Note 11 — Chapter VII · WHERE MASTER HUCKABACK THROVE[10]
Reading edition
It may be worth mentioning that an incident similar to that which marred the happiness of Susan Sydenham occurred in the life of the celebrated John Donne. In 1610, on the third day after his arrival at Paris, he was left alone in a room where he had been dining with Sir Robert Drury and others. Half an hour later the knight returned, and was surprised to find him in a curious sort of ecstasy. At first he was unable to speak, but after a time he declared—
“I have seen a dreadful vision since I saw you. I have seen my dear wife pass twice by me through this room, with her hair hanging about her shoulders, and a dead child in her arms.”
Sir Robert suggested that it was nothing but a dream, which he advised him to forget, but Donne replied, “I cannot be surer that I am now living than that I have not slept since I saw you, and I am so sure that at her second appearance she stopped, looked me in the face and vanished.”
As he seemed so certain, a messenger was sent to Drury House, who brought back the news that he had found Mrs Donne ill in bed, after the birth of a dead infant—an event which had happened on the very day and hour that her husband had seen the vision.