Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk



THE BOOK OF DREAMS AND GHOSTS



PREFACE TO THE NEW IMPRESSION

Since the first edition of this book appeared (1897) a considerable number of new and startling ghost stories, British, Foreign and Colonial, not yet published, have reached me. Second Sight abounds. Crystal Gazing has also advanced in popularity. For a singular series of such visions, in which distant persons and places, unknown to the gazer, were correctly described by her, I may refer to my book, The Making of Religion (1898). A memorial stone has been erected on the scene of the story called "The Foul Fords" (p. 269), so that tale is likely to endure in tradition.

July, 1899.



PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

The chief purpose of this book is, if fortune helps, to entertain people interested in the kind of narratives here collected. For the sake of orderly arrangement, the stories are classed in different grades, as they advance from the normal and familiar to the undeniably startling. At the same time an account of the current theories of Apparitions is offered, in language as free from technicalities as possible. According to modern opinion every "ghost" is a "hallucination," a false perception, the perception of something which is not present.

It has not been thought necessary to discuss the psychological and physiological processes involved in perception, real or false. Every "hallucination" is a perception, "as good and true a sensation as if there were a real object there. The object happens not to be there, that is all." {0a} We are not here concerned with the visions of insanity, delirium, drugs, drink, remorse, or anxiety, but with "sporadic cases of hallucination, visiting people only once in a lifetime, which seems to be by far the most frequent type". "These," says Mr. James, "are on any theory hard to understand in detail. They are often extraordinarily complete; and the fact that many of them are reported as veridical, that is, as coinciding with real events, such as accidents, deaths, etc., of the persons seen, is an additional complication of the phenomenon." {0b} A ghost, if seen, is undeniably so far a "hallucination" that it gives the impression of the presence of a real person, in flesh, blood, and usually clothes. No such person in flesh, blood, and clothes, is actually there. So far, at least, every ghost is a hallucination, "that" in the language of Captain Cuttle, "you may lay to," without offending science, religion, or common-sense. And that, in brief, is the modern doctrine of ghosts.

The old doctrine of "ghosts" regarded them as actual "spirits" of the living or the dead, freed from the flesh or from the grave. This view, whatever else may be said for it, represents the simple philosophy of the savage, which may be correct or erroneous. About the time of the Reformation, writers, especially Protestant writers, preferred to look on apparitions as the work of deceitful devils, who masqueraded in the aspect of the dead or living, or made up phantasms out of "compressed air". The common-sense of the eighteenth century dismissed all apparitions as "dreams" or hoaxes, or illusions caused by real objects misinterpreted, such as rats, cats, white posts, maniacs at large, sleep-walkers, thieves, and so forth. Modern science, when it admits the possibility of occasional hallucinations in the sane and healthy, also admits, of course, the existence of apparitions. These, for our purposes, are hallucinatory appearances occurring in the experience of people healthy and sane. The difficulty begins when we ask whether these appearances ever have any provoking mental cause outside the minds of the people who experience them—any cause arising in the minds of others, alive or dead. This is a question which orthodox psychology does not approach, standing aside from any evidence which may be produced.

This book does not pretend to be a convincing, but merely an illustrative collection of evidence. It may, or may not, suggest to some readers the desirableness of further inquiry; the author certainly does not hope to do more, if as much.

It may be urged that many of the stories here narrated come from remote times, and, as the testimony for these cannot be rigidly studied, that the old unauthenticated stories clash with the analogous tales current on better authority in our own day. But these ancient legends are given, not as evidence, but for three reasons: first, because of their merit as mere stories; next, because several of them are now perhaps for the first time offered with a critical discussion of their historical sources; lastly, because the old legends seem to show how the fancy of periods less critical than ours dealt with such facts as are now reported in a dull undramatic manner. Thus (1) the Icelandic ghost stories have peculiar literary merit as simple dramatic narratives. (2) Every one has heard of the Wesley ghost, Sir George Villiers's spectre, Lord Lyttelton's ghost, the Beresford ghost, Mr. Williams's dream of Mr. Perceval's murder, and so forth. But the original sources have not, as a rule, been examined in the ordinary spirit of calm historical criticism, by aid of a comparison of the earliest versions in print or manuscript. (3) Even ghost stories, as a rule, have some basis of fact, whether fact of hallucination, or illusion, or imposture. They are, at lowest, "human documents". Now, granting such facts (of imposture, hallucination, or what you will), as our dull, modern narratives contain, we can regard these facts, or things like these, as the nuclei which our less critical ancestors elaborated into their extraordinary romances. In this way the belief in demoniacal possession (distinguished, as such, from madness and epilepsy) has its nucleus, some contend, in the phenomena of alternating personalities in certain patients. Their characters, ideas, habits, and even voices change, and the most obvious solution of the problem, in the past, was to suppose that a new alien personality—a "devil"—had entered into the sufferer.

Again, the phenomena occurring in "haunted houses" (whether caused, or not, by imposture or hallucination, or both) were easily magnified into such legends as that of Grettir and Glam, and into the monstrosities of the witch trials. Once more the simple hallucination of a dead person's appearance in his house demanded an explanation. This was easily given by evolving a legend that he was a spirit, escaped from purgatory or the grave, to fulfil a definite purpose. The rarity of such purposeful ghosts in an age like ours, so rich in ghost stories, must have a cause. That cause is, probably, a dwindling of the myth-making faculty.

Any one who takes these matters seriously, as facts in human nature, must have discovered the difficulty of getting evidence at first hand. This arises from several causes. First, the cock-sure common-sense of the years from 1660 to 1850, or so, regarded every one who had experience of a hallucination as a dupe, a lunatic, or a liar. In this healthy state of opinion, eminent people like Lord Brougham kept their experience to themselves, or, at most, nervously protested that they "were sure it was only a dream". Next, to tell the story was, often, to enter on a narrative of intimate, perhaps painful, domestic circumstances. Thirdly, many persons now refuse information as a matter of "principle," or of "religious principle," though it is difficult to see where either principle or religion is concerned, if the witness is telling what he believes to be true. Next, some devotees of science aver that these studies may bring back faith by a side wind, and, with faith, the fires of Smithfield and the torturing of witches. These opponents are what Professor Huxley called "dreadful consequences argufiers," when similar reasons were urged against the doctrine of evolution. Their position is strongest when they maintain that these topics have a tendency to befog the intellect. A desire to prove the existence of "new forces" may beget indifference to logic and to the laws of evidence. This is true, and we have several dreadful examples among men otherwise scientific. But all studies have their temptations. Many a historian, to prove the guilt or innocence of Queen Mary, has put evidence, and logic, and common honesty far from him. Yet this is no reason for abandoning the study of history.

There is another class of difficulties. As anthropology becomes popular, every inquirer knows what customs he ought to find among savages, so, of course, he finds them. In the same way, people may now know what customs it is orthodox to find among ghosts, and may pretend to find them, or may simulate them by imposture. The white sheet and clanking chains are forsaken for a more realistic rendering of the ghostly part. The desire of social notoriety may beget wanton fabrications. In short, all studies have their perils, and these are among the dangers which beset the path of the inquirer into things ghostly. He must adopt the stoical maxim: "Be sober and do not believe"—in a hurry.

If there be truth in even one case of "telepathy," it will follow that the human soul is a thing endowed with attributes not yet recognised by science. It cannot be denied that this is a serious consideration, and that very startling consequences might be deduced from it; such beliefs, indeed, as were generally entertained in the ages of Christian darkness which preceded the present era of enlightenment. But our business in studies of any kind is, of course, with truth, as we are often told, not with the consequences, however ruinous to our most settled convictions, or however pernicious to society.

The very opposite objection comes from the side of religion. These things we learn, are spiritual mysteries into which men must not inquire. This is only a relic of the ancient opinion that he was an impious character who first launched a boat, God having made man a terrestrial animal. Assuredly God put us into a world of phenomena, and gave us inquiring minds. We have as much right to explore the phenomena of these minds as to explore the ocean. Again, if it be said that our inquiries may lead to an undignified theory of the future life (so far they have not led to any theory at all), that, also, is the position of the Dreadful Consequences Argufier. Lastly, "the stories may frighten children". For children the book is not written, any more than if it were a treatise on comparative anatomy.

The author has frequently been asked, both publicly and privately: "Do you believe in ghosts?" One can only answer: "How do you define a ghost?" I do believe, with all students of human nature, in hallucinations of one, or of several, or even of all the senses. But as to whether such hallucinations, among the sane, are ever caused by psychical influences from the minds of others, alive or dead, not communicated through the ordinary channels of sense, my mind is in a balance of doubt. It is a question of evidence.

In this collection many stories are given without the real names of the witnesses. In most of the cases the real names, and their owners, are well known to myself. In not publishing the names I only take the common privilege of writers on medicine and psychology. In other instances the names are known to the managers of the Society for Psychical Research, who have kindly permitted me to borrow from their collections.

While this book passed through the press, a long correspondence called "On the Trail of a Ghost" appeared in The Times. It illustrated the copious fallacies which haunt the human intellect. Thus it was maintained by some persons, and denied by others, that sounds of unknown origin were occasionally heard in a certain house. These, it was suggested, might (if really heard) be caused by slight seismic disturbances. Now many people argue, "Blunderstone House is not haunted, for I passed a night there, and nothing unusual occurred". Apply this to a house where noises are actually caused by young earthquakes. Would anybody say: "There are no seismic disturbances near Blunderstone House, for I passed a night there, and none occurred"? Why should a noisy ghost (if there is such a thing) or a hallucinatory sound (if there is such a thing), be expected to be more punctual and pertinacious than a seismic disturbance? Again, the gentleman who opened the correspondence with a long statement on the negative side, cried out, like others, for scientific publicity, for names of people and places. But neither he nor his allies gave their own names. He did not precisely establish his claim to confidence by publishing his version of private conversations. Yet he expected science and the public to believe his anonymous account of a conversation, with an unnamed person, at which he did not and could not pretend to have been present. He had a theory of sounds heard by himself which could have been proved, or disproved, in five minutes, by a simple experiment. But that experiment he does not say that he made.

This kind of evidence is thought good enough on the negative side. It certainly would not be accepted by any sane person for the affirmative side. If what is called psychical research has no other results, at least it enables us to perceive the fallacies which can impose on the credulity of common-sense.

In preparing this collection of tales, I owe much to Mr. W. A. Craigie, who translated the stories from the Gaelic and the Icelandic; to Miss Elspeth Campbell, who gives a version of the curious Argyll tradition of Ticonderoga (rhymed by Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson, who put a Cameron where a Campbell should be); to Miss Violet Simpson, who found the Windham MS. about the Duke of Buckingham's story, and made other researches; and to Miss Goodrich Freer, who pointed out the family version of "The Tyrone Ghost".



CHAPTER I

Arbuthnot on Political Lying. Begin with "Great Swingeing Falsehoods". The Opposite Method to be used in telling Ghost Stones. Begin with the more Familiar and Credible. Sleep. Dreams. Ghosts are identical with Waking Dreams. Possibility of being Asleep when we think we are Awake. Dreams shared by several People. Story of the Dog Fanti. The Swithinbank Dream. Common Features of Ghosts and Dreams. Mark Twain's Story. Theory of Common-sense. Not Logical. Fulfilled Dreams. The Pig in the Palace. The Mignonette. Dreams of Reawakened Memory. The Lost Cheque. The Ducks' Eggs. The Lost Key. Drama in Dreams. The Lost Securities. The Portuguese Gold-piece. St. Augustine's Story. The Two Curmas. Knowledge acquired in Dreams. The Assyrian Priest. The Deja Vu. "I have been here before." Sir Walter's Experience. Explanations. The Knot in the Shutter. Transition to Stranger Dreams.

Arbuthnot, in his humorous work on Political Lying, commends the Whigs for occasionally trying the people with "great swingeing falsehoods". When these are once got down by the populace, anything may follow without difficulty. Excellently as this practice has worked in politics (compare the warming-pan lie of 1688), in the telling of ghost stories a different plan has its merits. Beginning with the common-place and familiar, and therefore credible, with the thin end of the wedge, in fact, a wise narrator will advance to the rather unusual, the extremely rare, the undeniably startling, and so arrive at statements which, without this discreet and gradual initiation, a hasty reader might, justly or unjustly, dismiss as "great swingeing falsehoods".

The nature of things and of men has fortunately made this method at once easy, obvious, and scientific. Even in the rather fantastic realm of ghosts, the stories fall into regular groups, advancing in difficulty, like exercises in music or in a foreign language. We therefore start from the easiest Exercises in Belief, or even from those which present no difficulty at all. The defect of the method is that easy stories are dull reading. But the student can "skip". We begin with common every-night dreams.

Sleeping is as natural as waking; dreams are nearly as frequent as every-day sensations, thoughts, and emotions. But dreams, being familiar, are credible; it is admitted that people do dream; we reach the less credible as we advance to the less familiar. For, if we think for a moment, the alleged events of ghostdom—apparitions of all sorts—are precisely identical with the every-night phenomena of dreaming, except for the avowed element of sleep in dreams.

In dreams, time and space are annihilated, and two severed lovers may be made happy. In dreams, amidst a grotesque confusion of things remembered and things forgot, we see the events of the past (I have been at Culloden fight and at the siege of Troy); we are present in places remote; we behold the absent; we converse with the dead, and we may even (let us say by chance coincidence) forecast the future. All these things, except the last, are familiar to everybody who dreams. It is also certain that similar, but yet more vivid, false experiences may be produced, at the word of the hypnotiser, in persons under the hypnotic sleep. A hypnotised man will take water for wine, and get drunk on it.

Now, the ghostly is nothing but the experience, when men are awake, or apparently awake, of the every-night phenomena of dreaming. The vision of the absent seen by a waking, or apparently waking, man is called "a wraith"; the waking, or apparently waking, vision of the dead is called "a ghost". Yet, as St. Augustine says, the absent man, or the dead man, may know no more of the vision, and may have no more to do with causing it, than have the absent or the dead whom we are perfectly accustomed to see in our dreams. Moreover, the comparatively rare cases in which two or more waking people are alleged to have seen the same "ghost," simultaneously or in succession, have their parallel in sleep, where two or more persons simultaneously dream the same dream. Of this curious fact let us give one example: the names only are altered.

THE DOG FANTI

Mrs. Ogilvie of Drumquaigh had a poodle named Fanti. Her family, or at least those who lived with her, were her son, the laird, and three daughters. Of these the two younger, at a certain recent date, were paying a short visit to a neighbouring country house. Mrs. Ogilvie was accustomed to breakfast in her bedroom, not being in the best of health. One morning Miss Ogilvie came down to breakfast and said to her brother, "I had an odd dream; I dreamed Fanti went mad".

"Well, that is odd," said her brother. "So did I. We had better not tell mother; it might make her nervous."

Miss Ogilvie went up after breakfast to see the elder lady, who said, "Do turn out Fanti; I dreamed last night that he went mad and bit".

In the afternoon the two younger sisters came home.

"How did you enjoy yourselves?" one of the others asked.

"We didn't sleep well. I was dreaming that Fanti went mad when Mary wakened me, and said she had dreamed Fanti went mad, and turned into a cat, and we threw him into the fire."

Thus, as several people may see the same ghost at once, several people may dream the same dream at once. As a matter of fact, Fanti lived, sane and harmless, "all the length of all his years". {4}

Now, this anecdote is credible, certainly is credible by people who know the dreaming family. It is nothing more than a curiosity of coincidences; and, as Fanti remained a sober, peaceful hound, in face of five dreamers, the absence of fulfilment increases the readiness of belief. But compare the case of the Swithinbanks. Mr. Swithinbank, on 20th May, 1883, signed for publication a statement to this effect:—

During the Peninsular war his father and his two brothers were quartered at Dover. Their family were at Bradford. The brothers slept in various quarters of Dover camp. One morning they met after parade. "O William, I have had a queer dream," said Mr. Swithinbank's father. "So have I," replied the brother, when, to the astonishment of both, the other brother, John, said, "I have had a queer dream as well. I dreamt that mother was dead." "So did I," said each of the other brothers. And the mother had died on the night of this dreaming. Mrs. Hudson, daughter of one of the brothers, heard the story from all three. {5a}

The distribution of the fulfilled is less than that of the unfulfilled dream by three to five. It has the extra coincidence of the death. But as it is very common to dream of deaths, some such dreams must occasionally hit the target.

Other examples might be given of shared dreams: {5b} they are only mentioned here to prove that all the waking experiences of things ghostly, such as visions of the absent and of the dead, and of the non-existent, are familiar, and may even be common simultaneously to several persons, in sleep. That men may sleep without being aware of it, even while walking abroad; that we may drift, while we think ourselves awake, into a semi-somnolent state for a period of time perhaps almost imperceptible is certain enough. Now, the peculiarity of sleep is to expand or contract time, as we may choose to put the case. Alfred Maury, the well-known writer on Greek religion, dreamed a long, vivid dream of the Reign of Terror, of his own trial before a Revolutionary Tribunal, and of his execution, in the moment of time during which he was awakened by the accidental fall of a rod in the canopy of his bed, which touched him on the neck. Thus even a prolonged interview with a ghost may conceivably be, in real time, a less than momentary dream occupying an imperceptible tenth of a second of somnolence, the sleeper not realising that he has been asleep.

Mark Twain, who is seriously interested in these subjects, has published an experience illustrative of such possibilities. He tells his tale at considerable length, but it amounts to this:—

MARK TWAIN'S STORY

Mark was smoking his cigar outside the door of his house when he saw a man, a stranger, approaching him. Suddenly he ceased to be visible! Mark, who had long desired to see a ghost, rushed into his house to record the phenomenon. There, seated on a chair in the hall, was the very man, who had come on some business. As Mark's negro footman acts, when the bell is rung, on the principle, "Perhaps they won't persevere," his master is wholly unable to account for the disappearance of the visitor, whom he never saw passing him or waiting at his door—except on the theory of an unconscious nap. Now, a disappearance is quite as mystical as an appearance, and much less common.

This theory, that apparitions come in an infinitesimal moment of sleep, while a man is conscious of his surroundings and believes himself to be awake was the current explanation of ghosts in the eighteenth century. Any educated man who "saw a ghost" or "had a hallucination" called it a "dream," as Lord Brougham and Lord Lyttelton did. But, if the death of the person seen coincided with his appearance to them, they illogically argued that, out of the innumerable multitude of dreams, some must coincide, accidentally, with facts. They strove to forget that though dreams in sleep are universal and countless, "dreams" in waking hours are extremely rare— unique, for instance, in Lord Brougham's own experience. Therefore, the odds against chance coincidence are very great.

Dreams only form subjects of good dream-stories when the vision coincides with and adequately represents an unknown event in the past, the present, or the future. We dream, however vividly, of the murder of Rizzio. Nobody is surprised at that, the incident being familiar to most people, in history and art. But, if we dreamed of being present at an unchronicled scene in Queen Mary's life, and if, after the dream was recorded, a document proving its accuracy should be for the first time recovered, then there is matter for a good dream-story. {8} Again, we dream of an event not to be naturally guessed or known by us, and our dream (which should be recorded before tidings of the fact arrive) tallies with the news of the event when it comes. Or, finally, we dream of an event (recording the dream), and that event occurs in the future. In all these cases the actual occurrence of the unknown event is the only addition to the dream's usual power of crumpling up time and space.

As a rule such dreams are only mentioned after the event, and so are not worth noticing. Very often the dream is forgotten by the dreamer till he hears of or sees the event. He is then either reminded of his dream by association of ideas or he has never dreamed at all, and his belief that he has dreamed is only a form of false memory, of the common sensation of "having been here before," which he attributes to an awakened memory of a real dream. Still more often the dream is unconsciously cooked by the narrator into harmony with facts.

As a rule fulfilled dreams deal with the most trivial affairs, and such as, being usual, may readily occur by chance coincidence. Indeed it is impossible to set limits to such coincidence, for it would indeed be extraordinary if extraordinary coincidences never occurred.

To take examples:—

THE PIG IN THE DINING-ROOM

Mrs. Atlay, wife of a late Bishop of Hereford, dreamed one night that there was a pig in the dining-room of the palace. She came downstairs, and in the hall told her governess and children of the dream, before family prayers. When these were over, nobody who was told the story having left the hall in the interval, she went into the dining-room and there was the pig. It was proved to have escaped from the sty after Mrs. Atlay got up. Here the dream is of the common grotesque type; millions of such things are dreamed. The event, the pig in the palace, is unusual, and the coincidence of pig and dream is still more so. But unusual events must occur, and each has millions of dreams as targets to aim at, so to speak. It would be surprising if no such target were ever hit.

Here is another case—curious because the dream was forgotten till the corresponding event occurred, but there was a slight discrepancy between event and dream.

THE MIGNONETTE

Mrs. Herbert returned with her husband from London to their country home on the Border. They arrived rather late in the day, prepared to visit the garden, and decided to put off the visit till the morrow. At night Mrs. Herbert dreamed that they went into the garden, down a long walk to a mignonette bed near the vinery. The mignonette was black with innumerable bees, and Wilburd, the gardener, came up and advised Mr. and Mrs. Herbert not to go nearer. Next morning the pair went to the garden. The air round the mignonette was dark with wasps. Mrs. Herbert now first remembered and told her dream, adding, "but in the dream they were bees". Wilburd now came up and advised them not to go nearer, as a wasps' nest had been injured and the wasps were on the warpath.

Here accidental coincidence is probable enough. {10} There is another class of dreams very useful, and apparently not so very uncommon, that are veracious and communicate correct information, which the dreamer did not know that he knew and was very anxious to know. These are rare enough to be rather difficult to believe. Thus:—

THE LOST CHEQUE

Mr. A., a barrister, sat up one night to write letters, and about half-past twelve went out to put them in the post. On undressing he missed a cheque for a large sum, which he had received during the day. He hunted everywhere in vain, went to bed, slept, and dreamed that he saw the cheque curled round an area railing not far from his own door. He woke, got up, dressed, walked down the street and found his cheque in the place he had dreamed of. In his opinion he had noticed it fall from his pocket as he walked to the letter-box, without consciously remarking it, and his deeper memory awoke in slumber. {11a}

THE DUCKS' EGGS

A little girl of the author's family kept ducks and was anxious to sell the eggs to her mother. But the eggs could not be found by eager search. On going to bed she said, "Perhaps I shall dream of them". Next morning she exclaimed, "I did dream of them, they are in a place between grey rock, broom, and mallow; that must be 'The Poney's Field'!" And there the eggs were found. {11b}

THE LOST KEY

Lady X., after walking in a wood near her house in Ireland, found that she had lost an important key. She dreamed that it was lying at the root of a certain tree, where she found it next day, and her theory is the same as that of Mr. A., the owner of the lost cheque. {11c}

As a rule dreams throw everything into a dramatic form. Some one knocks at our door, and the dream bases a little drama on the noise; it constructs an explanatory myth, a myth to account for the noise, which is acted out in the theatre of the brain.

To take an instance, a disappointing one:—

THE LOST SECURITIES

A lady dreamed that she was sitting at a window, watching the end of an autumn sunset. There came a knock at the front door and a gentleman and lady were ushered in. The gentleman wore an old- fashioned snuff-coloured suit, of the beginning of the century; he was, in fact, an aged uncle, who, during the Napoleonic wars, had been one of the English detenus in France. The lady was very beautiful and wore something like a black Spanish mantilla. The pair carried with them a curiously wrought steel box. Before conversation was begun, the maid (still in the dream) brought in the lady's chocolate and the figures vanished. When the maid withdrew, the figures reappeared standing by the table. The box was now open, and the old gentleman drew forth some yellow papers, written on in faded ink. These, he said, were lists of securities, which had been in his possession, when he went abroad in 18—, and in France became engaged to his beautiful companion.

"The securities," he said, "are now in the strong box of Messrs. —-;" another rap at the door, and the actual maid entered with real hot water. It was time to get up. The whole dream had its origin in the first rap, heard by the dreamer and dramatised into the arrival of visitors. Probably it did not last for more than two or three seconds of real time. The maid's second knock just prevented the revelation of the name of "Messrs. —-," who, like the lady in the mantilla, were probably non-existent people. {13}

Thus dream dramatises on the impulse of some faint, hardly perceived real sensation. And thus either mere empty fancies (as in the case of the lost securities) or actual knowledge which we may have once possessed but have totally forgotten, or conclusions which have passed through our brains as unheeded guesses, may in a dream be, as it were, "revealed" through the lips of a character in the brain's theatre— that character may, in fact, be alive, or dead, or merely fantastical. A very good case is given with this explanation (lost knowledge revived in a dramatic dream about a dead man) by Sir Walter Scott in a note to The Antiquary. Familiar as the story is it may be offered here, for a reason which will presently be obvious.

THE ARREARS OF TEIND

"Mr. Rutherford, of Bowland, a gentleman of landed property in the Vale of Gala, was prosecuted for a very considerable sum, the accumulated arrears of teind (or tithe) for which he was said to be indebted to a noble family, the titulars (lay impropriators of the tithes). Mr. Rutherford was strongly impressed with the belief that his father had, by a form of process peculiar to the law of Scotland, purchased these teinds from the titular, and, therefore, that the present prosecution was groundless. But, after an industrious search among his father's papers, an investigation among 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 his law-suit to be inevitable; and he had formed the determination to ride to Edinburgh next day and make the best bargain he could in the way of compromise. He 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 surprised at such apparitions. Mr. Rutherford thought that 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 recover any evidence in support of his belief. 'You are right, my son,' replied the paternal shade. 'I did acquire right to these teinds 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 we were forced to drink out the balance at a tavern.'

"Mr. Rutherford awoke in the morning with all the words of the vision imprinted on his mind, and thought it worth while to walk 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 ever 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. Rutherford carried to Edinburgh the documents necessary to gain the cause which he was on the verge of losing."

The story is reproduced because it is clearly one of the tales which come round in cycles, either because events repeat themselves or because people will unconsciously localise old legends in new places and assign old occurrences or fables to new persons. Thus every one has heard how Lord Westbury called a certain man in the Herald's office "a foolish old fellow who did not even know his own foolish old business". Lord Westbury may very well have said this, but long before his time the remark was attributed to the famous Lord Chesterfield. Lord Westbury may have quoted it from Chesterfield or hit on it by accident, or the old story may have been assigned to him. In the same way Mr. Rutherford may have had his dream or the following tale of St. Augustine's (also cited by Scott) may have been attributed to him, with the picturesque addition about the piece of Portuguese gold. Except for the piece of Portuguese gold St. Augustine practically tells the anecdote in his De Cura pro Mortuis Habenda, adding the acute reflection which follows. {16}

"Of a surety, when we were at Milan, we heard tell of a certain person of whom was demanded payment of a debt, with production of his deceased father's acknowledgment, which debt, unknown to the son, the father had paid, whereupon the man began to be very sorrowful, and to marvel that his father while dying did not tell him what he owed when he also made his will. Then in this exceeding anxiousness of his, his said father appeared to him in a dream, and made known to him where was the counter acknowledgment by which that acknowledgment was cancelled. Which when the young man had found and showed, he not only rebutted the wrongful claim of a false debt, but also got back his father's note of hand, which the father had not got back when the money was paid.

"Here then the soul of a man is supposed to have had care for his son, and to have come to him in his sleep, that, teaching him what he did not know, he might relieve him of a great trouble. But about the very same time as we heard this, it chanced at Carthage that the rhetorician Eulogius, who had been my disciple in that art, being (as he himself, after our return to Africa, told us the story) in course of lecturing to his disciples on Cicero's rhetorical books, as he looked over the portion of reading which he was to deliver on the following day, fell upon a certain passage, and not being able to understand it, was scarce able to sleep for the trouble of his mind: in which night, as he dreamed, I expounded to him that which he did not understand; nay, not I, but my likeness, while I was unconscious of the thing and far away beyond sea, it might be doing, or it might be dreaming, some other thing, and not in the least caring for his cares. In what way these things come about I know not; but in what way soever they come, why do we not believe it comes in the same way for a person in a dream to see a dead man, as it comes that he sees a living man? both, no doubt, neither knowing nor caring who dreams of their images, or where or when.

"Like dreams, moreover, are some visions of persons awake, who have had their senses troubled, such as phrenetic persons, or those who are mad in any way, for they, too, talk to themselves just as though they were speaking to people verily present, and as well with absent men as with present, whose images they perceive whether persons living or dead. But just as they who live are unconscious that they are seen of them and talk with them (for indeed they are not really themselves present, or themselves make speeches, but through troubled senses these persons are wrought upon by such like imaginary visions), just so they also who have departed this life, to persons thus affected appear as present while they be absent, and are themselves utterly unconscious whether any man sees them in regard of their image." {18}

St. Augustine adds a similar story of a trance.

THE TWO CURMAS

A rustic named Curma, of Tullium, near Hippo, Augustine's town, fell into a catalepsy. On reviving he said: "Run to the house of Curma the smith and see what is going on". Curma the smith was found to have died just when the other Curma awoke. "I knew it," said the invalid, "for I heard it said in that place whence I have returned that not I, Curma of the Curia, but Curma the smith, was wanted." But Curma of the Curia saw living as well as dead people, among others Augustine, who, in his vision, baptised him at Hippo. Curma then, in the vision, went to Paradise, where he was told to go and be baptised. He said it had been done already, and was answered, "Go and be truly baptised, for that thou didst but see in vision". So Augustine christened him, and later, hearing of the trance, asked him about it, when he repeated the tale already familiar to his neighbours. Augustine thinks it a mere dream, and apparently regards the death of Curma the smith as a casual coincidence. Un esprit fort, le Saint Augustin!

"If the dead could come in dreams," he says, "my pious mother would no night fail to visit me. Far be the thought that she should, by a happier life, have been made so cruel that, when aught vexes my heart, she should not even console in a dream the son whom she loved with an only love."

Not only things once probably known, yet forgotten, but knowledge never consciously thought out, may be revealed in a dramatic dream, apparently through the lips of the dead or the never existent. The books of psychology are rich in examples of problems worked out, or music or poetry composed in sleep. The following is a more recent and very striking example:—

THE ASSYRIAN PRIEST

Herr H. V. Hilprecht is Professor of Assyriology in the University of Pennsylvania. That university had despatched an expedition to explore the ruins of Babylon, and sketches of the objects discovered had been sent home. Among these were drawings of two small fragments of agate, inscribed with characters. One Saturday night in March, 1893, Professor Hilprecht had wearied himself with puzzling over these two fragments, which were supposed to be broken pieces of finger-rings. He was inclined, from the nature of the characters, to date them about 1700-1140 B.C.; and as the first character of the third line of the first fragment seemed to read KU, he guessed that it might stand for Kurigalzu, a king of that name.

About midnight the professor went, weary and perplexed, to bed.

"Then I dreamed the following remarkable dream. A tall thin priest of the old pre-Christian Nippur, about forty years of age, and clad in a simple abba, led me to the treasure-chamber of the temple, on its south-east side. He went with me into a small low-ceiled room without windows, in which there was a large wooden chest, while scraps of agate and lapis lazuli lay scattered on the floor. Here he addressed me as follows:—

"'The two fragments, which you have published separately upon pages 22 and 26, belong together'" (this amazing Assyrian priest spoke American!). {20} "'They are not finger-rings, and their history is as follows:—

"'King Kurigalzu (about 1300 B.C.) once sent to the temple of Bel, among other articles of agate and lapis lazuli, an inscribed votive cylinder of agate. Then the priests suddenly received the command to make for the statue of the god Nibib a pair of ear-rings of agate. We were in great dismay, since there was no agate as raw material at hand. In order to execute the command there was nothing for us to do but cut the votive cylinder in three parts, thus making three rings, each of which contained a portion of the original inscription. The first two rings served as ear-rings for the statue of the god; the two fragments which have given you so much trouble are parts of them. If you will put the two together, you will have confirmation of my words. But the third ring you have not found yet, and you never will find it.'"

The professor awoke, bounded out of bed, as Mrs. Hilprecht testifies, and was heard crying from his study, "It is so, it is so!" Mrs. Hilprecht followed her lord, "and satisfied myself in the midnight hour as to the outcome of his most interesting dream".

The professor, however, says that he awoke, told his wife the dream, and verified it next day. Both statements are correct. There were two sets of drawings, one in the study (used that night) one used next day in the University Library.

The inscription ran thus, the missing fragment being restored, "by analogy from many similar inscriptions":—

TO THE GOD NIBIB, CHILD OF THE GOD BEL, HIS LORD KURIGALZU, PONTIFEX OF THE GOD BEL HAS PRESENTED IT.

But, in the drawings, the fragments were of different colours, so that a student working on the drawings would not guess them to be parts of one cylinder. Professor Hilprecht, however, examined the two actual fragments in the Imperial Museum at Constantinople. They lay in two distinct cases, but, when put together, fitted. When cut asunder of old, in Babylon, the white vein of the stone showed on one fragment, the grey surface on the other.

Professor Romaine Newbold, who publishes this dream, explains that the professor had unconsciously reasoned out his facts, the difference of colour in the two pieces of agate disappearing in the dream. The professor had heard from Dr. Peters of the expedition, that a room had been discovered with fragments of a wooden box and chips of agate and lapis lazuli. The sleeping mind "combined its information," reasoned rightly from it, and threw its own conclusions into a dramatic form, receiving the information from the lips of a priest of Nippur.

Probably we do a good deal of reasoning in sleep. Professor Hilprecht, in 1882-83, was working at a translation of an inscription wherein came Nabu—Kudurru—usur, rendered by Professor Delitzsch "Nebo protect my mortar-board". Professor Hilprecht accepted this, but woke one morning with his mind full of the thought that the words should be rendered "Nebo protect my boundary," which "sounds a deal likelier," and is now accepted. I myself, when working at the MSS. of the exiled Stuarts, was puzzled by the scorched appearance of the paper on which Prince Charlie's and the king's letters were often written and by the peculiarities of the ink. I woke one morning with a sudden flash of common-sense. Sympathetic ink had been used, and the papers had been toasted or treated with acids. This I had probably reasoned out in sleep, and, had I dreamed, my mind might have dramatised the idea. Old Mr. Edgar, the king's secretary, might have appeared and given me the explanation. Maury publishes tales in which a forgotten fact was revealed to him in a dream from the lips of a dream-character (Le Sommeil et les Reves, pp. 142-143. The curious may also consult, on all these things, The Philosophy of Mysticism, by Karl du Prel, translated by Mr. Massey. The Assyrian Priest is in Proceedings, S.P.R., vol. xii., p. 14).

On the same plane as the dreams which we have been examining is the waking sensation of the deja vu.

"I have been here before, But when or how I cannot tell."

Most of us know this feeling, all the circumstances in which we find ourselves have already occurred, we have a prophecy of what will happen next "on the tip of our tongues" (like a half-remembered name), and then the impression vanishes. Scott complains of suffering through a whole dinner-party from this sensation, but he had written "copy" for fifty printed pages on that day, and his brain was breaking down. Of course psychology has explanations. The scene may have really occurred before, or may be the result of a malady of perception, or one hemisphere of the brain not working in absolute simultaneousness with the other may produce a double impression, the first being followed by the second, so that we really have had two successive impressions, of which one seems much more remote in time than it really was. Or we may have dreamed something like the scene and forgotten the dream, or we may actually, in some not understood manner, have had a "prevision" of what is now actual, as when Shelley almost fainted on coming to a place near Oxford which he had beheld in a dream.

Of course, if this "prevision" could be verified in detail, we should come very near to dreams of the future fulfilled. Such a thing— verification of a detail—led to the conversion of William Hone, the free-thinker and Radical of the early century, who consequently became a Christian and a pessimistic, clear-sighted Tory. This tale of the deja vu, therefore, leads up to the marvellous narratives of dreams simultaneous with, or prophetic of, events not capable of being guessed or inferred, or of events lost in the historical past, but, later, recovered from documents.

Of Hone's affair there are two versions. Both may be given, as they are short. If they illustrate the deja vu, they also illustrate the fond discrepancies of all such narratives. {24}

THE KNOT IN THE SHUTTER

"It is said that a dream produced a powerful effect on Hone's mind. He dreamt that he was introduced into a room where he was an entire stranger, and saw himself seated at a table, and on going towards the window his attention was somehow or other attracted to the window- shutter, and particularly to a knot in the wood, which was of singular appearance; and on waking the whole scene, and especially the knot in the shutter, left a most vivid impression on his mind. Some time afterwards, on going, I think, into the country, he was at some house shown into a chamber where he had never been before, and which instantly struck him as being the identical chamber of his dream. He turned directly to the window, where the same knot in the shutter caught his eye. This incident, to his investigating spirit, induced a train of reflection which overthrew his cherished theories of materialism, and resulted in conviction that there were spiritual agencies as susceptible of proof as any facts of physical science; and this appears to have been one of the links in that mysterious chain of events by which, according to the inscrutable purposes of the Divine will, man is sometimes compelled to bow to an unseen and divine power, and ultimately to believe and live."

"Another of the Christian friends from whom, in his later years, William Hone received so much kindness, has also furnished recollections of him.

" . . . Two or three anecdotes which he related are all I can contribute towards a piece of mental history which, if preserved, would have been highly interesting. The first in point of time as to his taste of mind, was a circumstance which shook his confidence in materialism, though it did not lead to his conversion. It was one of those mental phenomena which he saw to be inexplicable by the doctrines he then held.

"It was as follows: He was called in the course of business into a part of London quite new to him, and as he walked along the street he noticed to himself that he had never been there; but on being shown into a room in a house where he had to wait some time, he immediately fancied that it was all familiar, that he had seen it before, 'and if so,' said he to himself, 'there is a very peculiar knot in this shutter'. He opened the shutter and found the knot. 'Now then,' thought he, 'here is something I cannot explain on my principles!'"

Indeed the occurrence is not very explicable on any principles, as a detail not visible without search was sought and verified, and that by a habitual mocker at anything out of the common way. For example, Hone published a comic explanation, correct or not, of the famous Stockwell mystery.

Supposing Hone's story to be true, it naturally conducts us to yet more unfamiliar, and therefore less credible dreams, in which the unknown past, present, or future is correctly revealed.



CHAPTER II

Veracious Dreams. Past, Present and Future unknown Events "revealed". Theory of "Mental Telegraphy" or "Telepathy" fails to meet Dreams of the unknowable Future. Dreams of unrecorded Past, how alone they can be corroborated. Queen Mary's Jewels. Story from Brierre de Boismont. Mr. Williams's Dream before Mr. Perceval's Murder. Discrepancies of Evidence. Curious Story of Bude Kirk. Mr. Williams's Version. Dream of a Rattlesnake. Discrepancies. Dream of the Red Lamp. "Illusions Hypnagogiques." The Scar in the Moustache. Dream of the Future. The Coral Sprigs. Anglo-Saxon Indifference. A Celtic Dream. The Satin Slippers. Waking Dreams. The Dead Shopman. Dreams in Swoons.

Perhaps nothing, not even a ghost, is so staggering to the powers of belief as a well-authenticated dream which strikes the bull's eye of facts not known to the dreamer nor capable of being guessed by him. If the events beheld in the dream are far away in space, or are remote in time past, the puzzle is difficult enough. But if the events are still in the future, perhaps no kind of explanation except a mere "fluke" can even be suggested. Say that I dream of an event occurring at a distance, and that I record or act on my dream before it is corroborated. Suppose, too, that the event is not one which could be guessed, like the death of an invalid or the result of a race or of an election. This would be odd enough, but the facts of which I dreamed must have been present in the minds of living people. Now, if there is such a thing as "mental telegraphy" or "telepathy," {28} my mind, in dream, may have "tapped" the minds of the people who knew the facts. We may not believe in "mental telegraphy," but we can imagine it as one of the unknown possibilities of nature. Again, if I dream of an unchronicled event in the past, and if a letter of some historical person is later discovered which confirms the accuracy of my dream, we can at least conceive (though we need not believe) that the intelligence was telegraphed to my dreaming mind from the mind of a dead actor in, or witness of the historical scene, for the facts are unknown to living man. But even these wild guesses cannot cover a dream which correctly reveals events of the future; events necessarily not known to any finite mind of the living or of the dead, and too full of detail for an explanation by aid of chance coincidence.

In face of these difficulties mankind has gone on believing in dreams of all three classes: dreams revealing the unknown present, the unknown past, and the unknown future. The judicious reasonably set them all aside as the results of fortuitous coincidence, or revived recollection, or of the illusions of a false memory, or of imposture, conscious or unconscious. However, the stories continue to be told, and our business is with the stories.

Taking, first, dreams of the unknown past, we find a large modern collection of these attributed to a lady named "Miss A—-". They were waking dreams representing obscure incidents of the past, and were later corroborated by records in books, newspapers and manuscripts. But as these books and papers existed, and were known to exist, before the occurrence of the visions, it is obvious that the matter of the visions may have been derived from the books and so forth, or at least, a sceptic will vastly prefer this explanation. What we need is a dream or vision of the unknown past, corroborated by a document not known to exist at the time when the vision took place and was recorded. Probably there is no such instance, but the following tale, picturesque in itself, has a kind of shadow of the only satisfactory sort of corroboration.

The author responsible for this yarn is Dr. Gregory, F.R.S., Professor of Chemistry in the University of Edinburgh. After studying for many years the real or alleged phenomena of what has been called mesmerism, or electro-biology, or hypnotism, Dr. Gregory published in 1851 his Letters to a Candid Inquirer on Animal Magnetism.

Though a F.R.S. and a Professor of Chemistry, the Doctor had no more idea of what constitutes evidence than a baby. He actually mixed up the Tyrone with the Lyttelton ghost story! His legend of Queen Mary's jewels is derived from (1) the note-book, or (2) a letter containing, or professing to contain, extracts from the note-book, of a Major Buckley, an Anglo-Indian officer. This gentleman used to "magnetise" or hypnotise people, some of whom became clairvoyant, as if possessed of eyes acting as "double-patent-million magnifiers," permeated by X rays.

"What follows is transcribed," says the Doctor, "from Major Buckley's note-book." We abridge the narrative. Major Buckley hypnotised a young officer, who, on November 15, 1845, fell into "a deeper state" of trance. Thence he awoke into a "clairvoyant" condition and said:—

QUEEN MARY'S JEWELS

"I have had a strange dream about your ring" (a "medallion" of Anthony and Cleopatra); "it is very valuable."

Major Buckley said it was worth 60 pounds, and put the ring into his friend's hand.

"It belonged to royalty."

"In what country?"

"I see Mary, Queen of Scots. It was given to her by a man, a foreigner, with other things from Italy. It came from Naples. It is not in the old setting. She wore it only once. The person who gave it to her was a musician."

The seer then "saw" the donor's signature, "Rizzio". But Rizzio spelled his name Riccio! The seer now copied on paper a writing which in his trance he saw on vellum. The design here engraved (p. 32) is only from a rough copy of the seer's original drawing, which was made by Major Buckley.

[Picture of vellum as described in the text - images/rizzo.gif]

"Here" (pointing to the middle) "I see a diamond cross." The smallest stone was above the size of one of four carats. "It" (the cross) "was worn out of sight by Mary. The vellum has been shown in the House of Lords." {31}

" . . . The ring was taken off Mary's finger by a man in anger and jealousy: he threw it into the water. When he took it off, she was being carried in a kind of bed with curtains" (a litter).

Just before Rizzio's murder Mary was enceinte, and might well be carried in a litter, though she usually rode.

The seer then had a view of Sizzle's murder, which he had probably read about.

Three weeks later, in another trance, the seer finished his design of the vellum. The words

A M DE LA PART

probably stand for a Marie, de la part de—

The thistle heads and leaves in gold at the corners were a usual decoration of the period; compare the ceiling of the room in Edinburgh Castle where James VI. was born, four months after Rizzio's murder. They also occur in documents. Dr. Gregory conjectures that so valuable a present as a diamond cross may have been made not by Rizzio, but through Rizzio by the Pope.

It did not seem good to the doctor to consult Mary's lists of jewels, nor, if he had done so, would he have been any the wiser. In 1566, just before the birth of James VI., Mary had an inventory drawn up, and added the names of the persons to whom she bequeathed her treasures in case she died in child-bed. But this inventory, hidden among a mass of law-papers in the Record Office, was not discovered till 1854, nine years after the vision of 1845, and three after its publication by Dr. Gregory in 1851. Not till 1863 was the inventory of 1566, discovered in 1854, published for the Bannatyne Club by Dr. Joseph Robertson.

Turning to the inventory we read of a valuable present made by David Rizzio to Mary, a tortoise of rubies, which she kept till her death, for it appears in a list made after her execution at Fotheringay. The murdered David Rizzio left a brother Joseph. Him the queen made her secretary, and in her will of 1566 mentions him thus:—

"A Josef, pour porter a celui qui je luy ay dit, une emeraude emaille de blanc.

"A Josef, pour porter a celui qui je luy ai dit, dont il ranvoir quittance.

"Une bague garnye de vingt cinq diamens tant grands que petis."

Now the diamond cross seen by the young officer in 1845 was set with diamonds great and small, and was, in his opinion, a gift from or through Rizzio. "The queen wore it out of sight." Here in the inventory we have a bague (which may be a cross) of diamonds small and great, connected with a secret only known to Rizzio's brother and to the queen. It is "to be carried to one whose name the queen has spoken in her new secretary's ear" (Joseph's), "but dare not trust herself to write". "It would be idle now to seek to pry into the mystery which was thus anxiously guarded," says Dr. Robertson, editor of the queen's inventories. The doctor knew nothing of the vision which, perhaps, so nearly pried into the mystery. There is nothing like proof here, but there is just a presumption that the diamonds connected with Rizzio, and secretly worn by the queen, seen in the vision of 1845, are possibly the diamonds which, had Mary died in 1566, were to be carried by Joseph Rizzio to a person whose name might not safely be written. {35a}

We now take a dream which apparently reveals a real fact occurring at a distance. It is translated from Brierre de Boismont's book, Des Hallucinations {35b} (Paris, 1845). "There are," says the learned author, "authentic dreams which have revealed an event occurring at the moment, or later." These he explains by accidental coincidence, and then gives the following anecdote, as within his own intimate knowledge:—

THE DEATHBED

Miss C., a lady of excellent sense, religious but not bigoted, lived before her marriage in the house of her uncle D., a celebrated physician, and member of the Institute. Her mother at this time was seriously ill in the country. One night the girl dreamed that she saw her mother, pale and dying, and especially grieved at the absence of two of her children: one a cure in Spain, the other—herself—in Paris. Next she heard her own Christian name called, "Charlotte!" and, in her dream, saw the people about her mother bring in her own little niece and god-child Charlotte from the next room. The patient intimated by a sign that she did not want this Charlotte, but her daughter in Paris. She displayed the deepest regret; her countenance changed, she fell back, and died.

Next day the melancholy of Mademoiselle C. attracted the attention of her uncle. She told him her dream; he pressed her to his heart, and admitted that her mother was dead.

Some months later Mademoiselle C., when her uncle was absent, arranged his papers, which he did not like any one to touch. Among these was a letter containing the story of her mother's death, with all the details of her own dream, which D. had kept concealed lest they should impress her too painfully.

Boismont is staggered by this circumstance, and inclined to account for it by "still unknown relations in the moral and physical world". "Mental telegraphy," of course, would explain all, and even chance coincidence is perfectly conceivable.

The most commonly known of dreams prior to, or simultaneous with an historical occurrence represented in the vision, is Mr. Williams's dream of the murder of Mr. Perceval in the lobby of the House of Commons, May 11, 1812. Mr. Williams, of Scorrier House, near Redruth, in Cornwall, lived till 1841. He was interested in mines, and a man of substance. Unluckily the versions of his dream are full of discrepancies. It was first published, apparently, in The Times during the "silly season" of 1828 (August 28). According to The Times, whose account is very minute, Mr. Williams dreamed of the murder thrice before 2 a.m. on the night of May 11. He told Mrs. Williams, and was so disturbed that he rose and dressed at two in the morning. He went to Falmouth next day (May 12), and told the tale to every one he knew. On the evening of the 13th he told it to Mr. and Mrs. Tucker (his married daughter) of Tremanton Castle. Mr. Williams only knew that the chancellor was shot; Mr. Tucker said it must be the Chancellor of the Exchequer. From the description he recognised Mr. Perceval, with whom he was at enmity. Mr. Williams had never been inside the House of Commons. As they talked, Mr. William's son galloped up from Truro with news of the murder, got from a traveller by coach. Six weeks later, Mr. Williams went to town, and in the House of Commons walked up to and recognised the scene of the various incidents in the murder.

So far The Times, in 1828. But two forms of a version of 1832 exist, one in a note to Mr. Walpole's Life of Perceval (1874), "an attested statement, drawn up and signed by Mr. Williams in the presence of the Rev. Thomas Fisher and Mr. Charles Prideaux Brune". Mr. Brune gave it to Mr. Walpole. With only verbal differences this variant corresponds to another signed by Mr. Williams and given by him to his grandson, who gave it to Mr. Perceval's great-niece, by whom it was lent to the Society for Psychical Research.

These accounts differ toto coelo from that in The Times of 1828. The dream is not of May 11, but "about" May 2 or 3. Mr. Williams is not a stranger to the House of Commons; it is "a place well known to me". He is not ignorant of the name of the victim, but "understood that it was Mr. Perceval". He thinks of going to town to give warning. We hear nothing of Mr. Tucker. Mr. Williams does not verify his dream in the House, but from a drawing. A Mr. C. R. Fox, son of one to whom the dream was told before the event, was then a boy of fourteen, and sixty-one years later was sure that he himself heard of Mr. Williams's dream before the news of the murder arrived. After sixty years, however, the memory cannot be relied upon.

One very curious circumstance in connection with the assassination of Mr. Perceval has never been noticed. A rumour or report of the deed reached Bude Kirk, a village near Annan, on the night of Sunday, May 10, a day before the crime was committed! This was stated in the Dumfries and Galloway Courier, and copied in The Times of May 25. On May 28, the Perth Courier quotes the Dumfries paper, and adds that "the Rev. Mr. Yorstoun, minister of Hoddam (ob. 1833), has visited Bude Kirk and has obtained the most satisfactory proof of the rumour having existed" on May 10, but the rumour cannot be traced to its source. Mr. Yorstoun authorises the mention of his name. The Times of June 2 says that "the report is without foundation". If Williams talked everywhere of his dream, on May 3, some garbled shape of it may conceivably have floated to Bude Kirk by May 10, and originated the rumour. Whoever started it would keep quiet when the real news arrived for fear of being implicated in a conspiracy as accessory before the fact. No trace of Mr. Williams's dream occurs in the contemporary London papers.

The best version of the dream to follow is probably that signed by Mr. Williams himself in 1832. {39a}

It may, of course, be argued by people who accept Mr. Williams's dream as a revelation of the future that it reached his mind from the purpose conceived in Bellingham's mind, by way of "mental telegraphy". {39b}

DREAM OF MR. PERCEVAL'S MURDER

"SUNDHILL, December, 1832.

"[Some account of a dream which occurred to John Williams, Esq., of Scorrier House, in the county of Cornwall, in the year 1812. Taken from his own mouth, and narrated by him at various times to several of his friends.]

"Being desired to write out the particulars of a remarkable dream which I had in the year 1812, before I do so I think it may be proper for me to say that at that time my attention was fully occupied with affairs of my own—the superintendence of some very extensive mines in Cornwall being entrusted to me. Thus I had no leisure to pay any attention to political matters, and hardly knew at that time who formed the administration of the country. It was, therefore, scarcely possible that my own interest in the subject should have had any share in suggesting the circumstances which presented themselves to my imagination. It was, in truth, a subject which never occurred to my waking thoughts.

"My dream was as follows:—

"About the second or third day of May, 1812, I dreamed that I was in the lobby of the House of Commons (a place well known to me). A small man, dressed in a blue coat and a white waistcoat, entered, and immediately I saw a person whom I had observed on my first entrance, dressed in a snuff-coloured coat with metal buttons, take a pistol from under his coat and present it at the little man above-mentioned. The pistol was discharged, and the ball entered under the left breast of the person at whom it was directed. I saw the blood issue from the place where the ball had struck him, his countenance instantly altered, and he fell to the ground. Upon inquiry who the sufferer might be, I was informed that he was the chancellor. I understood him to be Mr. Perceval, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer. I further saw the murderer laid hold of by several of the gentlemen in the room. Upon waking I told the particulars above related to my wife; she treated the matter lightly, and desired me to go to sleep, saying it was only a dream. I soon fell asleep again, and again the dream presented itself with precisely the same circumstances. After waking a second time and stating the matter again to my wife, she only repeated her request that I would compose myself and dismiss the subject from my mind. Upon my falling asleep the third time, the same dream without any alteration was repeated, and I awoke, as on the former occasions, in great agitation. So much alarmed and impressed was I with the circumstances above related, that I felt much doubt whether it was not my duty to take a journey to London and communicate upon the subject with the party principally concerned. Upon this point I consulted with some friends whom I met on business at the Godolphin mine on the following day. After having stated to them the particulars of the dream itself and what were my own feelings in relation to it, they dissuaded me from my purpose, saying I might expose myself to contempt and vexation, or be taken up as a fanatic. Upon this I said no more, but anxiously watched the newspapers every evening as the post arrived.

"On the evening of the 13th of May (as far as I recollect) no account of Mr. Perceval's death was in the newspapers, but my second son, returning from Truro, came in a hurried manner into the room where I was sitting and exclaimed: 'O father, your dream has come true! Mr. Perceval has been shot in the lobby of the House of Commons; there is an account come from London to Truro written after the newspapers were printed.'

"The fact was Mr. Percival was assassinated on the evening of the 11th.

"Some business soon after called me to London, and in one of the print-shops I saw a drawing for sale, representing the place and the circumstances which attended Mr. Perceval's death. I purchased it, and upon a careful examination I found it to coincide in all respects with the scene which had passed through my imagination in the dream. The colours of the dresses, the buttons of the assassin's coat, the white waistcoat of Mr. Perceval, the spot of blood upon it, the countenances and attitudes of the parties present were exactly what I had dreamed.

"The singularity of the case, when mentioned among my friends and acquaintances, naturally made it the subject of conversation in London, and in consequence my friend, the late Mr. Rennie, was requested by some of the commissioners of the navy that they might be permitted to hear the circumstances from myself. Two of them accordingly met me at Mr. Rennie's house, and to them I detailed at the time the particulars, then fresh in my memory, which form the subject of the above statement.

"I forbear to make any comment on the above narrative, further than to declare solemnly that it is a faithful account of facts as they actually occurred.

(Signed) "JOHN WILLIAMS." {42}

When we come to dreams of the future, great historical examples are scarce indeed, that is, dreams respectably authenticated. We have to put up with curious trivialities. One has an odd feature.

THE RATTLESNAKE

Dr. Kinsolving, of the Church of the Epiphany in Philadelphia, dreamed that he "came across a rattlesnake," which "when killed had two black-looking rattles and a peculiar projection of bone from the tail, while the skin was unusually light in colour". Next day, while walking with his brother, Dr. Kinsolving nearly trod on a rattlesnake, "the same snake in every particular with the one I had had in my mind's eye". This would be very well, but Dr. Kinsolving's brother, who helped to kill the unlucky serpent, says "he had a single rattle". The letters of these gentlemen were written without communication to each other. If Mr. Kinsolving is right, the real snake with one rattle was not the dream snake with two rattles. The brothers were in a snaky country, West Virginia. {43}

The following is trivial, but good. It is written by Mr. Alfred Cooper, and attested by the dreamer, the Duchess of Hamilton.

THE RED LAMP

Mr. Cooper says: "A fortnight before the death of the late Earl of L—- in 1882, I called upon the Duke of Hamilton, in Hill Street, to see him professionally. After I had finished seeing him, we went into the drawing-room, where the duchess was, and the duke said, 'Oh, Cooper, how is the earl?'

"The duchess said, 'What earl?' and on my answering 'Lord L—-,' she replied: 'That is very odd. I have had a most extraordinary vision. I went to bed, but after being in bed a short time, I was not exactly asleep, but thought I saw a scene as if from a play before me. The actors in it were Lord L—- as if in a fit, with a man standing over him with a red beard. He was by the side of a bath, over which a red lamp was distinctly shown.

"I then said: 'I am attending Lord L—- at present; there is very little the matter with him; he is not going to die; he will be all right very soon'.

"Well he got better for a week and was nearly well, but at the end of six or seven days after this I was called to see him suddenly. He had inflammation of both lungs.

"I called in Sir William Jenner, but in six days he was a dead man. There were two male nurses attending on him; one had been taken ill. But when I saw the other, the dream of the duchess was exactly represented. He was standing near a bath over the earl, and strange to say, his beard was red. There was the bath with the red lamp over it. It is rather rare to find a bath with a red lamp over it, and this brought the story to my mind. . . ."

This account, written in 1888, has been revised by the late Duke of Manchester, father of the Duchess of Hamilton, who heard the vision from his daughter on the morning after she had seen it.

The duchess only knew the earl by sight, and had not heard that he was ill. She knew she was not asleep, for she opened her eyes to get rid of the vision, and, shutting them, saw the same thing again. {45a}

In fact, the "vision" was an illusion hypnagogique. Probably most readers know the procession of visions which sometimes crowd on the closed eyes just before sleep. {45b} They commonly represent with vivid clearness unknown faces or places, occasionally known faces. The writer has seen his own in this way and has occasionally "opened his eyes to get rid of" the appearances. In his opinion the pictures are unconsciously constructed by the half-sleeping mind out of blurs of light or dark seen with closed eyes. Mr. Cooper's story would be more complete if he had said whether or not the earl, when visited by him, was in a chair as in the vision. But beds are not commonly found in bathrooms.

THE SCAR IN THE MOUSTACHE

This story was told to the writer by his old head-master, the Rev. Dr. Hodson, brother of Hodson, of Hodson's Horse, a person whom I never heard make any other allusion to such topics. Dr. Hodson was staying with friends in Switzerland during the holidays. One morning, as he lay awake, he seemed to see into a room as if the wall of his bedroom had been cut out. In the room were a lady well known to him and a man whom he did not know. The man's back was turned to the looker-on. The scene vanished, and grew again. Now the man faced Dr. Hodson; the face was unfamiliar, and had a deep white scar seaming the moustache. Dr. Hodson mentioned the circumstance to his friends, and thought little of it. He returned home, and, one day, in Perth station, met the lady at the book-stall. He went up to accost her, and was surprised by the uneasiness of her manner. A gentleman now joined them, with a deep white scar through his moustache. Dr. Hodson now recalled, what had slipped his memory, that the lady during his absence from Scotland had eloped with an officer, the man of the vision and the railway station. He did not say, or perhaps know, whether the elopement was prior to the kind of dream in Switzerland.

Here is a dream representing a future event, with details which could not be guessed beforehand.

THE CORAL SPRIGS

Mrs. Weiss, of St. Louis, was in New York in January, 1881, attending a daughter, Mrs. C., who was about to have a child. She writes:—

"On Friday night (Jan. 21) I dreamed that my daughter's time came; that owing to some cause not clearly defined, we failed to get word to Mr. C., who was to bring the doctor; that we sent for the nurse, who came; that as the hours passed and neither Mr. C. nor the doctor came we both got frightened; that at last I heard Mr. C. on the stairs, and cried to him: 'Oh, Chan, for heaven's sake get a doctor! Ada may be confined at any moment'; that he rushed away, and I returned to the bedside of my daughter, who was in agony of mind and body; that suddenly I seemed to know what to do, . . . and that shortly after Mr. C. came, bringing a tall young doctor, having brown eyes, dark hair, ruddy brun complexion, grey trousers and grey vest, and wearing a bright blue cravat, picked out with coral sprigs; the cravat attracted my attention particularly. The young doctor pronounced Mrs. C. properly attended to, and left."

Mrs. Weiss at breakfast told the dream to Mr. C. and her daughter; none of them attached any importance to it. However, as a snowstorm broke the telegraph wires on Saturday, the day after the dream, Mrs. Weiss was uneasy. On Tuesday the state of Mrs. C. demanded a doctor. Mrs. Weiss sent a telegram for Mr. C.; he came at last, went out to bring a doctor, and was long absent. Then Mrs. Weiss suddenly felt a calm certainty that she (though inexperienced in such cares) could do what was needed. "I heard myself say in a peremptory fashion: 'Ada, don't be afraid, I know just what to do; all will go well'." All did go well; meanwhile Mr. C. ran to seven doctors' houses, and at last returned with a young man whom Mrs. Weiss vaguely recognised. Mrs. C. whispered, "Look at the doctor's cravat". It was blue and coral sprigged, and then first did Mrs. Weiss remember her dream of Friday night.

Mrs. Weiss's story is corroborated by Mr. Blanchard, who heard the story "a few days after the event". Mrs. C. has read Mrs. Weiss's statement, "and in so far as I can remember it is quite correct". Mr. C. remembers nothing about it; "he declares that he has no recollection of it, or of any matters outside his business, and knowing him as I do," says Mrs. Weiss, "I do not doubt the assertion".

Mr. C. must be an interesting companion. The nurse remembers that after the birth of the baby Mrs. C. called Mr. C.'s attention to "the doctor's necktie," and heard her say, "Why, I know him by mamma's description as the doctor she saw in her dreams". {48}

The only thing even more extraordinary than the dream is Mr. C.'s inability to remember anything whatever "outside of his business". Another witness appears to decline to be called, "as it would be embarrassing to him in his business". This it is to be Anglo-Saxon!

We now turn to a Celtic dream, in which knowledge supposed to be only known to a dead man was conveyed to his living daughter.

THE SATIN SLIPPERS

On 1st February, 1891, Michael Conley, a farmer living near Ionia, in Chichasow county, Iowa, went to Dubuque, in Iowa, to be medically treated. He left at home his son Pat and his daughter Elizabeth, a girl of twenty-eight, a Catholic, in good health. On February 3 Michael was found dead in an outhouse near his inn. In his pocket were nine dollars, seventy-five cents, but his clothes, including his shirt, were thought so dirty and worthless that they were thrown away. The body was then dressed in a white shirt, black clothes and satin slippers of a new pattern. Pat Conley was telegraphed for, and arrived at Dubuque on February 4, accompanied by Mr. George Brown, "an intelligent and reliable farmer". Pat took the corpse home in a coffin, and on his arrival Elizabeth fell into a swoon, which lasted for several hours. Her own account of what followed on her recovery may be given in her own words:—

"When they told me that father was dead I felt very sick and bad; I did not know anything. Then father came to me. He had on a white shirt" (his own was grey), "and black clothes and slippers. When I came to, I told Pat I had seen father. I asked Pat if he had brought back father's old clothes. He said 'No,' and asked me why I wanted them. I told him father said he had sewed a roll of bills inside of his grey shirt, in a pocket made of a piece of my old red dress. I went to sleep, and father came to me again. When I awoke I told Pat he must go and get the clothes"—her father's old clothes.

Pat now telephoned to Mr. Hoffman, Coroner of Dubuque, who found the old clothes in the back yard of the local morgue. They were wrapped up in a bundle. Receiving this news, Pat went to Dubuque on February 9, where Mr. Hoffman opened the bundle in Pat's presence. Inside the old grey shirt was found a pocket of red stuff, sewn with a man's long, uneven stitches, and in the pocket notes for thirty-five dollars.

The girl did not see the body in the coffin, but asked about the old clothes, because the figure of her father in her dream wore clothes which she did not recognise as his. To dream in a faint is nothing unusual. {50}

THE DEAD SHOPMAN

Swooning, or slight mental mistiness, is not very unusual in ghost seers. The brother of a friend of my own, a man of letters and wide erudition, was, as a boy, employed in a shop in a town, say Wexington. The overseer was a dark, rather hectic-looking man, who died. Some months afterwards the boy was sent on an errand. He did his business, but, like a boy, returned by a longer and more interesting route. He stopped as a bookseller's shop to stare at the books and pictures, and while doing so felt a kind of mental vagueness. It was just before his dinner hour, and he may have been hungry. On resuming his way, he looked up and found the dead overseer beside him. He had no sense of surprise, and walked for some distance, conversing on ordinary topics with the appearance. He happened to notice such a minute detail as that the spectre's boots were laced in an unusual way. At a crossing, something in the street attracted his attention; he looked away from his companion, and, on turning to resume their talk, saw no more of him. He then walked to the shop, where he mentioned the occurrence to a friend. He has never during a number of years had any such experience again, or suffered the preceding sensation of vagueness.

This, of course, is not a ghost story, but leads up to the old tale of the wraith of Valogne. In this case, two boys had made a covenant, the first who died was to appear to the other. He did appear before news of his death arrived, but after a swoon of his friend's, whose health (like that of Elizabeth Conley) suffered in consequence.

NOTE

"PERCEVAL MURDER." Times, 25th May, 1812.

"A Dumfries paper states that on the night of Sunday, the 10th instant, twenty-four hours before the fatal deed was perpetrated, a report was brought to Bude Kirk, two miles from Annan, that Mr. Perceval was shot on his way to the House of Commons, at the door or in the lobby of that House. This the whole inhabitants of the village are ready to attest, as the report quickly spread and became the topic of conversation. A clergyman investigated the rumour, with the view of tracing it to its source, but without success."

The Times of 2nd June says, "Report without foundation".

Perth Courier, 28th May, quoting from the Dumfries and Galloway Courier, repeats above almost verbatim. " . . . The clergyman to whom we have alluded, and who allows me to make use of his name, is Mr. Yorstoun, minister of Hoddam. This gentleman went to the spot and carefully investigated the rumour, but has not hitherto been successful, although he has obtained the most satisfactory proof of its having existed at the time we have mentioned. We forbear to make any comments on this wonderful circumstance, but should anything further transpire that may tend to throw light upon it, we shall not fail to give the public earliest information."

The Dumfries and Galloway Courier I cannot find! It is not in the British Museum.



CHAPTER III

Transition from Dreams to Waking Hallucinations. Popular Scepticism about the Existence of Hallucinations in the Sane. Evidence of Mr. Francis Galton, F.R.S. Scientific Disbelief in ordinary Mental Imagery. Scientific Men who do not see in "the Mind's Eye". Ordinary People who do. Frequency of Waking Hallucinations among Mr. Gallon's friends. Kept Private till asked for by Science. Causes of such Hallucinations unknown. Story of the Diplomatist. Voluntary or Induced Hallucinations. Crystal Gazing. Its Universality. Experience of George Sand. Nature of such Visions. Examples. Novelists. Crystal Visions only "Ghostly" when Veracious. Modern Examples. Under the Lamp. The Cow with the Bell Historical Example. Prophetic Crystal Vision. St. Simon The Regent d'Orleans. The Deathbed of Louis XIV. References for other Cases of Crystal Visions.

From dreams, in sleep or swoon, of a character difficult to believe in we pass by way of "hallucinations" to ghosts. Everybody is ready to admit that dreams do really occur, because almost everybody has dreamed. But everybody is not so ready to admit that sane and sensible men and women can have hallucinations, just because everybody has not been hallucinated.

On this point Mr. Francis Galton, in his Inquiries into Human Faculty (1833), is very instructive. Mr. Galton drew up a short catechism, asking people how clearly or how dimly they saw things "in their mind's eye".