Note 15 — I. SOME OF THE PHENOMENA OF DYING.

I was once told by a near relative of mine—says De Quincey—that having in her childhood fallen into a river, and being on the very verge of death but for the assistance which reached her at the last critical moment, she saw in a moment her whole life, clothed in its forgotten incidents, arrayed before her as in a mirror, not successively, but simultaneously; and she had a faculty developed as suddenly for comprehending the whole and every part. The heroine of this remarkable case, continues De Quincey, was a girl about nine years old; and there can be little doubt that she looked down as far within the crater of death—that awful volcano—as any human being ever can have done that has lived to draw back and to report her experience. Not less than ninety years did she survive this memorable escape, and I may describe her as in all respects a woman of remarkable and interesting qualities. She enjoyed throughout her long life serene and cloudless health; had a masculine understanding; reverenced truth not less than did the Evangelists; and led a life of saintly devotion, such as might have glorified Hilarion or Paul! I mention these traits as characterising her in a memorable extent, that the reader may not suppose himself relying upon a dealer in exaggerations, upon a credulous enthusiast, or upon a careless wielder of language. Forty-five years had intervened between the first time and the last time of her telling me this anecdote, and not one iota had shifted its ground amongst the incidents, nor had any of the most trivial of the circumstances suffered change. How long the child lay in the water was probably never inquired earnestly until the answer had become irrecoverable: for a servant to whose care the child was then confided, had a natural interest in suppressing the whole case. From the child’s own account it would seem that asphyxia must have announced its commencement. A process of struggle and deadly suffocation was passed through half-consciously. This process terminated in a sudden blow apparently on or in the brain, after which there was no pain or conflict: but in an instant succeeded a dazzling rush of light; immediately after which came the solemn apocalypse of the entire past life. (De Quincey’s Works, Edinb., 1862, Vol. I., Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, p. 259.) Sir Dyce Duckworth reminds us that the mental condition of some who have been put to sleep with anæsthetics may throw some light on this matter. “Patients,” says he, “have told us they dreamed they were transported from earth and carried off into space, were supremely happy and at rest: but that on gradually recovering consciousness, they seemed to light back again upon this world, were most reluctant to leave the Elysium they had reached, and to recommence their earthly toils and struggles.” (The Agony of Dying, in Monthly Paper of the Guild of St. Barnabas for Nurses. Vol. iii. p. 81).