FIENDS, GHOSTS, AND SPRITES. (continued 4)

The March number of "Household Words,"[70] for 1853, contains a ghost-story which exhibits another form of the belief, differing from those which we have already dwelt upon, and it is interesting from its comparatively recent occurrence, and from its having to a certain extent received the confirmation of a law-court.

In the colony of New South Wales, at a place called Penrith, distant from Sydney about thirty-seven miles, lived a farmer named Fisher. He was unmarried, about forty-five years old, and his lands and stock were worth not less than £4000. Suddenly Fisher disappeared, and a neighbour, named Smith, gave out that he had gone to England for two or three years, and produced a written document authorizing him to act as his agent during his absence. As Fisher was an eccentric man, this sudden departure did not create much surprise, and it was declared to be "exactly like him."

About six months after Fisher's disappearance, an old man called Ben Weir, who had a small farm near Penrith, and who always drove his own cart to market, was returning from Sydney one night, when he beheld, seated on a rail which bounded the road—Fisher. The night was very dark, and the distance of the fence from the middle of the road was at least twelve yards. Weir, nevertheless, saw Fisher's figure seated on the rail. He pulled his old mare up, and called out, "Fisher, is that you?" No answer was returned, but there, still on the rail, sat the form of the man with whom he had been on the most intimate terms. Weir, who was not drunk, though he had had several glasses of strong liquor, jumped off his cart, and approached the rail. To his surprise, the form vanished.

Weir noticed that the ghost was marked by "a cruel gash" on the forehead, and that there was the appearance of fresh blood about it; and before leaving the spot, he marked it by breaking several branches of a sapling close by.

On returning home he told his story to his wife, who, however, told him that he was drunk, and ridiculed him.

On the following Thursday night, when old Ben was returning from market,—again in his cart,—he saw seated upon the same rail, the identical apparition. He had purposely abstained from drinking that day, and was in the full possession of all his senses.

Weir again told his wife of the apparition, to be again ridiculed by her, and he remarked, "Smith is a bad un! Do you think Fisher would ever have left this country without coming to bid you and me good-bye?"

The next morning Ben waited on a Mr. Grafton, a justice of the peace, who lived near to him, and told his tale. The magistrate was at first disposed to treat the account lightly, but after consideration, he summoned one of the aboriginal natives, and at sunrise met Weir at the place where the apparition had occurred, and which was sufficiently marked by the dead and broken branches of the sapling.

The rail was found to be stained in several places, and the native, without any previous intimation of the object of the search, was directed to examine them, and he shortly pronounced them to be "white man's blood," and searching about, he pointed out a spot whereon a body had been laid. "Not a single shower of rain had fallen for several months previously,—not sufficient to lay even the dust upon the roads. Notwithstanding this, however, the native succeeded in tracking the footsteps of one man to the unfrequented side of a pond at some distance. He gave it as his opinion that another man had been dragged thither. The savage walked round and round the pond, eagerly examining its borders, and the sedges and weeds springing up around it. At first he seemed baffled,—no clue had been washed ashore to show that anything unusual had been sunk in the pond; but having finished this examination, he laid himself down on his face, and looked keenly along the surface of the smooth and stagnant water. Presently he jumped up, uttered a cry peculiar to the natives when gratified by finding some long-sought object, clapped his hands, and pointing to the middle of the pond, to where the decomposition of some sunken substance had produced a slimy coating streaked with prismatic colours, he exclaimed, 'White man's fat!' The pond was immediately searched; and, below the spot indicated, the remains of a body were discovered. A large stone and a rotted silk handkerchief were found near the body; these had been used to sink it."

By the teeth, and buttons upon the waistcoat, the body was identified as that of Fisher. Smith was arrested, and, upon this evidence, tried before the late Sir Francis Forbes, found guilty, sentenced to death, and hung; but previous to the execution, "he confessed that he, and he alone, committed the murder, and that it was upon the very rail where Weir swore that he had seen Fisher's ghost sitting, and that he had knocked out Fisher's brains with a tomahawk."

We quote this story as an interesting example of one of the best and most consistent of the tales of this kind, although it is probable that a more thorough investigation of the circumstances connected with it, would show an origin of a nature similar to that of the "Last Hours of Lord Lyttleton."

Several statements in the story require confirmation, and throw doubt upon the whole.

The assertion that Weir, on a "very dark" night, saw seated upon a rail, at a distance of twelve yards, a resemblance of Fisher which he took to be real, and was not aware of the actual nature of the appearance until he advanced towards it, is a statement too improbable to be worthy of credence unless supported by other and less objectionable evidence; and notwithstanding the extraordinary degree to which the visual and other senses of the aboriginal natives are, as we are aware, often developed, yet that they will enable them to state that an old blood-stain is produced by the blood of a white man, or that an iridescent scum floating at a distance on water is produced by the fat of the white man, are statements which cannot be admitted without strong confirmatory evidence.

It not unfrequently happens that dreams appear to foreshadow events, the occurrence of which could not be anticipated by the reasoning faculties. Many of the instances recorded of this kind are after-conclusions founded upon imperfectly remembered dreams, and are consequently worthless. Such, for example, is the story stated by Mrs. Crowe of a gentleman "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."[71]

Other dreams have received a verification from the natural results of the dreamer's superstitious folly.

Mrs. Crowe has quoted the following example from a continental newspaper:—

"A letter from Hamburg contains the following curious story relative to the verification of a dream. It appears that a locksmith's apprentice, one morning lately, informed his master (Claude Soller), 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 Hamburg. The master laughed at the young man's credulity, 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 resided in the town. The apprentice, after in vain imploring his master to change his intention, was compelled to set out at about eleven o'clock. On arriving at the village of Billwaerder, about halfway between Hamburg 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 the men set out with his young apprentice. The next day the corpse of the latter was conveyed 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 recognized 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, was a native of Billwaerder, and previously to the perpetration of the murder, had always borne an irreproachable character."

It is well known that sensations from without will not only frequently excite dreaming, but will also often determine the character of the dreams. The following story is evidently an example of a dream of this nature.

On the 30th July, 1853, the dead body of a young woman was discovered in a field at Littleport, in the Isle of Ely. There could be little doubt that the woman had been murdered; and at the adjourned inquest held before Mr. W. Marshall, one of the coroners for the isle, on the 29th August, the following extraordinary evidence was given:—

"James Jessop, an elderly respectable-looking labourer, with a face of the most perfect stolidity, and who possessed a most curiously shaped skull, broad and flat at the top, and projecting greatly on each side over the ears, deposed: 'I live about a furlong and a half from where the body was found. I have seen the body of the deceased. I had never seen her before her death. On the night of Friday, the 29th of July, I dreamt three successive times that I heard the cry of murder issuing from near the bottom of a close called Little Ditchment Close (the place where the body was found). The first time I dreamt I heard the cry, it woke me. I fell asleep again, and dreamt the same again. I then woke again, and told my wife. I could not rest; but I dreamt it again after that. I got up between four or five o'clock, but I did not go down to the Close, the wheat and barley in which have since been cut. I dreamt once, about twenty years ago, that I saw a woman hanging in a barn, and on passing the next morning the barn which appeared to me in my dream, I entered, and did find a woman there hanging, and cut her down just in time to save her life. I never told my wife I heard any cries of murder, but I have mentioned it to several persons since. I saw the body on the Saturday it was found. I did not mention my dream to any one till a day or two after that. I saw the field distinctly in my dream, and the trees thereon, but I saw no person in it. On the night of the murder the wind lay from that spot to my house."

"Rhoda Jessop, wife of the last witness, stated that her husband related his dreams to her, on the evening of the day the body was found."[72]

It is highly probable, that in this instance, the screams of the unfortunate woman, borne upon the wind, were the exciting cause of the dreams, and the direction from which the sound came would be sufficient to call up the associated idea of the fields in which the murder occurred. The powerful impression made upon the mind of the man, according to his own account, will sufficiently account for the repetition of the dreams; and the statement that the particulars of the dream were not related until after the finding of the body, must induce a little caution to the reception of the above version as an actual detail of the facts of the case. This remark applies also to the dream interpolated in the evidence.

Among the most vivid and connected dreams, are those excited by a dominant or absorbing train of thought, which has engaged the mind during waking hours, or by powerful or protracted emotion.

M. Boismont relates a dream, which he conceives is to be classed among the inexplicable phenomena of this nature, but which, with all deference to that distinguished psychologist, is rather to be placed in the category we have just named.

Miss R., gifted with an excellent judgment, and religious without bigotry, lived, before her marriage, at the house of an uncle, a celebrated physician, and a member of the Institute. She was at that time separated from her mother, who had been attacked, in the country, by a severe illness. One night, this young lady dreamed that she saw her mother before her, pale, disfigured, about to render the last breath, and showing particularly lively grief at not being surrounded by her children, of whom one, curé of one of the parishes in Paris, had emigrated to Spain, and the other was in Paris. Presently she heard her call upon her many times by her Christian name; whereupon the persons who surrounded her mother, supposing that she called her grand-daughter, who bore the same name, went to seek her in the neighbouring room, but a sign from the invalid apprised them that it was not the grand-daughter, but the daughter who resided in Paris, that she wished to see. Her appearance expressed the grief she felt at her absence; suddenly her features changed, became covered with the paleness of death, and she fell without life on the bed.

The lady had died during that night; and it was subsequently ascertained, that the circumstances delineated in the dream, simulated those which had occurred by the death-bed.

What are the circumstances of this case?—A mother dangerously ill—her children away from home. What more likely to occur to a child cognisant of these facts, than the train of thought which engendered and caused this dream? The events attending a death-bed scene under such circumstances were all but inevitable, and we cannot, justifiably, consider this case in any other light than that of a "simple coincidence."

Many physiologists and metaphysicians are of opinion, and there is much ground for the belief, that every sensation which has been actually experienced, may become the subject of perception at some future time, although, in the interval, all trace of its existence may have been lost, and it is beyond the power of the will to recall.

The phenomena upon which this opinion has been principally founded, have been observed in the delirium of certain febrile diseases, and in dreaming.

There is a case on record of a woman, who, during the delirium of fever, repeated long passages in the Hebrew and Chaldaic tongues. When in health she was perfectly ignorant of these languages; and it was ascertained, that the sentences she spoke in her delirium, were correct passages from known writers in them. It was subsequently discovered, that at one period of her life she had lived with a clergyman who was in the habit of walking up and down the passage, reading aloud from Hebrew and Chaldaic works, and it was the sensations thus derived, and retained unconsciously to herself, which had been revivified by the changes induced during the progress of the fever.

A case is also recorded by Dr. Abercrombie, in which a servant-girl who had manifested no "ear" for, or pleasure in music, during sleep was heard to imitate the sounds of a violin, even the tuning, and to perform most complicated and difficult pieces of music. This girl had slept for some time, and much to her annoyance, in a room adjoining that occupied by an itinerant violinist who was somewhat of an enthusiast in his art, and was accustomed to spend a portion of the night in practising difficult pieces of music, often preventing this female from sleeping. The music she had thus heard, registered in the mind, so to speak, was repeated, unconsciously, during the disturbed action of the brain consequent upon imperfect health and dreaming.

The principle which has been deduced from these and similar cases, gives a ready explanation to numerous stories which it has been customary to regard as coming within the pale of the supernatural.

Those instances in which, during a dream, the places in which documents of value, which had been lost or misplaced, have been revealed, are examples of revivified sensations which had been lost sight of, and of which the return had been determined by the protracted exercise of the mind to recover the missing traces.

Sir Walter Scott, in his notes to "The Antiquary," relates the following highly interesting illustration:—

"Mr. R——d, of Bowland, a gentleman of landed property in the vale of Gala, was prosecuted for a very considerable sum, the accumulated arrears of tiend (or tithe), for which he was said to be indebted to a noble family, the titulars (lay improprietors of the tithes). Mr. R——d was strongly impressed with the belief, that his father had, by a form of process peculiar to the law of Scotland, purchased those lands from the titular; and therefore, that the present prosecution was groundless. But after an industrious search among his father's papers, an investigation of the public records, and a careful inquiry among all persons who had transacted law business for his father, no evidence could be recovered to support his defence. The period was now near at hand, when he conceived the loss of the lawsuit to be inevitable, and he had formed his determination to ride to Edinburgh next day, and make the best bargain he could in the way of compromise. He even went to bed with this resolution, and with all the circumstances of the case floating upon his mind, had a dream to the following purpose.

"His father, who had been many years dead, appeared to him, he thought, and asked him why he was disturbed in his mind. In dreams men are not supprised at such apparitions. Mr. R——d thought he informed his father of the cause of his distress, adding, that the payment of a considerable sum of money was the more unpleasant to him, because he had a strong consciousness that it was not due, though he was unable to acquire any evidence in support of his belief. 'You are right, my son,' replied the paternal shade; 'I did acquire right to these tiends, for payment of which you are now prosecuted. The papers relating to the transaction are in the hands of Mr. ——, a writer (or attorney), who is now retired from professional business, and resides at Inveresk, near Edinburgh. He was a person whom I employed on that occasion for a particular reason, but who never, on any other occasion, transacted business on my account. It is very possible,' pursued the vision, 'that Mr. —— may have forgotten a matter which is now of a very old date; but you may call it to his recollection by this token,—that when I came to pay his account, there was difficulty in getting change for a Portugal piece of gold, and that we were forced to drink out the balance at a tavern.'

"Mr. R——d awoke in the morning with all the words of the vision imprinted on his mind, and thought it worth while to ride across the country to Inveresk, instead of going straight to Edinburgh. When he came there, he waited on the gentleman mentioned in the dream, a very old man; without saying anything of the vision, he inquired whether he remembered having conducted such a matter for his deceased father. The old gentleman could not at first bring the circumstance to his recollection, but on mention of the Portugal piece of gold, the whole returned upon his memory; he made an immediate search for the papers, and recovered them; so that Mr. R——d carried to Edinburgh the documents necessary to gain the cause which he was on the verge of losing.

"The author's theory is, that the dream was only the recapitulation of information which Mr. R——d had really received from his father while in life, but which at first he merely recalled as a general impression that the claim was settled. It is not uncommon for persons to recover, during sleep, the thread of ideas which they have lost during waking hours.

"It may be added, that this remarkable circumstance was attended with bad consequences to Mr. R——d, whose health and spirits were afterwards impaired by the attention which he thought himself obliged to pay to the visions of the night."

An instance which is related by Mrs. Crowe, receives its explanation also from this source.

"A case 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; whereon, a search being made, it was actually found. They at first 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 concealment, had been communicated to the pretended dreamer," &c.

If the statement that the murderer and the dreamer had spent some time together in a state of intoxication, after the murder had been committed, be correct, the supposition that the murder had been communicated to the dreamer, forgotten when the state of intoxication had passed away, but subsequently recalled during the progress of a dream, affords an easy and natural explanation of the whole matter.

As an example of that class of dreams which are inexplicable, but which, unfortunately, are of little weight from the imperfect authority upon which they are given, and from the fact that they bear intrinsic evidence of having been received without inquiry into the circumstances under which they occurred, and the fallacies to which the dreamer and subsequent details had been exposed, we quote the following from the works of the Rev. John Wesley.[73]

"Among the congregation at Ambleside were a gentleman and his wife, who gave me a remarkable relation. She said she had often heard her brother relate, what an intimate acquaintance had told her, that her husband was concerned in the rebellion of 1745. He was tried at Carlisle, and found guilty. The evening before he was to die, sitting and musing in her chair, she fell fast asleep. She dreamed one came to her and said, 'Go to such a part of the wall, and among the loose stones you will find a key, which you must carry to your husband.' She waked; but thinking it a common dream, paid no attention to it. Presently she fell asleep again, and dreamed the very same dream. She started up, put on her cloak and hat, and went to that part of the wall, and among the loose stones found a key. Having, with some difficulty, procured admission into the gaol, she gave this to her husband. It opened the door of his cell, as well as the lock of the prison door.(!) So at midnight he escaped for life."

It is not uncommon to find persons asserting that they have had dreams which have prefigured events, often trivial, in the common run of life.

Probably, without exception, these are irrelevant conclusions: the affirmative instances being marked, to the total neglect of the negative. For example:—A lady with whom we are acquainted was accustomed to relate a dream which she had had, in which she thought that she was in the nursery watching one of her children play, when suddenly it tripped over the fender, and fell against the ribs of the grate, and before it could be extricated, the face was severely burned. On the following day the child she had seen in her dream, happened to have an accident in the nursery very similar to that she had seen occur in the dream.

On inquiry, however, it proved that dreams of this nature respecting her children were quite usual to the lady, and that at one time or other she had witnessed while sleeping almost all those accidents occur to which infant life is exposed. This was the only instance in which any one had apparently come true; and until this had occurred she had very properly and correctly attributed her dreams to the anxiety she naturally entertained respecting her young family.

Of all the divisions, or rather branches, of supernatural lore, none has obtained more universal credence, none has been more persistent, than that of presentiments.

A history of presentiments would form a curious, if not very instructive work, and it alone would almost suffice to indicate the absurdity of the belief in its main features.

We have instances of high spirits foreboding evil; low spirits foreboding the same; sudden illness shadowing forth calamity, not to the person affected, but to a companion; sudden dullness of sight presaging death—indeed a collection of these instances would show that every obscure sensation, every variation of emotion or passion, preceding an evil occurrence, has at one time or other been regarded as a presentiment of that evil.

Jung-Stilling has so well described the nature of the faculty of presentiment, and the circumstances under which it is most commonly developed, that we cannot do better than quote the words of that celebrated writer on this subject. He writes:—

"As the developed faculty of presentiment is a capability of experiencing the arrangements which are made in the world of spirits, and executed in the visible world, second-sight certainly belongs also under this head. And as those who possess this capability are generally simple people, it again follows from hence, that a developed faculty of presentiment is by no means a quality which belongs solely to devout and pious people, or that it should be regarded as a divine gift; I take it, on the contrary, for a disease of the soul, which we ought rather to endeavour to heal than promote.

"He that has a natural disposition for it, and then fixes his imagination long and intensely, and therefore magically, upon a certain object, may at length be able, with respect to this object, to foresee things which have reference to it. Grave-diggers, nurses, and such as are employed to undress and shroud the dead, watchmen, and the like, are accustomed to be continually reflecting on objects which stand in connexion with death and interment; what wonder, therefore, if their faculty of presentiment at length develop itself on these subjects; and I am inclined to maintain, that it may be promoted by drinking ardent spirits."[74]

In addition to this, Mrs. Crowe remarks:—

"It is worthy of observation that idiots often possess some gleams of this faculty of second-sight or presentiment; and it is probably on this account that they are in some countries held sacred. Presentiment, which I think may very probably be merely the vague and imperfect recollection of what we knew in our sleep, is often observed in drunken people."[75]

Cicero,[76] after relating the myth of the apparition of Tages, in Etruria, adds:—

"But I should indeed be more foolish than they who credit these things, if I seriously argue the matter."

Equally foolish it would be for us to attempt to show the absurdity of the foregoing opinions; and we fear it would be a bootless and inutile task to argue with those who regard the statements of the studiously and transcendentally superstitious and ignorant, the incoherence of the drunkard, the depressed feelings experienced after a debauch, or the vague gleams of understanding in an idiot, as evidences of communication with the spirit-world.

We know two ladies gifted with the faculty of ordinary presentiment, and who boast (if we may use that expression) that they are members of a family of which no scion has died for years without some supernatural indication of its occurrence. We well remember after the information had been received by them of the death of the last male representative of one branch of the family, that they told how on the night of the death they happened to be awake in bed, when certain strange noises were heard about the bed-curtains, "as of a mouse" scrambling upon them, and immediately afterwards a blow was struck upon a large chest of drawers which stood opposite the foot of the bed, and the sound was as though the chest had been broken to pieces. We did not draw the inference which the ladies did from this circumstance, namely, that it was an intimation of the death of their relative, for, unfortunately for the romantic view of the question, we knew that such nightly occurrences as these were somewhat common with them, and that a simple and comfortable house in a densely-populated manufacturing district had been peopled by them with nightly noises and sounds, audible alone to them, to such an extent, that the adaptation of a presentiment to any particular occurrence was a matter of little difficulty.

We also well remember, some years ago, when an infant brother lay dying, that our mother and the nurse were startled in the dead of night by a strange fluttering at the window. On the curtain being raised, the light of the candle showed a bird fluttering and beating against one of the panes. Was it an omen of death, and an emblem of the happy transition of the baby-spirit to another world? A few moments' examination soon showed that it was no spectre bird, but apparently a robin, which had been disturbed in the darkness, and was attracted by the light, and no sooner was the window darkened than it flew away.

Three days ago, we saw a woman who had been for some months in a delicate state of health. "Sir," she said, "what I have most to complain of is, that I always feel as if some great evil was about to befall myself or family." This feeling is common, in a greater or less degree, to that depressed state of the system preceding attacks of febrile and many other diseases, and is often marked in hypocondriacism. Who, when suffering from slight indisposition, has not often felt this feeling of foreboding, of which the lowest grade is expressed in the ordinary phrase, low-spirits? This feeling, and thus derived, has been the substratum for those vague, so-called presentiments, which constitute the great bulk of instances in that doctrine; and the fallacy has been, that the mind, more readily affected by affirmative than by negative examples, has held to the former and neglected the latter, and deluded itself by an imperfect and too contracted view of the facts.

Boismont, the most recent writer on the doctrine of presentiments, writes:—

"In the greatest number of cases, they are not realised; in those where the event justifies them, they are only a reminiscence—a simple coincidence;—we admit all this. It is not the less true, that an unforeseen event, a strong prepossession, great restlessness, a sudden change in habits, any fear whatsoever, gives rise, at the moment, to presentiments which it would be difficult to deny by systematic credulity."[77]

Let us examine one or two of the cases which would lead so distinguished a psychologist to give a certain degree of credence to this belief.

The Prince de Radzvil had adopted one of his nieces, an orphan. He inhabited a château in Gallicia, and this château had a large hall which separated the apartments of the Prince from those occupied by the children, and in order to communicate between the two suites of rooms it was necessary either to traverse the hall or the court.

The young Agnes, aged from five to six years, always uttered piercing cries every time that they caused her to traverse the great hall. She indicated, with an expression of terror, an enormous picture which was suspended above the door, and which represented the Sibyl of Cuma. They endeavoured for a length of time to vanquish this repugnance, which they attributed to infant obstinacy; but as serious accidents happened from this violence, they ended by permitting her no more to enter the hall; and the young girl loved better, during ten or twelve years, to traverse in rain, snow, or cold, the vast court or the gardens, rather than pass under this door, which made so disagreeable an impression upon her.

The young Countess being of age to marry, and already betrothed, there was a reception at the château. The company, in the evening, wished to have some noisy game; they went into the great hall, where, moreover, the nuptial ball would be held. Animated by the young people who surrounded her, Agnes did not hesitate to accompany the guests. But scarcely had she crossed the threshold of the door, than she wished to draw back, and she avowed her fear. They had caused her to pass first, according to custom, her betrothed, friends, and uncle, laughing at her childishness, closing the doors upon her. But the poor young girl wished to resist; and in shaking and beating the door, caused the picture to fall which was above it. This enormous mass bruised the head by one of its corners, and killed her immediately.

The scene of this story is an old castle in Gallicia, doubtless, like all similar places, having attached to it many strange and wonderful legends, and many servants fully imbued with these legends, and with all the folk-lore which a district like Gallicia contains. We have no information as to what amount of this lore the nurse indoctrinated into the child, or what use she may have made of the painting in order to terrify her little charge into submission from time to time. That an inquiry, special and distinct, upon this point was necessary ere the main point of the story could be substantiated, is evident; for the establishment of this influence would at once destroy the presentiment sought to be established; and to suppose that the child was brought up without its mind being so poisoned, is to suppose a phenomenon uniquely rare. Again, the painting was a representation of the Sibyl of Cuma. In her early days, says classic history, this Sibyl was lovely; but after her short-sighted bargain with Apollo for a life as long in years as the number of grains of sand she held in her hand, forgetting to add the request for perennial beauty also, she shortly became old and decrepid, her form decayed, her countenance melancholy and pale, and her looks haggard; and it is as thus described, that we are generally accustomed to see her pourtrayed. But we are left in the dark as to whether the painting in question represented the Sibyl in early youth, in her decrepid maturity, or at the moment of inspiration, when, according to the Æneis (Book vi),—

That the painting must have depicted the Sibyl in one of the two latter characters is almost certain, for in any other it would have been meaningless; and leaving the question of the extent to which her mind might be poisoned by folk-lore, or by the servants making the painting a bugbear to her,—leaving this in abeyance, what must the effect of a frightful-looking and gigantic picture, staring the child in the face, have been upon a young mind? Little doubt need be entertained of the feeling of terror with which an infant eye would regard it, and we have already shown how such a feeling, being implanted there, would become a part and parcel of its nature, and be never subsequently eradicated.

We see this feeling manifested every day in the aversion which some individuals manifest to certain animals. From emotions taught during childhood and youth, and often lost sight of in mature years, a cat, a dog, a rat, a spider, a frog, &c., has become an object of such dread to some persons, that even in advanced life the presence of one has caused the utmost annoyance and terror.

The powerful and persistent influence of ideas thus associated has been clearly and pithily expressed by Locke,[78] and his first instance has an immediate bearing upon our subject:—

"The ideas of goblins and sprights have really no more to do with darkness than light, yet let but a foolish maid inculcate these often on the mind of a child, and raise them there together, probably he shall never be able to separate them again so long as he lives, but darkness shall ever afterwards bring with it those frightful ideas, and they shall be so joined that he can no more bear the one than the other."

That the fall of the painting was caused by the vibrations occasioned by shaking and beating upon the door beneath it, seems certain; but that there was any presentimental connection (if we may so word it) between the fall of the painting and the previous dread of it,—any foreshadowing in this dread of the subsequent fall and its fatal consequences,—there is no satisfactory evidence whatever.

Another example of presentiment, quoted by Boismont, is the following:—

Two French gentlemen, refugees, who resided together in New York on terms of great amity, freighted a ship for India. Everything was prepared for their departure, and they waited only a favourable wind. One of them, B——, of a calm and placid temperament, apparently excited by the uncertainty and delay of the time of sailing, began to manifest a degree of restlessness which surprised his companion. One day he entered the apartment where his friend was engaged in writing letters for Europe, and under the influence of an excitement so great that he had difficulty to suppress it, he exclaimed: "Why lose time in writing letters?—they will never go to their destination. Come with me and take a turn on the Battery. The wind may become favourable; we are, perhaps, nearer the point of departure than we suppose!" Acceding to the request, his friend accompanied him, and as they proceeded, arm-in-arm, he was astonished at the rapid and excited manner in which B—— walked. On reaching the Battery, B—— precipitated his rate of walking still more, until they approached the parapet. He spoke in a high and quick tone, expressing in florid terms his admiration of the scenery. Suddenly he arrested his incoherent discourse, and his friend separated from him. "I regarded him fixedly," to continue the narrative in the words of the narrator; "he turned away as if intimidated and cast-down. 'B——,' I cried, 'you intend to kill me, you wish to throw me from this height into the sea! Deny it, monster, if you dare!' The madman looked me in the face with haggard eyes for a moment, but I was careful not to lose his glance, and he lowered the head. He murmured some incoherent words, and sought to pass by me. I barred the way, extending my arms. After looking vaguely right and left, he threw himself on my neck, and melted into tears. 'It is true, it is true, my friend! The thought has haunted me night and day, as a torch of hell. It was for this end that I brought you here; had you been but a foot from the border of the parapet, the work had been done.' The demon had abandoned him, his eyes were without expression, a foam covered his dried lips; the excitement was passed. I reconducted him to the house. Some days of repose, together with bleeding and low diet, re-established him completely; and what is still more extraordinary, we never more spoke of this event."

Are we, with Boismont, to regard this as an example of "sudden and mysterious inspiration?" Would it not have been still more mysterious if a minute examination of the countenance of a madman, who was talking incoherently near the verge of a precipitous descent, and big with intent to murder, had not been sufficient to unravel his purpose? We think it would, and that there is no evidence here of anything beyond the pale of the laws of common observation.

It would be needless to multiply instances of presentiment which have carried conviction to the minds of persons less accustomed to analyze the operations of the senses and intellect than Boismont, and in whom errors of observation are infinitely more likely to occur; nevertheless there are instances on record which, if the authority upon which they are stated be admitted, receive no explanation from natural laws so far as we are yet acquainted with them.

One of the best and most striking examples of this kind is given on the authority of Mrs. Crowe.

She writes:—

"One of the most remarkable cases of presentiment I know, is that which occurred 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 from the room. The president of the mess, supposing him to be ill, sent one of the young men to inquire 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 argument could overthrow this conviction, which in due course of post was verified to the letter. The young man had died at Cawnpore, at the precise period mentioned."[79]

A singular story is also related of the early days of the Empress Josephine, which may fitly be detailed here.

"She was born in the West Indies," writes Sir Archibald Alison, "and it had early been prophesied by an old negress that she should lose her first husband, be extremely unfortunate, but that she should afterwards be greater than a queen. This prophecy, the authenticity of which is placed beyond a doubt, was fulfilled in the most singular manner. Her first husband, Count Alexander Beauharnais, a general in the army on the Rhine, had been guillotined during the Reign of Terror, solely on account of his belonging to the nobility; and she herself, who was also imprisoned at the same time, was only saved from impending death by the fall of Robespierre. So strongly was the prophecy impressed on her mind, that while lying in the dungeons of the Conciergerie, expecting every hour to be summoned to the Revolutionary Tribunal, she mentioned it to her fellow-prisoners, and, to amuse them, named some of them as ladies of the bed-chamber,—a jest which she afterwards lived to realise to one of their number."

Sir Archibald Alison adds the following note in confirmation of the prophecy:—

"The author heard this prophecy in 1801, long before Napoleon's elevation to the throne, from the late Countess of Bath and the late Countess of Ancrum, who were educated in the same convent with Josephine, and had repeatedly heard her mention the circumstance in early youth."[80]

The most grave of the errors affecting the details of those occurrences which have been supposed to foreshadow events, or to have some inexplicable and supernatural connection with certain circumstances occurring coincidently with them, has been fully set forth by Lord Bacon, in the 46th Aphorism of the "Novum Organum," and to this dictum nothing needs to be added.

"The human understanding, when any proposition has been once laid down (either from general admission and belief, or from the pleasure it affords) forces everything else to add fresh support and confirmation, and although most cogent and abundant instances may exist to the contrary, yet either does not observe, or despises them, or gets rid of and rejects them by some distinction, with violent and injurious prejudice, rather than sacrifice the authority of its first conclusions. It was well answered by him who was shown in a temple the votive tablets suspended by such as had escaped the peril of shipwreck, and was pressed as to whether he would then recognise the power of the gods, by an inquiry, "But where are the portraits of those who have perished in spite of their vows?" All superstition is much the same, whether it be that of astrology, dreams, omens, retributive judgment, or the like; in all of which the deluded believers observe events which are fulfilled, but neglect and pass over their failure, though it be much more common.... Besides, even in the absence of that eagerness and want of thought (which we have mentioned), it is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human understanding to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than negatives, whereas it ought duly and regularly to be impartial; nay, in establishing any true axiom, the negative instance is the most powerful."

We have now briefly examined the principal of those phenomena which it has been, and in many instances is, customary to ascribe to supernatural interposition; and we have endeavoured to ascertain how far they receive explanation from the known laws of action of the senses and reasoning faculties; and we have seen reason for the conclusion that they mainly come within the category of those laws.

Of the exceptions to this conclusion, it is unfortunate that the authority upon which they depend is generally unsatisfactory, and the details imperfect in many of the most important particulars; and they, to use the words of Mrs. Crowe, (whose evidence in this respect is of considerable importance), "as they now stand, can have no scientific value; they cannot, 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 ourselves wholly within the region of opinion; if we venture beyond this, we shall assuredly founder."[81]

We are not aware that this imperfection of details necessarily appertains to facts of this nature, and we simply require the same care against error which is expected and is exercised in other departments of inquiry; and until the instances presented bear evidence of this, we must entertain doubts, and decline to receive them as facts establishing such theories as have been endeavoured to be founded upon them.

The great progress of physiology and psychology is almost daily enabling us to grapple with sensuous phenomena which have hitherto been obscure; and it is never to be lost sight of in researches into the domains of the so-called supernatural, that the knowledge we possess of our own powers is as yet very imperfect and limited.