Latest / The Book of Dreams and Ghosts / Chapter V

Transcript

Chapter V · The Book of Dreams and Ghosts

0:04
Chapter five of the Book of Dreams and Ghosts. This is a LibriVox recording.
0:10
All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to
0:15
volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Read by Alexandra Baton Bailey. The
0:23
Book of Dreams and Ghosts by Andrew Lang Chapter five, Spirits of the Living,
0:32
Mistakes of identity followed by arrival of real person arrivals Mark Twain's Phantom Lady,
0:42
Phantom Dogcart influence of expectant attention, Goethe Shelley, The Wraith of the
0:51
Serena Queen, Elizabeth's Wraith, second Sight case at Bellachulish experiments in sending wraiths,
1:00
an astral body, evidence disgust, Miss Russell's case, Spirits of the
1:07
Dying Mayori examples, theory of chance coincidence in Tavistock Place, the Winyard Wraith,
1:21
Lord Brogham's Wraith, Lord Brigham's logic, the Dying Mother, comparison with
1:29
the astral body, the vision of the Bride, Animals as affected by the
1:34
supposed presence of apparitions examples transition to the appearances of the dead. Spirits of
1:44
the Living is the Highland term for appearances of people who are alive and well
1:51
but elsewhere. The common Highland belief is that they show themselves to the second
1:57
sighted persons very frequently before the arrival of a stranger or a visitor, expected
2:04
or unexpected. Probably many readers have had the experience of meeting an acquaintance in
2:10
the street. He passes us, and within one hundred yards we again meet
2:16
and talk with our friend. When he is a very market appearance, or
2:23
has any strong peculiarity, the experience is rather perplexing. Perhaps a few bits
2:30
of hallucination are sprinkled over a real object. This ordinary event leads to what
2:38
are called arrivals. That's when a person is seen, heard, and perhaps
2:45
spoken to in a place to which he is traveling, but whether he has
2:51
not yet arrived. Mark Twain gives an instance in his own experience. At
2:59
a large crowded reception, he saw approaching him into throng a lady who he
3:05
known and liked many years before. When she was near him, he lost
3:10
sight of her, but met her at supper, dressed as he had seen
3:15
her in the levee. At that moment. She was traveling by railway to
3:21
the town in which he was a large number of these cases had been printed.
3:28
In one case, a gentleman and lady from their window saw his brother
3:32
and sister in law drive past with a horse, which they knew had not
3:38
been out for some weeks. The seers were presently joined by the visitor's daughter,
3:45
who had met the party on the road, she having just left them
3:50
at their house. Ten minutes later the real pair arrived, horse and all.
4:00
This last affair is one of several tales of phantom coaches not only heard
4:05
but seen, the coach being a coach of the living. In eighteen ninety
4:12
three, the author was staying at a Highland castle when one of the ladies
4:16
observed to her nephew, so you and Susan did drive in the dog cart.
4:23
I saw you pass my window. No we didn't, but we spoke
4:30
of doing it. The lady then mentioned minute details of the dress and attitudes
4:36
of her relations as they passed her window where the drive turned from the hall
4:43
door through the park, but in fact no such journey had been made.
4:48
Doctor hack Took published the story of the arrival of Doctor Bowse at his house
4:57
a quarter of an hour before he came. The people who saw him supposing
5:02
him to be in Paris. When a person is seen in arrival cases before
5:11
he arrives, the affair is not so odd if he's expected. Undoubtedly,
5:17
expectation does sometimes conjure up phanfasms, and the author once saw as he supposed
5:25
a serious accident occur, which in fact did not take place, though it
5:30
seemed unavoidable. Curiously enough, the creation of phanfasms by expectant attention seems to
5:39
be rare where ghosts are expected. The author has slept in several haunted houses,
5:46
but has never seen what he was led to expect. In many instances,
5:50
as in The Lady in Black, a ghost who's a frequent visitor is
5:57
never seen when people watch for her. Among the many persons who have delusions
6:03
as to the presence of the dead, very few have been hoping, praying
6:10
for, and expecting them. I look for ghosts, but none will force
6:16
their way to me. Tills falsely said that there was ever intercourse between the
6:23
living and the dead. For surely then I should have sight of him.
6:29
I wait for day and night with love and longings infinite. The affliction of
6:36
Margaret has been the affliction of most of us. There are curious historical examples
6:44
of these appearances of the living. Goethe declares that he once met at a
6:49
certain place in a certain dress, and several years later found himself there In
6:56
that costume. Shelley was seen by his friends at Larisi to pass along a
7:03
balcony, hence there was no exit. However, he could not be found
7:10
there. The story of the Wraith of Catherine the Great is variously narrated.
7:17
We give it as told by an eyewitness, the Comte de Ribaupierre, about
7:23
eighteen sixty two to Lady Napier at Etrich. The count in eighteen sixty two
7:30
was a very old man, and more than thirty years have passed since he
7:35
gave the tale to Lady Napier, whose memory retains it in the following form,
7:44
The Wraith of the Serena. In the exercise of his duties as one
7:49
of the pages in waiting, Ribaupierre followed one day his August mistress into the
7:57
throne room of the palace. When the Empress, accompanied by the high officers
8:01
of her court and the ladies of her household, came in sight of the
8:07
chair of state which she was about to occupy, she suddenly stopped and to
8:13
her horror and astonished awe of her courtiers, she pointed to a visionary being
8:20
seated on the imperial throne. The occupant of the chair was an exact counterpart
8:26
of herself. All saw it and trembled, but none dared move towards the
8:31
mysterious presentiment of their sovereign. After a moment of dead silence, the Great
8:37
Catherine raised her voice and ordered her guard to advance and fire on the apparition.
8:43
The order was obeyed. A mirror beside the throne was shattered. The
8:48
vision had disappeared, and the Empress, with no sign of emotion, took
8:52
the chair from which her semblance had passed away. It is a striking par
9:00
barrack scene. Spirits of the living of this kind are common enough. The
9:05
Highland's second side generally means a view of an event or accident sometime before its
9:13
occurrence. Thus, an old man was sitting with a little boy on a
9:16
fell tree beside a steep track in a quarry at Ballachulish. Suddenly he jerked
9:24
the boy to one side threw himself down on the further side of the tree.
9:30
While the boy stared at the old man, slowly rose, saying the
9:35
spirits of the living are strong today. He had seen a massive rock dashing
9:41
along, killing some quarrymen tearing down the path. The accident occurred the next
9:48
day. It is needless to dwell on second sight, which is not peculiar
9:54
to the Celts, though the Highlanders talk more about it than others. Appearances
10:00
of the living but absent, whether caused by some mental action of the person
10:05
who appears or not, are at least unconscious on his part. But a
10:11
few cases occur in which a living person is said, by a voluntary exertion
10:16
of mind, to have made himself visible to a friend at a distance.
10:22
One case is vouched for by Baron von Schrank Nutzig, a German psychologist,
10:28
who himself made the experiment with success. Others are narrated by doctor Jibuto.
10:35
A curious tale is told by several persons as follows. Mister Sparks and mister
10:43
Cleeve, young men of twenty and nineteen, were accustomed to mesmerize each other
10:50
in their dormitory at Portsmouth, where they were students of naval engineering. Mister
10:56
Sparks simply stared into mister Cleve's eyes as he lay on his bed till he
11:03
went off. The experiment seemed so curious that witnesses were called mister Darley and
11:09
mister Thurgood. On Friday, fifteenth January eighteen eighty six, mister Cleeve determined
11:18
to try to see Winniesley, a young lady at Wandsworth, to whom he
11:24
was in the habit of writing every Sunday. He also intended, if possible,
11:28
to make her see him. On awakening. He said that he'd seen
11:33
her in her dining room of her house, that she had seemed to grow
11:37
restless, had looked at him, and then had covered her face with her
11:39
hands. On Monday, he tried again, and he thought he'd frightened her,
11:46
as after looking at him for a few minutes, she fell back in
11:48
her chair and a kind of faint. Her little brother was in the room
11:52
with her at the time. On Tuesday next the young lady wrote, telling
11:56
mister Cleeve that she'd been starved by seeing him on Friday evening this and ere
12:03
and again on Monday evening much clearer, when she nearly fainted. All this,
12:09
mister Sparks wrote to mister Gurney in the same week. He was inviting
12:15
instructions on hypnotic experiments and launched a letter into space, having read something vague
12:22
about mister Gurney's studies in the newspapers. The letter, after some adventures,
12:28
arrived on fifteenth March. Mister Cleeve wrote his account. Mister Darley and mister
12:35
Thurgood corroborated as to their presence during the trance and as to mister Cleve's statement
12:41
when he awoke. Mister Cleave added that he made experiments for five nights running
12:48
before seeing the lady. The young Lady's letter of nineteenth January eighteen eighty six
12:54
is also produced postmarked Portsmouth, teth January, but the lady mentions her first
13:03
vision of mister Cleve as on last Tuesday, not Friday, and her second
13:11
while she was alone with her little brother at supper on Monday. I was
13:15
so frightened I nearly fainted. These are all young people. It may be
13:22
said that all five were concerned in a complicated hoax on mister Burney. Nor
13:26
would such a hoax argue any unusual moral obliquity surtees of Mainsforth. In other
13:33
respects, an honorable man took in Sir Walter Scott with forged ballads, and
13:41
never undeceived. His friend Southey played off a hoax with his book The Doctor
13:48
Hog. Lockhart and Wilson, with Alan Cunningham, and many others were constantly
13:54
engaged in such mystifications, and a ghost hunter might seem a fair but the
14:01
very discrepancy in missus letter is a proof of fairness. Her first vision of
14:07
mister Cleeve was on Tuesday last. Mister Cleve's first impression of success was on
14:13
the Friday following, but he'd been making the experiment for five nights previous,
14:20
including the Tuesday of missus letter. Had the affair been a hoax, miss
14:26
would either have been requested by him to rewrite the letter, putting Friday for
14:31
Tuesday, or, what is simpler, mister Sparks would have adopted her version
14:37
written Tuesday and plays a Friday. In his first letter to mister Gurney.
14:41
The young lady naturally requested mister Cleeve not try his experiment on her again.
14:48
A similar case is that of Missus Russell, who tried, successfully, when
14:52
awake and in Scotland, to appear to one of her family in Germany.
14:56
The sister corroborates and says, pre don't come appearing to me again. These
15:01
spirits of the living lead to the subject of spirits of the dying. No
15:07
kind of tale is so common as that of dying people appearing at a distance.
15:13
Hundreds have been conscientiously published. The belief is prevalent among the Mayori of
15:18
New Zealand, where the apparition is regarded as proof of death. Now there
15:26
is nothing in Savage philosophy to account for this opinion of the Mayori's. A
15:31
man's spirit leaves his body in dreams, Savages think, and as dreaming is
15:37
infinitely more common than death, the Mayoris should argue that the appearance is that
15:45
of a man's spirit wandering in his sleep. However, they, like many
15:50
Europeans, associated men's apparition with his death. Not being derived from their philosophy,
15:58
this habit may be deduced from their experience, as there are undeniably many
16:03
examples of hallucinatory appearances of persons in perfect health and ordinary circumstances. The question
16:12
has been asked whether there are more cases of an apparition coinciding with death than
16:19
according to the doctrine of chances, there ought to be. Out of about
16:26
eighteen thousand answers to questions on this subject has been deduced the conclusion that the
16:33
deaths do coincide with the apparitions to an extent beyond mere accident. Even if
16:38
we had an empty hallucination for every case coinciding with death, we could not
16:45
set the coincidence down to mere chance. As well. Might we say that
16:52
if at the end of an hour's rifle practice at long distance range, the
16:57
record shows that for every shot that has hit the bull's eye, another has
17:04
missed the target. Therefore, the shots that hit the target did so by
17:08
accident. But as empty hallucinations are more likely to be forgotten than those which
17:17
coincide with the death. As exaggeration creeps in is that collectors of evidence are
17:23
naturally inclined to select and question people whom they know to have a good story
17:29
to tell. The evidence connecting apparitions, voices, and so on with deaths
17:34
is not likely to be received with favor. One thing must be remembered as
17:40
affecting the theory that coincide between the wraith and the death is purely an accident.
17:48
Everybody dreams, and out of innumerable dreams of mankind, a few must
17:53
hit the mark by flute. But hallucinations are not nearly so common as dreams.
18:00
Perhaps roughly speaking, one person in ten has had what he believes to
18:07
be a waking hallucination, therefore, so to speak, compared with dreams,
18:14
But a small number of shots of this kind are fired. Therefore bullseyes.
18:19
The coincidence between an appearance and a death are infinitely less likely to be due
18:26
to chance in the case of waking hallucinations than in the case of dreams,
18:33
which all mankind are firing off every night of their lives. Stories of these
18:38
coincidences between appearances and deaths are as common as they are dull. Most people
18:45
come across them in the circle of their friends. They are all very much
18:52
alike and make for tedious reading. We give a few which have some picturesque
18:56
features. In Tavistock Place, in the later part of the autumn of eighteen
19:04
seventy eight, between half past three and four in the morning, I was
19:10
leisurely walking home from the house of a sick friend. A middle aged woman,
19:15
apparently a nurse, was slowly following, going in the same direction.
19:21
We crossed Tavistock Square together and emerged simultaneously into Tavistock Place. The streets and
19:30
squares were deserted. The morning bright and calm, my health excellent, nor
19:37
did I suffer from anxiety or fatigue. A man suddenly appeared, striding up
19:45
the Tavistock Place, coming towards me and going in a direction opposite to mine.
19:49
When first seen, he was standing exactly in front of my own door,
19:56
five Tavistock Place. Young and ghastly pale, he was dressed in evening
20:03
clothes, evidently made by a foreign tailor. Tall and slim, he walked
20:10
with long, measured strides, noiselessly. The tall white hat covered thickly with
20:18
black crape, and an eye glass completed the costume of his strange form.
20:25
The moonbeams falling on the corpselike features, revealed a face well known to me,
20:30
that of a friend and relative, the soul and only person in the
20:34
street beyond myself at this being the woman already alluded to, she stopped abruptly,
20:44
as if spellbound. Then rushing towards the man, she gazed intently and
20:49
with horror unmistakable, on his face, which was now upturned to the heavens,
20:56
and smiling ghastly, she indulged in her strange contemplation, but during very
21:03
few seconds, then with extraordinary and unexpected speed for her weight and age,
21:11
she ran away with a terrific shriek and yell. This woman never have I
21:17
seen or heard of since, and but for her presence I could have explained
21:22
the incident, called it say, subjection of the mental powers to the domination
21:27
of physical reflex action, and the men's presence could have been termed a false
21:33
impression on the retina. A week after this event, news of this very
21:37
friend's death reached me. It occurred on the morning in question from the family,
21:42
I learned that, according to the rights of the Greek Church and the
21:47
custom of the country he resided in, he was buried in his evening clothes
21:52
made abroad by a foreign tailor, and strange to say, he wore gooshes
21:56
over his boots, according all also to the custom of the country he died
22:02
in. When in England he lived in Tavistock Place and occupied my rooms during
22:08
my absence the Winyard Race in the month of November seventeen eighty five or seventeen
22:15
eighty six, Sir John Sherbrooke and Colonel Winyard were sitting before dinner in their
22:22
barrack room at Sydney Cove in America. It was duskish, and a candle
22:27
was placed on a table A little bit at a distance. A figure dressed
22:33
in plain clothes and a good round hat passed gently between the above people and
22:41
a fire. While passing. Sir J. Sherbrook exclaimed, God, bless
22:47
my soul. Who's that? Almost at the same moment, Colonel W said,
22:52
that's my brother, John Winyard, and I am sure he's dead.
22:56
Colonel W was much adjued and cried and sobbed a great deal. Sir John
23:03
said, the fellow had a devilish good hat. I wish I had it.
23:07
Hats were not to be got there, and theirs were worn out.
23:12
They immediately got up. Sir John was on crutches, having broken his leg,
23:17
took a candle and went into the bedroom into which the figure had entered.
23:22
They searched the bed and every corner of the room, to no effect.
23:26
The windows were fastened up with mortar. They received no communication from England
23:32
for about five months, when a letter from mister Rush, the surgeon Coldstream
23:38
Guards announced the death of John Winyard. At the moment, as near as
23:44
could be ascertained when the figure appeared. In addition to this extraordinary circumstance,
23:49
Sir John told me that the two years and a half afterwards, he was
23:55
walking with Lily Winyard, a brother of Colonel w in London, and somebody
24:00
on the other side of the way he recognized, he thought, the person
24:03
who'd appeared to him and Colonel Winyard in America. Lily Wynyard said that the
24:10
person pointed out was a mister Eyre Hey, that he and John Winyard were
24:17
frequently mistaken for each other, and that money had actually been paid to mister
24:22
Eyre in mistake. A famous tale of appearance is Lord Brugham. His lordship
24:27
was not reckoned, a precisely voracious man. On the other hand, this
24:33
was not the kind of fable he was likely to tell. He was brought
24:37
up under the regime of common sense on all such subjects. My father was
24:45
very skeptical, he says. To disbelieve Lord Brgham, we must suppose either
24:52
that he wilfully made a false entry into his diary in seventeen ninety nine,
24:57
or that, in preparing his autobiography in eighteen sixty two, he deliberately added
25:03
a falsehood, and then explained his own marvel away Lord Brigham's story. December
25:10
nineteenth, seventeen ninety nine. At one in the morning, arriving at a
25:15
decent inn in Sweden, we decided to stop for the night and found a
25:21
couple of comfortable rooms. Tired with the cold of yesterday, I was glad
25:29
to take advantage of a hot bath before I turned in. And here a
25:33
most remarkable thing happened to me, so remarkable that I must tell the story
25:40
from the beginning. After I left the high school, I went with G,
25:45
my most intimate friend, to attend the classes in the university. We
25:51
actually committed the folly of drawing up an agreement written with our blood, to
25:56
the effect that whichever of us died the first or should appear to the other,
26:02
and thus save any doubts we had entertained of the life after death.
26:10
G went to India years past, and says Lord Brigham, I had nearly
26:18
forgotten his existence. I had taken, as I have said, a warm
26:22
bath, and while lying in it and enjoying the comfort of the heat,
26:27
I turned my head around, looking towards the chair on which I had deposited
26:33
my clothes as I was about to get out of the bath. On the
26:37
chair sat G, looking calmly at me. How I got out of the
26:44
bath I know not, But on recovering my senses I found myself sprawling on
26:48
the floor. The apparitioner, or whatever it was that had taken the likeness
26:56
of G, had disappeared. So strongly was I affected by it that I
27:02
have here written down the whole history, with the date nineteen December, and
27:07
all the particulars as they are now fresh before me. No doubt I had
27:12
fallen asleep. He has just said he was awake and on the point of
27:17
leaving the bath, and that the appearance presented so distinctly to my eyes was
27:23
a dream. I cannot for a moment doubt. On sixteenth October eighteen sixty
27:30
two, Lord Burgham copied this extract for his autobiography and says that on his
27:37
arrival in Edinburgh he received a letter from India announcing that G had died on
27:44
nineteen December. He remarks singular coincidence and adds that considering the vast number of
27:52
dreams, the number of coincidences is perhaps fewer than a fair calculation of chances
27:59
would warrant us to expect. This is a concession to common sense and argues
28:06
and ignorance of the fact that sane and apparently waking men may have hallucinations.
28:14
On the theory that we may have in appreciable moments of sleep when we think
28:18
ourselves awake. It's not an ordinary but an extraordinary coincidence that Burgham should have
28:26
had that peculiar moment of the dream of G on the day or night of
28:32
G's death. While the circumstance that he had made a compact with G multiplies
28:38
the odds against accident in a ratio which mathematicians may calculate. Brigham was used
28:45
to dreams like other people, he was not shocked by them. This dream
28:52
produced such a shock that I had no inclination to talk about it, even
28:57
on Burgham's showing then this dream was a thing unique in his experience, and
29:04
not one of the swarm of visions of sleep. Thus, is including it
29:10
among these, while his whole language shows that he himself did not really reckon
29:15
it among these, is an example of the fallacies of common sense. He
29:19
completes his fallacy by saying, oh, it's not much more wonderful than that
29:26
a person whom we had no reason to expect should appear to us at the
29:32
very moment we had been thinking or speaking of them. But Lord Bregham had
29:37
not been speaking or thinking of g there had been nothing to call him to
29:41
my recollection. He says, to give his logic any value, he should
29:48
constantly, when, as far as he knew, awake have had dreams that
29:52
shocked him, then one coincidence would have had no assignable cause, save ordinary
30:00
accident. If floored Brgham fabled in seventeen ninety nine or in eighteen sixty two,
30:07
he did so to make a sensation, and then he tried to undo
30:11
it by arguing that his experience was a thoroughly commonplace affair. We now give
30:17
a very old story, The Dying Mother. If the reader will compare it
30:22
with mister Cleave's case an astral body in this chapter, he'll be struck by
30:26
the resemblance. Mister Cleeve and Missus Joff were both in a trance, both
30:37
wished to see persons at a distance, Both saw, and each was seen,
30:42
Missus Joff by her children's nurse. Mister Cleeve by the person whom he
30:48
wished to see, but not by a small boy who is also present.
30:55
The dying mother, Mary, the wife of John Joff of Rochester, being
31:00
afflicted with a long illness, removed to her father's house at West Mulling,
31:06
about nine miles from her own. There she died on fourth June this present
31:11
year, sixteen ninety one. The day before her departure death, she grew
31:18
very impatiently desirous to see her two children, whom she left at home to
31:25
the care of nurse. She prayed her husband to hire a horse, for
31:29
she must go home and die with the children. She was too ill to
31:33
be moved, but a minister who lives in the town was with her at
31:37
ten o'clock that night, to whom she expressed good hopes in the mercies of
31:44
God and a willingness to die. But she said, it is my misery
31:51
that I cannot see my children. Between one and two o'clock in the morning
31:56
she fell into a trance. One widow turned who watched with her that night,
32:01
said that her eyes were open and fixed, and her jaw fallen.
32:07
Missus Turner put her hand upon her mouth and nostrils, but could perceive no
32:12
breath. She thought her to be in a fit and doubted whether she were
32:16
dead or alive. The next morning, the dying woman told her mother she'd
32:22
been at home with her children. I was with them last night when I
32:27
was asleep. The nurse at Rochester, widow Alexander by name, affirms,
32:32
and said she will take her oath on to before a magistrate, and received
32:37
the sacrement upon it that a little before two o'clock that morning, she saw
32:43
the likeness of the said Mary Joff come out of the next chamber, where
32:50
the elder child lay in a bed by itself, the door being left open,
32:54
and stood by her bedside for about a quarter of an hour. The
32:59
younger child was there lying by her. Her eyes moved and her mouth went,
33:05
but she said nothing. The nurse moreover says that she was perfectly awake.
33:12
It was then daylight, being one of the longest days of the year.
33:16
She sat up in bed and looked steadfastly on the apparition. In that
33:22
time she heard the bridge clock strike two, and a while after said,
33:28
in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, what art thou.
33:34
Thereupon the apparition removed and went away. She slipped on her clothes and
33:38
followed. But what became she cannot tell. Missus Alexander then walked out of
33:45
doors till six. When she persuaded some neighbors to let her in, she
33:52
told her adventure. They failed to persuade her that she had dreamt it.
33:58
On the same day the neighbors, Missus Sweet went to West Mulling saw Missus
34:02
Joff before her death, and heard from Missus Joff's mother the story of the
34:07
daughter's dream of her children. Missus Sweet, not having mentioned the nurse's story
34:13
of the apparition, that poor Missus Joff walked to Rochester and returned undetected a
34:20
distance of eighteen miles is difficult to believe. Goethe has an obittered dictum on
34:28
the possibility of an intercommunion with the aid of ordinary senses between the souls of
34:34
lovers. Something of the kind is indicated in anecdotes of dreams dreamed in common
34:42
by husband and wife. But in such cases it may be urged that the
34:46
same circumstance, or the same noise or other disturbing cause, may beget the
34:52
same dream in both. A better instance is the vision of the Bride Colonel
35:00
Meadow Taylor's writes in the Story of My Life, Volume two page thirty two.
35:07
The determination to live unmarried was the result of a very curious and strange
35:14
incident that befell me during one of my marches to Hyderabad. I have never
35:21
forgotten it, and it returns to this day to my memory with a strangely
35:27
vivid effect that I can neither repel nor explain. I purposely withhold the date
35:32
of the year. In my very early life, I'd been deeply and devotedly
35:38
attached to one in England, and only relinquished the hope of one day winning
35:44
her when the terrible order came out that no furlough to Europe would be granted.
35:50
One evening, I was at the village of deus Kudea after a very
35:57
long afternoon and evening march from Muktu, and I lay down, very weary.
36:04
But the barking of village dogs, the baying of jackals, and over
36:07
fatigue and heat prevented sleep, and I was wide awake and restless. Suddenly,
36:15
from my tent door was open wide I saw the face and figures so
36:22
familiar to me, but looking older and with sad and troubled expressions. The
36:29
dress was white and seemed covered with a profusion of lace and glistened in the
36:34
bright moonlight. The arms were stretched out, and a low plaintive cry,
36:40
do not let me go, Do not let me go, reached me.
36:47
I sprang forward, but the figure recedd, growing fainter and fainter, till
36:53
I could see it no more, but the low plaintive tones still sounded.
37:01
I had run barefoot across the open space where my tents were pitched, very
37:07
much to the astonishment of the sentry on guard. But I returned to my
37:10
tent without speaking to him. I rode to my father. I wished to
37:15
know whether there were any hope for me. He wrote back to me these
37:21
words too late, My dear son. On the very day of the vision
37:24
you described to me, Ay was married. The colonel did not keep his
37:30
determination not to marry for his life. Is edited by his daughter, who
37:35
often heard her father mention the incident precisely in the same manner and exactly as
37:40
it is in the book. If thinking of friends and lovers lost or dead
37:45
could bring their forms and voices before the eye and ear of flesh, there
37:50
would be a world of hallucinations around us. But it wants heaven sent moments
37:57
for this skill and a few bridal nights sent visions in a voice to the
38:01
bed of a wakeful lover far away. Stories of this kind appearances of the
38:07
living or dying really at a distance, might be multiplied to any extent.
38:14
They are all capable of explanation. If we admit the theory of telepathy,
38:19
or a message sent by unknown process from one living man's mind to another,
38:24
where more than one person shares the vision, we may suppose that the influence
38:30
comes directly from A to B, C and D, or comes from A
38:36
to B and is by him unconsciously wired on to B and C, or
38:43
is suggested to them by Bee's conduct or words. In that case, animals
38:49
may be equally affected. Thus, if B seems alarmed, that may frighten
38:54
his dog, or the alarm of dog caused by some noise or tell heard
39:00
or smoke by him may frightened B, C, and D, and make
39:05
one or all of them sea ghosts. Popular opinion is strongly in favor of
39:12
beasts seeing ghosts. The people of Saint Kilda, according to Martin, held
39:16
that cows share the visions of second sighted milkmaids. Horses are said to shy
39:22
on the scene of murders. Scott's horse ran away home when Sir Walter saw
39:29
the boggle near Asheisdale. In a case given later, the dog shut up
39:36
in a room full of unexplained noises, yelled and whined. The same dog,
39:42
an intimate friend of my own, bristled up his hair and growled before
39:46
his master saw the gray Lady. The Reverend J. G. Wood gives
39:52
a case of a cat which nearly went mad when his mistress saw an apparition.
39:59
Jeremy Taylor tells of a dog which got quite used to a ghost that
40:02
often appeared to his master, and used to follow it. In the Lady
40:07
in Black, a dog would jump up and fawn on the ghost, and
40:13
then run away in fright. Mister Wesley's mastiff was much alarmed by the family
40:19
ghost. Not to multiply cases, Dogs and other animals are easily affected by
40:27
whatever it is that makes people think a ghost is present, or by the
40:31
conduct of the human beings on these occasions absurd as the subject appears. There
40:39
are stories of the ghosts of animals. These may be discussed the later.
40:45
Meanwhile, we pass from the appearance of the living or dine to stories of
40:50
appearances of the dead end of chapter five two two