genius is a 
 degree of extacy or clear-seeing, we perceive 
 the reason wherefore in man it is more pro-
 
 384 THE FUTURE. 
 
 ductive than in woman, and that our greatest 
 poets and artists, in all kinds, are of the former 
 sex, and even the most remarkable women 
 produce but little in science or art ; whilst on 
 the other hand, the feminine instinct, and tact, 
 and intuitive seeing of truth, is frequently 
 more sure than the ripe and deliberate judg- 
 ment of man : and it is hence that solitude 
 and such conditions as develop the passive 
 or receptive at the expense of the active, 
 tend to produce this state, and to assimilate 
 the man more to the nature of the woman ; 
 whilst in her they intensify these distinguish- 
 ing characteristics: and this is also the reason 
 that simple and child-like people and races are 
 the most frequent subjects of these phenomena. 
 It is only necessary to read Mozart's account 
 of his own moments of inspiration, to com- 
 prehend, not only the similarity, but the posi- 
 tive identity of the extatic state with the state 
 of genius in activity. " When all goes well 
 with me," he says, " when I am in a carriage, 
 or walking, or when I cannot sleep at night, 
 the thoughts come streaming in upon me most 
 fluently. Whence, or how, is more than I con 
 tell. What comes, I hum to myself, as it pro- 
 ceeds then follows the counterpoint 
 
 and the clang of the different instruments, and
 
 THAT AWAITS US. 385 
 
 if I am not disturbed my soul is fixed, and 
 the thing grows greater, and broader, and 
 clearer ; and 1 have it all in my head, even 
 when the piece is a long one, and I see it like 
 a beautiful picture, not hearing the different 
 parts in succession, as they must be played, 
 but the whole at once. That is the delight ! 
 The composing and the making is like a beau- 
 tiful and vivid dream, but this hearing of it, is 
 the best of all." 
 
 What is this but clear-seeing, backwards 
 and forwards, the past and the future ? The 
 one faculty is not a whit more surprising and 
 incomprehensible than the other, to those who 
 possess neither, only we see the material pro- 
 duct of one, and therefore believe in it. But, 
 as Passavent justly says, these corruscations 
 belong not to genius exclusively : they are 
 latent in all men. In the highly gifted, this 
 divine spark becomes a flame to light the 
 world withal: but even in the coarsest and 
 least developed organizations, it may, and 
 does momentarily break forth. The germ of 
 the highest spiritual life is in the rudest, 
 according to its degree, as well as in the highest 
 form of man we have yet seen ; he is but a 
 more imperfect type of the race, in whom this 
 spiritual germ has not unfolded itself. 
 
 VOL. i. 2 L
 
 386 THE FUTURE 
 
 Then, with respect to our second source of 
 information, I am quite aware that it is equally 
 difficult to establish its validity ; but theie 
 are a few arguments in our favour here, too. 
 In the first place, as Dr. Johnson says, though 
 all reason is against us, all tradition is for us; 
 and this conformity of tradition is surely of 
 some weight, since I think it would be diffi- 
 cult to find any parallel instance, of a universal 
 tradition that was entirely without a founda- 
 tion in truth ; for with respect to witchcraft, 
 the belief in which is equally universal, we 
 now know that the phenomena were generally 
 facts, although the interpretations put upon 
 them were fables. It may certainly be objected 
 that this universal belief in ghosts only arises 
 from the universal prevalence of spectral illu- 
 sions, but, if so, as I have before observed, 
 these spectral illusions become a subject of 
 very curious enquiry, for, in the first place, 
 they frequently occur under circumstances the 
 least likely to induce them, and to people whom 
 we should least expect to find the victims of 
 them ; and, in the second, there is a most re- 
 markable conformity here, too, not only 
 between the individual eases occurring amongst 
 all classes of persons, who had never exhibited 
 the slightest tendency to, nervous derangement
 
 THAT AWAITS US. 387 
 
 or somnambulism, hut also between these and 
 the revelations of the somnambules. In short, 
 it seems to me that life is reduced to a mere 
 phantasmagoria, if spectral illusions are so 
 prevalent, so complicated in their nature, and 
 so delusive as they must be, if all the instances 
 of ghost-seeing that come before us are to be 
 referred to that theory. How numerous these 
 are, I confess myself not to have had the least 
 idea, till my attention was directed to the 
 enquiry ; and that these instances have been 
 equally frequent in all periods and places, we 
 cannot doubt, from the variety of persons that 
 have given in their adhesion, or at least that 
 have admitted, as Addison did, that he could 
 not refuse the universal testimony in favour of 
 the re-appearance of the dead, strengthened by 
 that of many credible persons with whom he 
 was acquainted. Indeed, the testimony in 
 favour of the facts has been at all periods too 
 strong to be wholly rejected, so that even the 
 materialists, like Lucretius and the elder 
 Pliny, find themselves obliged to acknowledge 
 them, whilst, on the other hand, the extrava- 
 gant admissions that are demanded of us by 
 those who endeavour to explain them away, 
 prove that their disbelief rests on no more solid 
 foundation than their own prejudices. I ac-
 
 388 THE FUTURE 
 
 knowledge all the difficulty of establishing the 
 facts, such difficulties as indeed encompass few 
 other branches of enquiry; bull maintain that 
 the position of the opponents is still worse, 
 although, by their high tone, and their con- 
 temptuous laugh, they assume to have taken 
 up one that, being fortified by reason, is quite 
 impregnable, forgetting that the wisdom of 
 man is preeminently " foolishness before God," 
 when it wanders into this region of unknown 
 things. Forgetting, also, that they are just 
 serving this branch of enquiry, as their prede- 
 cessors, whom they laugh at, did physiology ; 
 concocting their systems out of their own 
 brains, instead of the responses of nature ; and 
 with still more rashness and presumption, this 
 department of her kingdom being more inac- 
 cessible, more incapable of demonstration, and 
 more entirely beyond our controul ; for these 
 spirits will not " come when we do call them ;" 
 and, I confess, it often surprises me to hear 
 the very shallow nonsense that very clever men 
 talk upon the subject, and the inefficient argu- 
 ments they use to disprove what they know 
 nothing about. I am quite conscious that the 
 facts I shall adduce are open to controversy ; 
 I can bring forward no evidence that will 
 satisfy a scientific mind ; but neither are my
 
 THAT AWAITS US. 389 
 
 opponents a whit better fortified. All I do 
 hope to establish is, not a proof, but a pre- 
 sumption ; and the conviction I desire to 
 awaken in people's minds, is, not that these 
 things are so, but that they may be so, and that 
 it is well worth our while to enquire whether 
 they are or not. 
 
 It will be seen, that these views of a future 
 state are extremely similar to those of Isaac 
 Taylor, as suggested in his physical theory of 
 another life at least, as far as he has entered 
 upon the subject and it is natural that they 
 should be so, because he seems also to have 
 been a convert to the opinion, that "the dead 
 do sometimes break through the boundaries 
 that hem in the etherial crowds ; and if so, as 
 if by trespass, may in single instances infringe 
 upon the ground of common corporeal life." 
 
 Let us now fancy this dispossessed soul en- 
 tering on its new career, amazed, and no more 
 able than when it was in the body to accommo- 
 date itself at once to conditions of existence, 
 for which it was unprepared. If its aspi- 
 rations had previously been heavenward, these 
 conditions would not be altogether new, and it 
 would speedily find itself at home in a sphere 
 in which it had dwelt before ; for, as I have 
 formerly said, a spirit must be where its 
 2 L S
 
 390 THE FUTURE 
 
 thoughts and affections are, and the soul, 
 whose thoughts and affections had been 
 directed to heaven, would only awaken after 
 death into a more perfect and unclouded 
 heaven. But imagine the contrary of all this. 
 Conceive what this awakening must be to an 
 earth-bound spirit to one altogether unpre- 
 pared for its new home carrying no light 
 within it floating in the dim obscure cling- 
 ing to the earth, where all its affections were 
 garnered up ; for where its treasure is, there 
 shall it be also. It will find its condition evil, 
 more or less, according to the degree of its 
 moral light or darkness, and in proportion to 
 the amount of the darkness will be its inca- 
 pacity to seek for light. "Now, there seems 
 nothing offensive to our notions of the Divine 
 goodness in this conception of what awaits us 
 when the body dies. It appears to me, on the 
 contrary, to offer a more comprehensible and 
 coherent view than any other that has been 
 presented to me ; yet, the state I have de- 
 picted is very much the Hades of the Greeks 
 and Romans. It is the middle state, on 
 which all souls enter, a state in which 
 there are many mansions that is, there are 
 innumerable states probably not permanent, 
 but ever progressive or retrograde ; for we can-
 
 THAT AWAITS US. 391J 
 
 not conceive of any moral state being perma* 
 nent, since we know perfectly well that ours is 
 never so : it is always advancing or retroceding. 
 When we are not improving, we are deterio- 
 rating ; and so it must necessarily be with us 
 hereafter. 
 
 Now, if we admit the probability of this 
 middle state, we have removed one of the great 
 objections which are made to the belief in the 
 re-appearance of the dead ; namely, that the 
 blest are too happy to return to the earth, and 
 that the wicked have it not in their power to 
 do so. This difficulty arises, however, very 
 much from the material ideas' entertained of 
 Heaven and Hell the notion that they are 
 places instead of states. I am told that the 
 Greek word Hades is derived from aides, in- 
 visible ; and that the Hebrew word Scheol, 
 which has the same signification, also implies 
 a state, not a place; since it may be inter- 
 preted into desiring, longing, asking, praying. 
 These words in the Septuagint, are transla- 
 ted by grave, death, or hell ; but previously to 
 the Reformation, they seem to have borne 
 their original meaning ; that is, the state into 
 which the soul entered at the death of the body. 
 It was probably to get rid of the purgatory of 
 the Roman Church, which had doubtless be-
 
 392 THE FUTURE 
 
 coine the source of many absurd notions and 
 corrupt practices, that the doctrine of a middle 
 state or Hades was set aside ; besides which 
 the honest desire for reformation in all refor- 
 ming churches, being alloyed by the odium 
 theologicum, the purifying besom is apt to 
 take too discursive a sweep, exercising less 
 modesty and discrimination than might be de- 
 sirable; and thus not uncommonly wiping 
 away truth and falsehood together. 
 
 Dismissing the idea, therefore, that Heaven 
 and Hell are places in which the soul is im- 
 prisoned, whether in bliss or woe, and, sup- 
 posing that, by a magnetic relation, it may 
 remain connected with the sphere to which it 
 previously belonged, we may easily conceive 
 that, if it have the memory of the past, the 
 more entirely sensuous its life in the body may 
 have been, the closer it will cling to the scene 
 of its former joys ; or, even if its sojourn on 
 earth were not a period of joy, but the con- 
 trary, still, if it have no heavenward aspira- 
 tions, it will find itself, if not in actual woe, 
 yet aimless, objectless, and out of a congenial 
 element. It has no longer the organs whereby 
 it perceived, communicated with, and enjoyed 
 the material world and its pleasures. The joys 
 of Heaven are not its joys; we might as well
 
 THAT AWAITS US. 393 
 
 expect a hardened prisoner in Newgate, asso- 
 ciating with others as hardened as himself, to 
 melt into extatic delight at the idea of that 
 which he cannot apprehend! How helpless 
 and inefficient such a condition seems, and 
 how natural it is to us to imagine that, under 
 such circumstances, there might be awakened 
 a considerable desire to manifest itself to those 
 yet living in the flesh, if such a manifestation 
 be possible ! And what right have we, in direct 
 contradiction to all tradition, to assert that it 
 is not ? We may raise up a variety of objec- 
 tions from physical science, but we cannot be 
 sure that these are applicable to the case ; and 
 of the laws of spirit we know very little, since 
 we are only acquainted with it as circum- 
 scribed, confined, and impeded in its opera- 
 tions by the body ; and whenever such abnormal 
 states occur as enable it to act with any degree 
 of independence, man, under the dominion of 
 his all-sufficient reason, denies and disowns 
 the facts. That the manifestation of a spirit 
 to the living, whether seen or heard, is an 
 exception, and not the rule, is evident; for, 
 supposing the desire to exist at all, it must 
 exist in millions and millions of instances 
 which never take effect. The circumstances 
 must, therefore, no doubt be very peculiar, as
 
 394 THE FUTURE 
 
 regards both parties in which such a manifes- 
 tation is possible ; what these are we have very 
 little means of knowing, but, as far as we do 
 know, we are led to conclude that a certain 
 magnetic rapport or polarity constitute this 
 condition, whilst, at the same time, as regards 
 the seer, there must be what the prophet called 
 the " opening of the eye" which may, perhaps, 
 signify the seeing of the spirit without the aid 
 of the bodily organ, a condition which may 
 temporarily occur to any one under we know 
 not what influence, but which seems, to a cer- 
 tain degree, hereditary in some families. 
 
 The following passage is quoted from Sir 
 William Hamilton's edition of Dr. Reid's 
 works, published in 1846: 
 
 "No man can show it to be impossible to 
 the Supreme Being to have given us the power 
 of perceiving external objects, without any 
 such organs" e. e., our organs of sense. " We 
 have reason to believe that when we put off 
 these bodies, and all the organs belonging to 
 them, our perceptive powers shall rather be 
 improved than destroyed or impaired. We 
 have reason to believe that the Supreme Being 
 perceives everything in a much more perfect 
 manner than we do, without bodily organs. 
 We have reason to believe that there are other
 
 THAT AWAITS US. 395 
 
 created beings endowed with powers of per- 
 ception more perfect and more extensive than 
 ours, without any such organs as we find ne- 
 cessary ;" and Sir William Hamilton adds the 
 following note: 
 
 " However astonishing, it is now proved be- 
 yond all rational doubt, that in certain abnor- 
 mal states of the nervous organism, perceptions 
 are possible through other than the ordinary 
 channels of the senses." 
 
 Of the existence of this faculty in nature, 
 any one, who chooses, may satisfy himself by 
 a very moderate degree of trouble, provided 
 he undertake the investigation honestly ; and 
 this being granted, another objection, if not 
 altogether removed, is considerably weakened. 
 I allude to the fact, that in numerous reported 
 cases of ghost-seeing, the forms were visible 
 to only one person, even though others were 
 present, which, of course, rendered them un- 
 distinguishable from cases of spectral illusion, 
 and indeed unless some additional evidence be 
 afforded, they must remain so still, only we 
 have gained thus much, that this objection is 
 no longer unanswerable ; for whether the 
 phenomenon is to be referred to a mutual rap- 
 port, or to the opening of the spiritual eye, we 
 comprehend how one may see what others do
 
 396 THE FUTURE 
 
 not. But really, if the seeing depended upon 
 ordinary vision, I cannot perceive that the 
 difficulty is insurmountable ; for we perfectly 
 well know that some people are endowed with 
 an acuteness of sense, or power of perception, 
 which is utterly incomprehensible to others : 
 for without entering into the disputed region 
 of clear -seeing, everybody must have met with 
 instances of those strange antipathies to certain 
 objects, accompanied by an extraordinary ca- 
 pacity for perceiving their presence, which 
 remain utterly unexplained. Not to speak of 
 cats and hares, where some electrical effects 
 might be conceived, I lately heard of a gentle- 
 man who fainted if he were introduced into a 
 room where there was a raspberry tart ; and 
 that there have been persons endowed with a 
 faculty for discovering the proximity of water 
 and metals, even without the aid of the 
 divining rod which latter marvel seems to be 
 now clearly established as an electrical pheno- 
 menon, will scarcely admit of further doubt. 
 A very eminent person, with whom I am ac- 
 quainted, possessing extremely acute olfactory 
 powers, is the subject of one single exception. 
 He is insensible to the odour of a bean -field, 
 however potent: but it would surely be very 
 absurd in him to deny that the bean-field
 
 THAT AWAITS US. 397 
 
 I 
 
 emits an odour, and the evidence of the ma- 
 jority against him is too strong to admit of 
 his doing so. Now, we have only the evi- 
 dence of a minority with regard to the ex- 
 istence of certain faculties not generally de- 
 veloped, but surely it argues great presumption 
 to dispute their possibility. We might, I 
 think, with more appearance of reason, insist 
 upon it that my friend mud be mistaken, and 
 that he does smell the bean-field ; for we 
 have the majority against him there, most 
 decidedly. The difference is, that nobody cares 
 whether the odour of the bean-field is per- 
 ceptible or not: but if the same gentleman 
 asserted that he had seen a ghost, beyond all 
 doubt, his word would be disputed. 
 
 Though we do not know what the condi- 
 tions are that dev elope the faculty of what St. 
 Paul calls the discerning of spirits, there is 
 reason to believe that the approach of death is 
 one. I have heard of too many instances of 
 this kind, where the departing person has 
 been in the entire possession of his or her fa- 
 culties, to doubt that in our last moments we 
 are frequently visited by those who have gone 
 before us, and it being admitted by all physi- 
 ologists, that preternatural faculties are some- 
 times exhibited at this period, we can have 
 
 VOL. i. 2 M
 
 398 THE FUTURE 
 
 no right to say that " the discerning of spirits" 
 is not one of them. 
 
 There is an interesting story recorded by 
 Beaumont, in his "World of Spirits," and 
 quoted by Dr. Hibbert with the remark, that 
 no reasonable doubt can be placed on the au- 
 thenticity of the narrative, as it was drawn up 
 by the Bishop of Gloucester from the recital of 
 the young lady's father ; and I mention it here 
 not for any singularity attending it, but first 
 because its authenticity is admitted, and next 
 on account of the manner in which, so much 
 being granted, the fact is attempted to t>e ex- 
 plained away. 
 
 " Sir Charles Lee, by hi first lady, had only 
 one daughter, of which she died in child-birth, 
 and when she was dead, her sister, the Lady 
 Everard, desired to. have the education of the 
 child, and she was very well educated till she 
 was marriageable, and a match was concluded 
 for her w^th Sir W. Parkins, but was then 
 prevented in an extraordinary manner. Upon 
 a Thursday night, she thinking she saw a light 
 in her chamber after she was in bed, knocked 
 for her maid, who presently came to her,, and 
 she asked, ' Why she left a candle burning in 
 her room ?' The maid answered, that she had 
 none, and that there was none but what
 
 THAT AWAITS US. 399 
 
 she had brought with her at that time ;' then, 
 she said, it must be the fire; but that her 
 maid told her, was quite out, adding she 
 believed it was only a dream, whereupon 
 Miss Lee answered, it might be so, and com- 
 posed herself again to sleep. But, about two 
 of the clock, she was awakened again, and 
 saw the apparition of a little woman between 
 her curtains and her pillow, who told her 
 she was her mother, that she was happy, and 
 that, by twelve of the clock that day, she 
 should be with her. Whereupon, she knocked 
 again for her maid, called for her clothes, and 
 when she was dressed, went into her closet, 
 and came not out again till nine, and then 
 brought out with her a letter, sealed, to her 
 father, carried it to her aunt, the Lady Everard, 
 told her what had happened, and desired that 
 as soon as she was dead it might be sent to 
 him. The lady thought she was suddenly 
 fallen mad^ and therefore sent presently away 
 to Chelmsfoixl, for a physician and surgeon, 
 who both came immediately^ but the physician 
 could discern no indication of what the lady 
 imagined, or of any indisposition of her body ; 
 notwithstanding, the lady would needs have 
 her let blood, which was done accordingly ; 
 and when the young woman had patiently
 
 400 THE FUTURE 
 
 let them do what they would with her, she 
 desired that the chaplain might be called to 
 read prayers ; and when prayers were ended, 
 she took her guitar and psalm-book, and sat 
 down upon a chair without arms, and played 
 and sung so melodiously and admirably, 
 that her music-master, who was then there, 
 admired at it ; and near the stroke of twelve, 
 she rose and sat herself down in a great chair 
 with arms, and presently fetching a strong 
 breathing or two, she immediately expired, and 
 was so suddenly cold as was much wondered 
 at by the physician and surgeon. She died at 
 Waltham, in Essex, three miles from Chelrns- 
 ford, and the letter was sent to Sir Charles, at 
 his house, in Warwickshire ; but he was so 
 afflicted at the death of his daughter, that he 
 came not till she was buried : but when he 
 came, he caused her to be taken up, and to be 
 buried with her mother, at Edmonton, as she 
 desired in her letter." 
 
 This circumstance occurred in the year 1662, 
 and is, as Dr. Hibbert observes, " one of the 
 most interesting ghost-stories on record /' yet 
 he insists on placing it under the category of 
 spectral illusions, upon the plea, that let the 
 physician, whose skill he arraigns, say what 
 he would, her death within so short a period,
 
 THAt AWAlTS US 401 
 
 proves that she must have been indisposed at 
 the time she saw the vision, and that probably 
 " the languishing female herself might have 
 unintentionally contributed to the more strict 
 verification of the ghost's prediction,' 1 con- 
 cluding with these words, " all that can be 
 said of it is, that the coincidence was a for- 
 tunate one; for without it, the story would, 
 probably, never have met with a recorder, 1 ' 
 &c. &c. 
 
 Now, I ask if this is a fair way of treating 
 any fact, transmitted to us on authority, which 
 the objector himself admits to be perfectly 
 satisfactory ; more especially, as the assistants 
 on the occasion appear to have been quite as 
 unwilling to believe in the supernatural inter- 
 pretation of it, as Dr. H. could have been 
 himself, had he been present ; for what more 
 could he have done than conclude the young 
 lady to be mad> and bled her ? a line of prac- 
 tice which is precisely what would be followed 
 at the present time ; and which proves that 
 they were very well aware of the sensuous 
 illusions produced by a disordered state of the 
 nervous system ; and with respect to his con- 
 clusion that the "languishing female" con- 
 tributed to the verification of the prediction, 
 we are entitled to ask, where is the proof that 
 2 M 5
 
 402 THE FUTURE 
 
 she was languishing ? A very clever watch- 
 maker once told me, that a watch may go per- 
 fectly well for years and at length stop sud- 
 denly, in consequence of an organic defect in 
 its construction, which only becomes percep- 
 tible, even to the eye of a watchmaker, when 
 this effect takes place ; and we do know that 
 many persons have suddenly fallen dead im- 
 mediately after declaring themselves in the 
 best possible health; and we have therefore 
 no right to dispute what the narrator 
 implies, namely, that there were no sensible 
 indications of the impending catastrophe. 
 
 There either was some organic defect or 
 derangement in this lady's physical economy, 
 which rendered her death inevitable at the 
 hour of noon, on that particular Thursday, or 
 there was not. If there were, and her certain 
 death was impending at that hour, how came 
 she acquainted with the fact ? Surely, it ,is a 
 monstrous assumption to say, that it was " a 
 fortunate coincidence," when no reason what- 
 ever is given us for concluding that she felt 
 otherwise than perfectly well ? If, on the con- 
 trary, we are to take refuge in the supposition 
 that there was no death impending, and that 
 she only died of the fright, how came she- 
 feeling perfectly well, and, in this case, we have
 
 THAT AWAITS US. 403 
 
 a right to conclude being perfectly well, to be 
 the subject of such an extraordinary spectral 
 illusion ? And if such spectral illusions can 
 occur to people in a good normal state of 
 health, does it not become very desirable to 
 give us some clearer theory of them than we 
 have at present. But there is a third presump- 
 tion to which the sceptical may have recourse, 
 in order to get rid of-this well established, and 
 therefore very troublesome fact, namely, that 
 Miss Lee was ill, although unconscious of it 
 herself, and indicating no symptoms that 
 could guide her physician to an enlightened 
 diagnosis ; and that the proof of this is to be 
 found in the occurrence oi the spectral illusion, 
 and that this spectral illusion so impressed her, 
 that it occasioned the precise fulfilment of the 
 imaginary prediction, an hypothesis which 
 appears to me to be pressing very hard on the 
 spectral illusion ; for it is first called upon to 
 establish the fact of an existing indisposition 
 of no slight character, of which neither patient 
 or physician were aware ; and it is next re- 
 quired to kill the lady with unerring certainty, 
 at the hour appointed, she being, according to 
 the only authority we have for the story, in 
 a perfectly calm and composed state of mind ! 
 for there is nothing to be discerned in the
 
 404 THE FUTURE 
 
 description of her demeanour but an entire and 
 willing submission to the announced decree, 
 accompanied by that pleasing exaltation, which 
 appears to me perfectly natural under the cir- 
 cumstances ; and I do not think that anything 
 we know of human vitality can justify us in 
 believing that life can be so easily extin- 
 guished. But to such straights people are re- 
 duced, who write with a predetermination to 
 place their iacts on a Procrustian bed, till they 
 have fitted them into their own cherished 
 theory. 
 
 In the above recorded case of Miss Lee, the 
 motive for the visit is a sufficient one ; but 
 one of the commonest objections to such nar- 
 rations, is the insignificance of the motive 
 when any communication is made, or there 
 being apparently no motive at all, when none 
 is made. Where any previous attachment has 
 subsisted, we need seek no further for an im- 
 pelling cause ; but, in other cases, this im- 
 pelling cause must probably be sought in the 
 earthly rapport still subsisting and the urgent 
 desire of the spirit to manifest itself and 
 establish a communication where its thoughts 
 and affections still reside ; and we must con- 
 sider that, provided there be no law of God 
 prohibiting its revisiting the earth, which law
 
 THAT AWAITS US. 405 
 
 would of course supersede all other laws, then, 
 as I have before observed, where its thoughts 
 and affections are, it must be also. What is 
 it but our heavy material bodies that prevents 
 us from being where our thoughts are ? But 
 the being near us, and the manifesting itself 
 to us, are two very different things, the latter 
 evidently depending on conditions we do not 
 yet understand. As I am not writing a book 
 on vital magnetism, and there are so many 
 already accessible to every body who chooses to 
 be informed on it, I shall not here enter into the 
 subject of magnetic rapport, it being, I believe, 
 now generally admitted, except by the most 
 obstinate sceptics, that such a relation can be 
 established betwixt two human beings. In 
 what this relation consists, is a more difficult 
 question, but the most rational view ap- 
 pears to be that of a magnetic polarity 
 which is attempted to be explained by two 
 theories the dynamical and the etherial : the 
 one viewing the phenomena as simply the 
 result of the transmission of forces, the other 
 hypothetising an ether which pervades all 
 space, and penetrates all substance, maintaining 
 the connexion betwixt body and soul, and be- 
 twixt matter and spirit. To most minds, this 
 last hypothesis will be the most comprehen-
 
 406 THE FUTURE 
 
 sible ; on which account, since the result would 
 be the same in either case, we may adopt it 
 for the moment ; and there will then be less 
 difficulty in conceiving that the influence or 
 ether of every being or thing, animate or in- 
 animate) must extend beyond the periphery of 
 its own terminations : and that this must be 
 eminently the case where there is animal life, 
 the nerves forming the readiest conductors for 
 this supposed imponderable. The proofs of 
 the existence of this ether are said to be mani- 
 fold, and more especially to be found in the 
 circumstances that every created thing sheds 
 an atmosphere around it, after its kind ; this 
 atmosphere becoming) under certain con- 
 ditions, perceptible or even visible, as in the 
 instances of electric fish, &c., the fascinations 
 of serpents, the influence of human beings 
 upon plants, and vice versa ; and finally, the 
 phenomena of animal magnetism, and the un- 
 doubted fact, to which I myself can bear wit- 
 ness, that the most ignorant girls, when in a 
 state of soirinambulismj have been known to 
 declare that they saw their magnetiser sur- 1 
 rounded by a halo of light; audit is doubtless 
 this halo of light, that, from their being strongly 
 magnetic men, has frequently been observed 
 to surround the heads of saints and eminently
 
 THAT AWAITS US. 407 
 
 holy persons: the temperament that produced 
 the internal fervour, causing the visible mani- 
 festation of it. By means of this ether, or 
 force, a never-ceasing motion and an inter- 
 communication is sustained betwixt all created 
 things, and betwixt created things and their 
 Creator, who sustains them and creates them 
 ever anew, by the constant exertion of his 
 Divine will, of which this is the messenger 
 and the agent, as it is betwixt our will and our 
 own bodies j and without this sustaining will, 
 so exerted, the whole would fall away, dissolve 
 and die ; for it is the life of the universe. 
 That all inanimate objects emit an influence, 
 greater or less, extending beyond their own 
 peripheries is established by their effects on 
 various susceptible individuals, as well as on 
 somnainbules ; and thus there exists a uni- 
 versal polarity and rapport, which is however 
 stronger betwixt certain organisms ; and every 
 being stands in a varying relation of positive 
 and negative to every other. 
 
 With regard to these theories, however, 
 where there is so much obscurity, even in the 
 language, I do not wish to insist ; more espe- 
 cially as I am fully aware that this subject 
 may be discussed in a manner much more con- 
 gruous with the dynamical spirit of the philo-
 
 408 THE FUTURE 
 
 sophy of this century : but, in the meanwhile, 
 as either of the causes alluded to is capable 
 of producing the effects, we adopt the hypo- 
 thesis of an all-pervading ether, as the one 
 most easily conceived. 
 
 Admitting this then to be the case, we begin 
 to have some notion of the modus operand} , by 
 which a spirit may manifest itself to us, whether 
 to our internal universal sense, or even to our 
 sensuous organs ; and we also find one stum- 
 bling block removed out of our way, namely, 
 that it shall be visible or even audible to one 
 person and not to another, or at one time and 
 not at another ; for by means of this ether, or 
 force, we are in communication with all spirit, 
 as well as with all matter ; and since it is the 
 vehicle of will, a strong exertion of will may 
 reinforce its influence to a degree far beyond 
 our ordinary conceptions : but man is not ac- 
 quainted with his own power, and has conse- 
 quently no faith in his own will : nor is it 
 probably the design of Providence, in ordinary 
 cases, that he should. He cannot therefore 
 exert it ; if he could, he " might remove 
 mountains." Even as it is, we know some- 
 thing of the power of will in its effect on other 
 organisms, as exhibited by certain strong- 
 willed individuals ; also in popular movements, /
 
 THAT AWAITS US. 409 
 
 and more manifestly in the influence and far- 
 working of the magnetiser on his patient. 
 The power of will, like the seeing of the 
 spirit, is latent in our nature, to be developed 
 in God's own time ; but meanwhile, slight ex- 
 amples are found, shooting up here and there, 
 to keep alive in man the consciousness that 
 he is a spirit, and give evidence of his divine 
 origin. 
 
 What especial laws may appertain to this 
 supersensuous domain of nature, of course we 
 cannot know, and it is therefore impossible for 
 us to pronounce how far a spirit is free, or not 
 free, at all times to manifest itself; and we 
 can, therefore, at present, advance no reason 
 for these manifestations not being the rule 
 instead of the exception. The law which 
 restrains more frequent intercourse, may, for 
 anything we know to the contrary, have its 
 relaxations and its limitations, founded in 
 nature ; and a rapport with, or the power of 
 acting on, particular individuals, may arise 
 from causes of which we are equally ignorant. 
 Undoubtedly, the receptivity of the corporeal 
 being is one of the necessary conditions, 
 whilst, on the part of the incorporeal, the will is 
 at once the cause and the agent that produces 
 the effect; whilst attachment, whether to 
 
 VOL. I. 2 N
 
 410 THE FUTURE 
 
 individuals or to the lost joys of this world, is 
 the motive. The happy spirits in whom this 
 latter impulse is weak, and who would float 
 away into the glorious light of the pure moral 
 law, would have little temptation to return ; 
 and at least would only be brought back by 
 their holy affections or desire to serve mankind. 
 The less happy, clinging to their dear cor- 
 poreal life, would hover nearer to the earth ; 
 and I do question much whether the often 
 ridiculed idea of the mystics, that there is a 
 moral weight, as well as a moral dark ness, be 
 not founded in truth. We know very well 
 that even these substantial bodies of ours, are, 
 to our own sensations (and, very possibly, if 
 the thing cou}d be tested, would prove to be 
 in fact) lighter or heavier, according to the 
 lightness or heaviness of the spirit terms used 
 figuratively, but perhaps capable of a literal 
 interpretation ; and thus the common idea of 
 up and down, as applied to Heaven or Hell, 
 is founded in truth, though not mathematically 
 correct, we familiarly using the words up and 
 down to express farther or nearer, as regards 
 the planet on which we live. 
 
 Experience seems to justify this view of the 
 case ; for, supposing the phenomena I am 
 treating of to be facts, and not spectral
 
 THAT AWAITS US. 411 
 
 illusions, all tradition shows that the spirits 
 most frequently manifested to man, have been 
 evidently not in a state of bliss ; whilst, when 
 bright ones appeared, it has been to serve 
 him ; and hence the old persuasion that they 
 were chiefly the wicked that haunted the 
 earth, and hence, also, the foundation for the 
 belief that not only the murderer, but the mur- 
 dered, returned to vex the living ; and the 
 just view, that in taking away life the injury 
 is not confined to the body, but extends to 
 the surprised and angry soul, which is 
 
 " Cut off, even in the blossom of its sin, 
 Unhousel'd, disappointed, unaneal'd; 
 No reckoning made, but sent to its account 
 With all its imperfections on its head." 
 
 It seems also to be gathered from experience, 
 that those whose lives have been rendered 
 wretched, " rest not in their graves," at least, 
 several accounts I have met with, as well as 
 tradition, countenance this view ; and this 
 may originate in the fact, that cruelty and ill- 
 usage frequently produce very pernicious 
 effects on the mind of the sufferer, in many 
 instances inspiring, not resignation or a pious 
 desire for death, but resentment, and an eager 
 longing for a fair share of earthly enjoyment.
 
 412 THE FUTURE 
 
 Supposing, also, the feelings and prejudices of 
 the earthly life to accompany this dispossessed 
 soul for, though the liberation from the body 
 inducts it into certain privileges inherent in 
 spirit, its moral qualities remain as they were, 
 as the tree falls, so it shall lie supposing, 
 therefore, that these feelings, and prejudices, 
 and recollections of its past life, are carried 
 with it, we see, at once, why the discontented 
 spirits of the Heathen world could not rest 
 till their bodies had obtained sepulture, why 
 the buried money should torment the soul of 
 the miser, and why the religious opinions, 
 whatever they may have been, believed in the 
 flesh, seem to survive with the spirit. There 
 are two remarkable exceptions, however, and 
 these are precisely such as might be expected. 
 Those who, during their corporeal life, have 
 not believed in a future state, return to warn 
 their friends against the same error. "There 
 is another world," said the brother of the 
 young lady who appeared to her in the Ca- 
 thedral of York, on the day he was drowned ; 
 and there are several similar instances re- 
 corded. The belief that this life " is the be-all 
 and the end-all here," is a mistake that death 
 must instantly rectify. The other exception 
 I allude to is, that that toleration, of which,
 
 THAT AWAITS US, 413 
 
 unfortunately, we see much less than is de- 
 sirable in this world, seems happily to prevail 
 in the next ; for, amongst the numerous nar- 
 rations I meet with, in which the dead have 
 returned to ask the prayers or the services of 
 the living-, they do not seem, as will be seen 
 by and by, to apply by any means exclusively, 
 to members of their own church. The atlratt 
 which seems to guide their selection of indi- 
 viduals, is evidently not of a polemical nature. 
 The pure worship of God, and the inexorable 
 moral law, are what seem to prevail in the 
 other world, and not the dogmatic theology 
 which makes so much of the misery of this. 
 
 There is a fundamental truth in all religious ; 
 the real end of all is morality, however 
 the means may be mistaken, and however 
 corrupt, selfish, ambitious, and sectarian the 
 mass of their teachers may, and generally do, 
 become ; whilst the effect of prayer, in what- 
 ever form, or to whatever ideal of the Deity, 
 it may 'be offered, provided that offering be 
 honestly and earnestly made, is precisely the 
 same to the supplicant and in its results. 
 
 I have reserved the following story, which 
 is not a fiction, but the relation of an undoubted 
 and well-attested fact, till the present chapter, 
 2 N 5
 
 414 THE FUTURE 
 
 fis being particularly applicable to this branch 
 of my subject. 
 
 Some ninety years ago, there flourished in Glas- 
 gow a club of young men, which, from the ex- 
 treme profligacy of its members and the licen- 
 tiousness of their orgies, was commonly called 
 the Hell Club. Besides their nightly or weekly 
 meetings, they held one grand annual satur- 
 nalia, in which each tried to excel the other 
 in drunkenness and blasphemy ; and on these 
 occasions there was no star amongst them whose 
 lurid light was more conspicuous than that of 
 young Mr. Archibald B., who, endowed with 
 brilliant talents and a handsome person, had 
 held out great promise in his boyhood, and 
 raised hopes, which had been completely frus- 
 trated by his subsequent reckless dissipations. 
 One morning, after returning from this 
 annual festival, Mr. Archibald B. having 
 retired to bed, dreamt the following dream : 
 He fancied that he himself was mounted on 
 a favourite black horse, that he always rode, 
 and that he was proceeding towards his own 
 . house, then a country seat embowered by trees, 
 and situated upon a hill, now entirely built 
 over, and forming part of the city, when a 
 stranger, whom the darkness of night 
 prevented his distinctly discerning, suddenly
 
 THAT AWAITS US. 415 
 
 seized his horse's rein, saying, " You must go 
 with me!" 
 
 "And who are you?" exclaimed the young 
 man, with a volley of oaths, whilst he struggled 
 to free himself. 
 
 " That you will see by and by," returned 
 the other, in a tone that excited unaccount- 
 able terror in the youth, who plunging his 
 spurs into his horse, attempted to fly. But in 
 vain : however fast the animal flew, the 
 stranger was still beside him, till at length in 
 his desperate efforts to escape, the rider was 
 thrown, but instead of being dashed to the 
 earth, as he expected, he found himself falling 
 falling falling still, as if sinking into the 
 bowels of the earth. 
 
 At length, a period being put to this mys- 
 terious descent, he found breath to enquire 
 of his companion, who was still beside him, 
 whither they were going ; " Where am I ? 
 Where are you taking me ?" he exclaimed. 
 
 " To Hell !" replied the stranger, and imme- 
 diately interminable echoes repeated the fearful 
 sound, " To Hell ! to Hell ! to Hell!'* 
 
 At length a light appeared, which soon 
 increased to a blaze ; but, instead of the cries, 
 and groans, and lamentings, the terrified tra- 
 veller expected, nothing met his ear but sounds
 
 4*6 THE FUTURE 
 
 of music, mirth, and jollity; and he found 
 himself at the entrance of a superb building-, 
 far excee'ding any he had seen constructed by 
 human hands. Within, too, what a scene ! 
 No amusement, employment, or pursuit of man 
 en earth, but was here being carried on with 
 a vehemence that excited his unutterable 
 amazement. " There the young and lovely 
 still swam through the mazes of the giddy 
 dance ! There the panting steed still bore his 
 brutal rider through the excitements of the 
 goaded race ! There, over the midnight bowl, 
 the intemperate still drawled out the wanton 
 song or maudlin blasphemy ! The gam- 
 bler plied for ever his endless game, and 
 the slaves of Mammon toiled through eternity 
 their bitter task ; whilst all the magnificence 
 of earth paled before that which now met his 
 view !" 
 
 He soon perceived that he was amongst old 
 acquaintance, whom he knew to be dead, and 
 each he observed, was pursuing the object, 
 whatever it was, that had formerly engrossed 
 him ; when, finding himself relieved of the pre- 
 sence of his unwelcome conductor, he ventured 
 to address his former friend Mrs. D., whom he 
 saw sitting, as had been her wont on earth, 
 absorbed at loo, requesting her to rest from the
 
 THAT AWAITS US. 317 
 
 game, and introduce him to the pleasures of 
 the place, which appeared to him to he very 
 unlike what he had expected, and, indeed, an 
 extremely agreeable one. But, with a cry of 
 agony, she answered, that there was no rest 
 in Hell ; that they must ever toil on at those 
 very pleasures ; and innumerable voices echoed 
 through the interminable vaults, " There is no 
 rest in Hell !" Whilst, throwing open their 
 vests, each disclosed in his bosom an ever- 
 burning flame ! These, they said, were the 
 pleasures of Hell ; their choice on earth was 
 now their inevitable doom ! In the midst of 
 the horror this scene inspired, his conductor 
 returned, and, at his earnest entreaty, restored 
 him again to earth ; but, as he quitted him, 
 he said, " Remember ! In a year and a day 
 we meet again P' 
 
 At this crisis of his dream, the sleeper 
 awoke, feverish and ill ; and, whether from the 
 effect of the dream, or of his preceding orgies, 
 he was so unwell as to be obliged to keep his 
 bed for several days, during which period he 
 had time for many serious reflections, which 
 terminated in a resolution to abandon the 
 club and his licentious companions altogether. 
 
 He was no sooner well, however, than they 
 flocked around him, bent on recovering so valu-
 
 418 THE FUTURE 
 
 able a member of their society ; and having 
 wrung from him a confession of the cause of his 
 defection, which, as may be supposed, appeared 
 to them eminently ridiculous, they soon con- 
 trived to make him ashamed of his good reso- 
 lutions; He joined them again, resumed his 
 former course of life, and when the annual 
 saturnalia came round, he found himself with 
 his glass in his hand at the table, when the 
 president, rising to make the accustomed 
 speech, began with saying, ''Gentleman: 
 This being leap-year, it is a year and a day 
 since our last anniversary, &c. &c." The words 
 struck upon the young man's ear like a knell ; 
 but ashamed to expose his weakness to the 
 jeers of his companions, he sat out the feast, 
 plying himself with wine, even more liberally 
 than usual, in order to drown his intrusive 
 thoughts ; till, in the gloom of a winter's 
 morning, he mounted his horse to ride home. 
 Some hours afterwards, the horse was found 
 with his saddle and bridle on, quietly grazing 
 by the road-side, about half-way between the 
 city and Mr. B.'s house ; whilst a few yards 
 off, lay the corpse of his master. 
 
 Now, as I have said, in introducing this 
 story, it is no fiction : the circumstance hap- 
 pened as here related. An account of it was
 
 THAT AWAITS US. 419 
 
 published at the time, but the copies were 
 bought up by the family. Two or three how- 
 ever were preserved, and the narrative has 
 been re-printed. 
 
 The dream is evidently of a symbolical 
 character ; and accords in a very remarkable 
 degree with the conclusions to be drawn from 
 the sources I have above indicated. The in- 
 terpretation seems to be, that the evil passions 
 and criminal pursuits which have been in- 
 dulged in here become our curse hereafter. I 
 do not mean to imply that the ordinary amuse- 
 ments of life are criminal ; far from it. There 
 is no harm in dancing, nor in playing at loo, 
 either ; but if people make these things the 
 whole business of their lives, and think of no- 
 thing else, cultivating no higher tastes, nor 
 forming no higher aspirations, what sort of 
 preparation are they making for another world ? 
 I can hardly imagine that anybody would 
 wish to be doing these things to all eternity, 
 the more especially that it is most frequently 
 ennui that drives their votaries into excesses, 
 even here; but if they have allowed their 
 minds to be entirely absorbed in such frivolities 
 and trivialties, surely they cannot expect that 
 God will, by a miracle, suddenly obliterate 
 these tastes and inclinations, and inspire them
 
 420 THE FUTURE THAT AWAITS US. 
 
 with others better suited to their new con- 
 dition ! It was their business to do that for 
 themselves, whilst here ; and such a process 
 of preparation is not in the slightest degree 
 inconsistent with the enjoyment of all manner 
 of harmless pleasures ; on the contrary, it 
 gives the greatest zest to them ; for a life, 
 in which there is nothing serious, in which 
 all is play and diversion, is, beyond all 
 doubt, next to a life of active, persevering 
 wickedness, the saddest thing under the sun ! 
 But let everybody remember, that we see in 
 nature no violent transitions ; everything ad- 
 vances by almost insensible steps, at least 
 everything that is to endure, and therefore 
 to expect that because they have quitted their 
 fleshly bodies, which they always knew were 
 but a temporary appurtenance, doomed to 
 perish and decay, they themselves are to 
 undergo a sudden and miraculous conversion 
 and purification, which is to elevate them 
 into fit companions for the angels of Heaven, 
 and the Blessed that have passed away, is 
 surely one of the most inconsistent, unreason- 
 able, and pernicious errors that mankind ever 
 indulged in !
 
 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CASE OF COLONEL TOWNSHEND. 
 
 WHILST this volume is going through the 
 press, I find, from the account of Dr. Cheyne, 
 who attended him, that Colonel Townshend's 
 own way of describing the phenomenon to 
 which he was subject, was, that he could " die 
 or expire when he pleased ; and yet, by an 
 effort, or somehow, he could come to life again." 
 He performed the experiment in the presence 
 of three medical men, one of whom kept his 
 hand on his heart, another held his wrist, 
 and the third placed a looking-glass before his 
 lips, and they found that all traces of respira- 
 tion and pulsation gradually ceased, insomuch 
 VOL. i. 2 o
 
 422 CASE OF COLONEL TOWNSHEND. 
 
 that, after consulting about his condition for 
 some time, they were leaving the room, per- 
 suaded that he was really dead, when signs of 
 life appeared, and he slowly revived. He did 
 not die whilst repeating this experiment. 
 
 This reviving "by an effort or somehow," 
 seems to be better explained by the hypothesis 
 I have suggested than by any other ; namely 
 that, as in the case of Mr. Holloway, men- 
 tioned in the same chapter, his spirit, or soul, 
 was released from his body, but a sufficient 
 rapport maintained to re-unite them. 
 
 END OF VOLUME I. 

 
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