Part 7

"My agent was in love with me and so mad with jealousy that when I recovered, he overwhelmed me with reproaches, and said the signals for my interview were rather loud. I told him that as I had the right to receive when and whom I chose, no signals were needed, and this cry had surely been heart-rending enough to convince him that it announced no sweet moments. My paleness, my tremor, which lasted for some time, my tears flowing silently and almost unconsciously, and my urgent request that somebody would stay up with me during the night, all these signs convinced him of my innocence. My friends remained with me, discussing the fearful cry, and determining finally to station guards around the house.

"Nevertheless the dread sound was repeated night after night; my friends, all the neighbors, and even the policemen who were stationed near us, heard it distinctly; it seemed to be uttered immediately under my window, where nothing could ever be seen. There was no doubt entertained as to the person for whom it was intended, for whenever I supped out, no cry was heard; but frequently after my return, when I entered my room and inquired about it of my mother and my servants, it suddenly pierced the air anew. Once the president of the court, at whose house I had been entertained, proposed to see me home in safety; at the moment when he wished me good-night at the door, the cry was heard right between us, and the poor man had to be lifted into his carriage more dead than alive.

"Another time my young companion, Rosely, a clever, witty man, who believed in nothing in heaven or on earth, was riding with me in my carriage on our way to a friend who lived in a distant part of the city. We were discussing the fearful torment to which I was exposed, and he, laughing at me, at last declared he would never believe it unless he heard it with his own ears, and defied me to summon my lover. I do not know how I came to yield, but instantly the cry was repeated three times, and with overwhelming fierceness. When our carriage reached the house, the servants found us both lying unconscious on the cushions, and had to summon assistance before we recovered. After this I heard nothing for several months, and began to hope that all was over. But I was sadly mistaken.

"The members of the king's troop of comedians had all been ordered to appear at Versailles, in honor of the dauphin's marriage, and as we were to spend three days there, lodgings had been provided. It so happened, however, that a friend of mine, Mme. Grandval, had been forgotten, and seeing her trouble, I at last offered her, towards three o'clock in the morning, to share my room, in which there were two beds. This forced me to take my maid into my own bed, and as she was in the act of coming, I said to her: 'Here we are at the end of the world, the weather is abominable, and the cry would find it hard to follow us here!' At that moment it resounded close to us; Mme. Grandval jumped up terribly frightened, and ran through the whole house, waking everybody, and keeping us all in such a state of excitement that not an eye was closed the whole night. Seven or eight days later, as I was chatting merrily with a number of friends, at the striking of the hour, a shot was heard, coming apparently through my window. We all heard it and saw the fire, but the pane was not broken. Everybody thought at once of an attempt to murder me, and some friends hastened instantly to the Chief of Police. Men were immediately sent to search the houses opposite, and for several days and nights the street was strictly guarded by a number of soldiers; my own house was searched from roof to cellar, and friends came in large companies to assist in watchings: nevertheless, the shot fell night after night at the same hour, for three months, with unfailing accuracy. No clue was found and no sign was seen save the sound of the shot and the sight of the fire. Daily reports of the occurrence were sent to the headquarters of the police, new measures were continually devised and applied, but the authorities were baffled as well as all who tried to fathom the mystery. I became at last quite accustomed to the disturbance, and was in the habit of speaking of it as the doing of a bon diable, because he contented himself so long a time with jugglers' tricks; but one night as I had stepped through the open window out upon a balcony, and was standing there with my agent by my side, the shot suddenly fell again and knocked us both back into the room, where we fell down as if dead. When we recovered our consciousness, we got up, and after some hesitation, confessed to each other that our ears had been severely boxed, his on the right side and mine on the left, whereupon we gave way to hearty laughter. The next night was quiet, but on the following day I was riding with my maid to a friend's house, where I had been invited to meet some acquaintances. As we passed through a certain part of the city, I recognized the houses in the bright moonlight, and said jestingly: 'This looks very much like the part of town where poor S. used to live.' At the same moment a near church clock struck eleven, and instantly a shot was fired at us from one of the buildings, which seemed to pass through our carriage. The coachman thought we had been attacked by robbers, and whipped his horses to escape; I knew what it meant, but still felt thoroughly frightened, and reached the house in a state little suited for social enjoyment. This was, however, the last time my unfortunate friend used a gun.

"In place of the firing there came now a loud clapping of hands, with certain modulations and repetitions. This sound, to which I had become accustomed on the stage by the kindness of my friends, did not disturb me as much as my companions. They would station themselves around my door and under my window; they heard it distinctly, but could not see a trace of any person. I do not remember how long this continued; but it was followed by the singing of a sweet, almost heavenly melody, which began at the upper end of the street and gradually swelled till it reached my house, where it slowly expired. Then the disturbance ceased altogether.

"The only light that was ever thrown upon the mystery came from an old lady who called on me on the pretext of wishing to see my house which I had offered for rent. I was very much struck by her venerable appearance and her evident emotion. I offered her a chair and sat down opposite to her, but was for some time unable to say a word. At last she seemed to gather courage and told me that she had long wished to make my acquaintance, but had not dared to come so long as I was constantly surrounded by hosts of friends and admirers. At last she had happened to see my advertisement and availed herself of the opportunity in order to see me--and to visit my house, which had a deep though melancholy interest in her eyes. I guessed at once that she was the faithful friend who alone remained by the bedside of poor S., when he was prostrated by a fatal disease and refused to see anybody else. For months, she now told me, he had spoken of nothing save of myself, looking upon me now as an angel and now as a demon, but utterly unable to keep his thoughts from dwelling uninterruptedly upon the one subject which filled his mind and his heart alike. I tried to explain to the old lady how I had fully appreciated his good qualities and noble impulses, finding it, however, impossible to fall in with his peculiar views of society and to promise, as he insisted I should do, to forsake all I loved for the purpose of living with him in loneliness and complete retirement. I told her, also, that when he sent for me to see him in his last moments, my friends prevented my going, and that I felt myself that the sight of his death under such circumstances would have been dangerous in the extreme to my peace of mind, besides being utterly useless to the dying man. She admitted the force of my reasoning, but repeated that my refusal had hastened his end and deprived him at the last moment of all self-control. In this state of mind, when a few minutes before eleven, the servant had entered and assured him in answer to his passionate inquiry, that no one had come, he had exclaimed: 'The heartless woman! She shall gain nothing by her cruelty, for I will pursue her after death as I have pursued her during life!' and with these words on his lips he had expired."

The impression produced by this thoroughly authenticated recital is a strong argument in favor of a continued connection after death of the human soul with the world in which we live. There was a man whose whole existence was absorbed by one great and all-pervading passion; it brought ruin to his body and disabled his mind from correcting the vagaries of his fancy. He died in this state, with a sense of grievous wrong and intense thirst of revenge uppermost in his mind. Then follow a number of magic phenomena, witnessed, for several years, by thousands of attached friends and curious observers, defying the vigilance of soldiers and the acuteness of police agents. These disturbances, at first bearing the stamp of willful annoyance, gradually assume a milder form, as if expressive of softening indignation; they become weaker and less frequent, and finally cease altogether, suggestive of the peace which the poor erring soul had at last found, by infinite mercy and goodness, when safely entering the desired haven.

On the other hand--for contrasts meet here as well as elsewhere--these phenomena have been frequently ascribed to purely physical causes, and in a number of cases the final explanation has confirmed this suggestion. A hypochondriac artist, for instance, was nightly disturbed by a low but furious knocking in his bed, which was heard by others as well as by himself. He prayed, he caused priests to come to his bedside, he had masses read in his behalf, but all remained in vain. Then came a plain, sensible friend, who, half in jest and half in earnest, covered his big toe with a brass wire which he dipped into an alkaline solution, and behold, the knockings ceased and never returned! (Dupotel, "Animal Magn.") In another case a somnambulistic woman frightened herself as well as others by most violent knockings whenever she was disappointed or thwarted; her physician, suspecting the cause, finally gave her antispasmodic remedies, and it soon appeared that in her nervous spasms the muscles had been vibrating forcibly enough to produce these disturbances. Since these discoveries it has been found that almost anybody may produce such knockings--which stand in a suspicious relationship to spirit-rappings--by exerting certain muscles of the leg; some men, who have practised this trick for scientific purposes, like Professor Schiff, of Florence, are able to imitate almost all the various knockings generally ascribed to ghosts and spirits. The public performances of Mr. Chauncey Burr, in New York, gave very striking illustrations of this power, and a Mr. Shadrach Barnes rapped with his toes to perfection.

In a large number of cases such phenomena appear in connection with persons who suffer of some nervous disease, and then the knockings are, of course, produced unconsciously, and may be accompanied by evidences of exceptional powers. It need not be added, however, that the two symptoms are not necessarily of the same nature; generally the mechanical knockings precede the development of ecstatic visions. A girl of eleven years, the child of humble Alsatian parents, presented, in 1852, this succession of symptoms very strikingly. The child had a habit of falling asleep at all hours; at once mysterious knockings began to perform a dance or a march, and continued daily for more than an hour. After some time the poor girl began, also, to talk in her sleep, and to converse with the knocking agent. She would order him to beat a tattoo, or to play a quickstep, and immediately it was done. The directions of bystanders, even when not uttered but merely formed earnestly in their mind, were obeyed in like manner. Finally the child, getting no doubt worse and unmercifully excited by the crowds of curious people who thronged the house, began to admonish her audience, and to preach and pray; during these exhortations no knockings were heard, but she became clairvoyant and recognized all the persons present, even with her eyes closed. She fancied that a black man with a red shawl produced the knockings and delivered the speeches. Her clairvoyance became at last so striking that her case excited the deepest interest of persons in high social position, and several physicians examined it with great care. Her disease was declared to be neurosis coeliaca ("Magicon," v. 274).

A very peculiar and utterly inexplicable phenomenon belonging to this class of ghostly appearances is the complete removal of persons by an unseen power. The idea of such occurrences must have been current among the Jews, for when "there appeared a chariot of fire and horses of fire ... and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven" (II. Kings ii. 11), the sons of the prophets did not at once resign themselves, but sent fifty strong men to seek him, "lest peradventure the Spirit of the Lord hath taken him up and cast him upon some mountain or into some valley" (v. 16). In the New Testament the same mysterious removal is mentioned in the case of Philip, after his interview with the Ethiopian, whom he baptized. "The Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more," and "Philip was found at Azotus" (Acts viii. 39, 40). What in these cases was done by divine power, is said to be occasionally the work of an unknown and unseen force. Generally, no doubt, men or children lose themselves by accident, either when they are already from illness or other cause in a state of semi-consciousness, or when they become so bewildered and frightened by the accident itself, that they fancy they must have been carried away by a mysterious power. The best authenticated case is reported in Beaumont (p. 65). An Irish steward, crossing a field, saw in it a large company feasting, and was invited to join their meal. One of them, however, warned him in a whisper not to accept anything that should be offered. Upon his refusal to eat, the table vanished and the men were seen dancing to a merry music. He was again invited to join, and when he refused, all disappeared, and he found himself alone. He hurried home thoroughly terrified, and fainted away in his room. During the night he dreamt--or really saw--that one of the mysterious company appeared at his bedside and announced to him that if he dare leave the house on the following day, he would be carried away. He remained at home till the evening, when, thinking himself safe, he stepped across the threshold. Instantly his companions saw him, with a rope around his body, hurried away so fast that they could not follow. At last they meet a horseman whom they request by signs to arrest the unhappy victim; he seizes the rope and receives a smart blow, but rescues the steward. Lord Orrery desired to see the man, and when the latter presented himself before the earl, he reported that another nightly visitor had threatened him as before. He was, thereupon, placed in a large room under the guard of several stout men; a number of distinguished persons, two bishops among them, went constantly in and out. In the afternoon he was suddenly lifted into the air; a famous boxer, Greatrix, who had been specially engaged to guard him, and another powerful man, seized him by the shoulders, but he was dragged from their grasp and for some time carried about high above their heads, till at last he fell into the arms of some of his keepers. During the night the same apparition stood once more by his bed-side, inviting him to drink of a gray porridge, which would cure him of all ills and protect him against further violence. He suffered himself to be persuaded, when the visitor made himself known as a former friend who had to attend those mysterious meetings in punishment of the dissolute life he had led upon earth, and who now wished to save another unhappy fellow-being from a like sad fate. At the same time he reminded him of his neglect to pray, and then disappeared. The steward speedily recovered from his fright, and was no further molested. There can be little doubt that the man was ill at ease in body and in conscience, and that this double burden was too heavy to bear for his mind; his thoughts became disordered, till he felt an apparently external power stronger than his own will, and thus not only imagined strange visions, but actually obeyed erratic impulses of his diseased mind, as if they were acts of violence from without.

A favorite pastime of these pseudo-ghosts is the throwing of stones at the buildings or even into the rooms of those whom they wish to annoy. Good Cotton Mather loved to tell stories of such perverse proceedings, and states at length the sufferings of George Walton, at Portsmouth, in 1682. Invisible hands threw such a hailstorm of stones against his house, that the door was burst open, although the inhabitants, when hit by the stones, only felt a slight touch. Then the stones began to fly about inside, and to destroy the window-panes from within; when picked up by some of the witnesses, they proved to be burning hot; they were marked and placed upon a table, whereupon they commenced to fly about once more. It is characteristic of the whole proceeding that the only person really injured by the operation was the owner of the house, a quaker! The learned author delights also in recitals of children who were plagued by evil spirits, having forks and knives, pins and sharp scissors stuck into their backs, and whose food, at the moment when it was to be carried from the plate to the mouth, flew away, leaving yarn, ashes, and vile things to reach the palate! At other times the disturbance assumes a somewhat more dignified form, and appears as the ringing of bells. Thus Baxter tells us of a house at Colne Priory, in Essex, where, for a time, every morning at two o'clock a large bell was heard, while in the parish of Wilcot, a smaller bell waked the vicar night after night with its tinkling, and yet could not be heard outside of the dwelling. Physicians know very well how readily the pressure of blood to certain vessels in the head produces the impression of the ringing of bells, and experience tells us how easily men are made to believe that they see or hear what others assure them is seen or heard by everybody. Even the great John Wesley seems not to have been fully convinced of the purely natural character of such disturbances, when they annoyed his venerable father at Epworth Rectory; and Dr. Priestley, a calm and cautious writer, says of these phenomena: "It is perhaps the best-authenticated and the best-told story of the kind that is anywhere extant, on which account, and to exercise the ingenuity of some speculative person, I thought it not undeserved of being published." It seems that in 1716 the rectory became the scene of strange disturbances, which were at first ascribed to one of the minister's enemies, Jeffrey. The inmates heard an incessant walking about, sighing and groaning, cackling and crowing; a hand-mill was set whirling around by invisible hands, and the Amen! with which Wesley's father ended the family prayer was accompanied by a noise like thunder. Even the faithful watchdog was disturbed and his instinct overawed, for he sought refuge with men, and barked furiously, till his excitement rose to a state resembling madness, he even anticipated the coming of the disturbance, and announced it by his intense agitation.

The subject is one of extreme difficulty because of the large number of cases in which all such disturbances have been clearly traced to the agency of dissatisfied servants, hidden enemies, or envious neighbors, whose sole purpose was a desire to drive the occupant from his house, or to diminish its value. It is characteristic of human nature that the cunning and the skill displayed on such occasions even by ignorant servants and awkward rustics are perfectly amazing, a fact which proves anew the assertion of old divines, that the Devil is vastly better served than the Lord of Heaven. Even the best authenticated case of such mysterious disturbances, Kerner's so-called Seeress of Prevorst, is not entirely free from all suspicion. Mrs. Hauffe, a lady of delicate health, great nervous irritability, and a mind which was, to say the least, not too well balanced, became the patient of Dr. Justinus Kerner, in southern Germany. Besides her mysterious power to reveal unknown things, to read the future, and to prescribe for herself and others, of which mention has been made before; she was also pursued by every variety of strange noises. Plates and glasses, tables and chairs were violently thrown about in the house in which she lived; a medicine phial rose slowly into the air and had to be brought back by one of the bystanders, and an easy-chair was lifted up to the ceiling, but came down again quite gently. The suffering woman was the only one who knew the cause of these phenomena; she ascribed them all to a dark spirit, Belon's companion, who appeared to her as a black column of smoke, with a hideous head, and whose approach oppressed even some of the bystanders--especially the patient's sister. He was not content with disturbing Mrs. Hauffe only, but carried his wantonness even into the homes of distant friends and kinsmen. A pious minister, who frequently visited the poor sufferer, was contagiously affected by the ill-fated atmosphere of her house; night after night he was waked up, by a "bright spirit," who coughed and sighed and sobbed in his presence, till a fervent prayer drove him away; if the poor divine, however, prayed only faintly or entertained doubts in his heart, the spirit mocked him with increased energy. Later even the minister's wife succumbed, saw the same luminous appearances and heard the same mysterious noises, till the whole matter was suddenly brought to an end by an amulet! To this class of occurrences belongs also the experience of the Rev. Dr. Phelps of Stratford, Connecticut. One fine day he found, upon returning from church, that all the doors of his house, which he had carefully locked, were open and everything in the lower rooms in a state of boundless confusion. Nothing, however, had been stolen. In the upper story a room was found to be occupied by eight or ten persons diligently reading in an open Bible, which each one held close to his face. Upon examination these readers were discovered to be bundles of clothes carefully and most cunningly arranged so as to represent living beings. Everything was cleared away and the room was locked; but in three minutes, the clothing, which had been put aside, disappeared, and when the door was opened the same scene was presented. For seven long months the house was haunted by most extraordinary phenomena; noises of every kind were heard by day as well as by night; utensils and window-panes were broken before the eyes of numerous witnesses by invisible hands, and the son of the house, eleven years old, was bodily lifted up and carried away to some distance. The most searching inquiry led to no result, until at last Dr. Phelps, almost in despair, applied to some spiritualists, and in consequence of the hints he received was enabled to bring the disturbances to a speedy end (Rechenberg, p. 58).

Stone-throwing seems to be a favorite amusement with Eastern ghosts also; at least we are told that it is quite frequent in the western part of the Island of Java, where the Sunda people live amid gigantic mountains and still active volcanoes. They believe in good and evil spirits, and are firmly convinced that constant intercourse is kept up between earth-born men and heavenly beings. The whole Indian Archipelago is filled with the latter, and hence, the throwing of stones, sand and gravel, by invisible hands, has a name of its own, it is called Gundarua. Some thirty years ago, a German happened to be Assistant-Resident at Sumadang, in the service of the Dutch government. His wife had taken a fancy to a native child ten years old, who was allowed to go in and out the house at will. One morning during the German's absence, the child's white dress was found to be soiled all over with red betel-juice, and at the moment when her patroness made this discovery, a stone fell apparently from the ceiling, at her feet. The same phenomenon was repeated over and over again, till the lady, in her distress, appealed to a neighboring native sovereign, who promised his assistance. He sent immediately a large force of armed men, who surrounded the house and watched the room; nevertheless, the red spots reappeared and stones fell as before. Towards evening, a Mohammedan mufti, of high rank, was sent for; but he had scarcely opened his Koran, to read certain sentences for the purpose of exorcising the demons, when the sacred book was hurled to one side and the lamp to another. The lady took the child to the prince's residence to spend the night there, and no disturbance occurred. But when her husband, for whom swift messengers had been sent out, returned on the following day, the same trouble occurred; the child was spit at with betel-juice and stones kept falling from on high. Soon the report reached the Governor-General at Breitenzorg, who thereupon sent a man of great military renown, a Major Michiels, to investigate the matter. Once more the house was surrounded by an armed force, even the neighboring trees were carefully guarded, and the major took the little girl upon his knees. In spite of all these precautions, her dress was soon covered with red spots, and stones flew about as before. No one, however, was injured. They were gathered up, proved to be wet or hot, as if just picked up in the road, and at night filled a huge box. The same process continued, when a huge sheet of linen had been stretched from wall to wall, so as to form an inner ceiling under the real ceiling; and now not only stones, but also fruit from the surrounding trees, freshly gathered, and mortar from the kitchen fell into the newly formed tent. At the same time the furniture was repeatedly disturbed, tumblers and wineglasses tossed about, and marks left on the large mirror as if a moist hand had been passed over the surface. The marvelous occurrences were duly reported to the home government, and the king, William II., ordered that no pains should be spared to clear up the matter. But no explanation was ever obtained; only the fact was ascertained that similar phenomena had been repeatedly observed in other parts of the island also, and were considered quite ordinary occurrences by the natives. Certain families, it may be added, claim to have inherited from their ancestors the power to make themselves invisible, a gift which is almost invariably accompanied by the Gundarua; as these native families gradually die out, the symptoms of the latter also disappear more and more. There is no doubt that here, as in the Russian poganne (cursed places which are haunted by ghosts), the belief in such appearances, bequeathed through long ages from father to son, has finally obtained a force which renders it equal to reality itself. Reason is not only biased, but actually held bound; the mind is wrought up to a state of excitement in which it ceases to see clearly, and finally visions assume an overwhelming force, which ends in symptoms of what is called magic. The same law applies, for instance, to the ancient home of charmers and magicians, the land of the Nile, where also the studies of the ancient Magi have been assumed by a succession of learned men, till they were taken up by fanatic Mohammedans, whose creed arranges invisible beings, angels, demons, and others, in regular order, and assigns them a home in distinct parts of the universe. It is not without interest to observe that even Europeans, after a long residence in the Orient, become deeply imbued with such notions, and men like Bayle St. John, in his account of magic performances which he witnessed, do not seem able to remain altogether impartial.

One of the most remarkable phenomena belonging to this branch of magic is the appearance of living or recently deceased persons to friends or supplicants. The peculiarity in this case consists in the constantly changing character of the appearance: the double--as it is called--is the vision of the dying man, which appears to others or to his own senses. The former class of cases was well known in antiquity, for Pythagoras already had, according to popular report, appeared to numerous friends before he died. Herodotus and Maximus Tyrius state both, that Aristaeus sent his spirit into different lands to acquire knowledge, and Epimenides and Hernestinus, from Claromenae, were popularly believed to be able to visit, when in a state of ecstasy, all distant countries, and to return at pleasure. St. Augustine, also, states ("Sermon," 123) that he, himself, had appeared to two persons who had known him only by reputation, and advised them to go to Hippons in order to obtain their health there by the intercession of St. Stephen. They really went to the place and recovered from their disease. At another time his form appeared to a famous teacher of eloquence in Carthage and explained to him several most difficult passages in Cicero's writings (De cura pro mortuis, ch. ii). The saints of the Catholic church having possessed the gift of being in several places at once, apparently so very generally, that the miracle has lost its interest, except where peculiar circumstances seem to suggest the true explanation. Such was, for instance, the last-mentioned case, recited by St. Augustine (De Civ. Dei. l. 8. ch. 18). Praestantius requested a philosopher to solve to him some doubts, but received no answer. The following night, however, when Praestantius lay awake, troubled by his difficulties, he suddenly saw his learned friend standing by his bedside and heard from his lips all he desired to know. Upon meeting him next day, he inquired why he had been unwilling to explain the matter in the daytime, and thus caused himself the trouble of coming at midnight to his house. "I never came to your house," was the reply, "but I dreamt that I did." Here was very evidently a case of magic activity on the part of the philosopher, whose mind was, in his sleep, busily engaged in solving the propounded mystery and thus affected not himself only, but his absent friend likewise.

The story of Dr. Donne's vision is well known, and deserves all the more serious attention as his candor was above suspicion, and his judgment held in the highest esteem. He formed part of an embassy sent to Henry IV. of France, and had been two days in Paris, thinking constantly and anxiously of his wife, whom he had left ill in London. Towards noon he suddenly fell into a kind of trance, and when he recovered his senses related to his friends that he had seen his beloved wife pass him twice, as she walked across the room, her hair dishevelled and her child dead in her arms. When she passed him the second time, she looked sadly into his face and then disappeared. His fears were aroused to such a degree by this vision that he immediately dispatched a special messenger to England, and twelve days later he received the afflicting news that on that day and at that hour his wife had, after great and protracted suffering, been delivered of a still-born infant (Beaumont, p. 96). In Macnish's excellent work on "Sleep," we find (p. 180) the following account: "A Mr. H. went one day, apparently in the enjoyment of full health, down the street, when he saw a friend of his, Mr. C., who was walking before him. He called his name aloud, but the latter pretended not to hear him, and steadily walked on. H. hastened his steps to overtake him, but his friend also hurried on, and thus remained at the same distance from him; thus the two walked for some time, till suddenly Mr. C. entered a gateway, and when Mr. H. was about to follow, slammed the door violently in his face. Perfectly amazed at such unusual conduct, Mr. H. opened the door and looked down the long passage, upon which it opened, but saw no one. Determined to solve the mystery, he hurried to his friend's house, and there, to his great astonishment, learnt that Mr. C. had been confined to his bed for some days. It was not until several weeks later that the two friends met at the house of a common acquaintance; Mr. H. told Mr. C. of his adventure, and added laughingly, that having seen his double, he was afraid Mr. C. would not live long. These words were received by all with hearty laughter; but only a few days after this meeting the unfortunate friend was seized with a violent illness, to which he speedily succumbed." What is most remarkable, however, is that Mr. H. also followed him, quite unexpectedly, soon to the grave. Whatever may have been the nature of the event itself, it cannot be doubted that the minds of both friends were far more deeply impressed by its mysteriousness than they would probably have been willing to acknowledge to themselves, and that the nervous excitement thus produced brought out an illness lurking already in their system, and rendered it fatal. A very remarkable case was that of a distinguished diplomat, related by A. Moritz in his "Psychology." He was lying in bed, sleepless, when he noticed his pet dog becoming restless, and apparently disturbed to the utmost by a rustling and whisking about in the room, which he heard but could not explain. Suddenly a kind of white vapor rose by his bed-side, and gradually assumed the outline and even the features of his mother; he especially noticed a purple ribbon in her cap. He jumped out of bed and endeavored to embrace her, but she fled before him and as suddenly vanished, leaving a bright glare at the place where she had disappeared. It was found, afterwards, that at that hour--10 o'clock A. M.--the old lady had been ill unto death, lying still and almost breathless on her couch; she had felt the anguish of death in her heart, and had thought so anxiously of her son and her sister, that her first question when she recovered was, whether she had not perhaps been visited by the two persons who had thus occupied her whole mind. It was also ascertained that, contrary to a life's habit, she had on that day worn a purple ribbon in her night-cap. A German professor once succeeded in establishing the connection which undoubtedly exists between the will of certain persons and their appearance to others. He had only been married a year in 1823, when he was compelled to leave his wife and to undertake a long and perilous journey. Once, sitting in a peculiarly sad and dejected mood alone in a room of his hotel, he longed so ardently for the society of his wife, that he felt in his heart as if, by a great effort of will, he should be able to see her. He made the effort, and, behold! he saw her sitting at her work-table, busily engaged in sewing, and himself, as was his habit, on a low foot-stool by her side. She tried to conceal her work from his eyes. A few days later a messenger reached him, sent by his wife, who was in great consternation and anxiety. On that day she also had suddenly seen her husband seated by her side, attentively watching her at work, and continuing there till her father entered the room, upon which the professor had instantly disappeared. When he returned to his house he made minute inquiries as to the work he had seen in the hands of his wife, and this was of such peculiar character as to exclude all ideas of a mere dream on his part. Here also the supreme will of the professor must have endowed him for the moment with exceptional powers, enabling him to make himself visible to his wife, while the latter, with the ardent love which bound her to her husband, was at the same moment sympathetically excited, and thus enabled to second his will, and to behold him as she was accustomed to see him most frequently.

Owen in his "Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World," reports fully a remarkable case here repeated only in outline. Robert Bruce, thirty years old, served as mate on board a merchant vessel on the line between Liverpool and St. John in New Brunswick. When the ship was near the banks he was one day about noon busy calculating the longitude, and thinking that the captain was in his cabin--the next to his own--he called out to him: How have you found it? Looking back over his shoulder, he saw the captain writing busily at his desk, and as he heard no answer, he went in and repeated his question. To his horror the man at the desk raised his head and revealed to him the face of an entire stranger, who regarded him fixedly. In a state of great excitement he rushed to the upper deck, where he found the captain and told him what had occurred. Thereupon both went down; there was no one in the cabin, but on the captain's slate an unknown hand had written these words: Steer NW.! No effort was spared to solve the mystery; the whole vessel was searched from end to end, but no stranger was discovered; even the handwriting of every member of the crew was examined, but nothing found resembling in the least degree the mysterious warning. After some hesitation the captain decided, as nothing was likely to be lost by so doing, to obey the behest and ordered the helmsman to steer northwest. A few hours later they encountered the wreck of a vessel fastened to an iceberg, with a large crew and a number of passengers, in expectation of certain death. When the unfortunate men were brought back by the ship's boats, Bruce suddenly started in utter amazement, for in one of the saved men he recognized, by dress and features, the person he had seen at the captain's desk in the cabin. The stranger was requested to write down the words: Steer NW.! and when the words were compared with those still standing on the slate, they were identical! Upon inquiry it turned out that the shipwrecked man had at noon fallen into a deep sleep, during which he had seen a ship approaching to their rescue. When he had been waked half an hour later he had confidently assured his fellow-sufferers that they would be rescued, describing even the vessel that was to come to their assistance. Words cannot convey the amazement of the unfortunate men when they saw, a few hours afterwards, a ship bear down upon them, which bore all the marks predicted by their companion, and the latter assured Robert Bruce that everything on board the vessel appeared to him perfectly familiar.

Cases in which men have been seen at the same time at two different places are not less frequent, though here the explanation is much less easy. A French girl, Emilie Sagee, had even to pay a severe penalty for such a peculiarity: she was continually met with at various places at once, and as she could not give a satisfactory excuse for being at one place when her duties required her to be at another, she was suspected of sad misconduct. She lived as governess in a boarding-school in Livonia, and the girls of the institute saw her at the same time sitting among them and walking below in the garden by the side of a friend, and not unfrequently two Miss Sagees would be seen standing before the blackboard, looking exactly alike and performing the same motions, although one of them only wrote with chalk on the board. Once, while she was helping a friend to lace her dress behind, the latter looked into the mirror and to her horror saw two persons standing there, whereupon she fell down fainting. The poor French girl lost her place not less than nineteen times on account of her double existence (Owen, "Footfalls," etc., p. 348).

Occasionally this "double" appears to others at the same time that it is seen by the owner himself. Thus the Empress Elizabeth, of Russia, was seen by a Count O. and the Imperial Guards, seated in full regalia on her throne, in the throne-room, while she was lying fast asleep in her bed. The vision was so distinct, and the terror of the beholders so great, that the Empress was actually waked, and informed of what had happened, by her lady-in-waiting, who had herself seen the whole scene. The dauntless Empress did not hesitate for a moment; she dressed hastily and went to the throne-room; when the doors were thrown open, she saw herself, as the others had seen her; but so far from being terrified like her servants, she ordered the guard to fire at the apparition. When the smoke had passed away, the hall was empty--but the brave Empress died a few months latter (Bl. aus Prevost, V. p. 92). Jung Stilling mentions another striking illustration. A young lieutenant, full of health and in high spirits, returns home from a merry meeting with old friends. As he approaches the house in which he lives, he sees lights in his room and, to his great terror, himself in the act of being undressed by his servant; as he stands and gazes in speechless wonder, he sees himself walk to his bed and lie down. He remains for some time dumbfounded and standing motionless in the street, till at last a dull, heavy crash arouses him from his revery. He makes an effort, goes to the door and rings the bell; his servant, who opens the door, starts back frightened, and wonders how he could have dressed so quickly and gone out, as he had but just helped him to undress. When they enter the bedroom, however, they are both still more amazed, for there they find a large part of the ceiling on the bed of the officer, which is broken to pieces by the heavy mortar that had fallen down. The young lieutenant saw in the warning a direct favor of Providence and lived henceforth so as to show his gratitude for this almost miraculous escape ("Jenseits," p. 105).

Not unfrequently the seeing of a "double" is the result of physical or mental disease. Persons suffering of catalepsy are especially prone to see their own forms mixing with strange persons, who people the room in which they are confined. Insanity, also, very often begins with the idea, that the patient's own image is constantly by his side, accompanying him like his shadow wherever he goes, and finally irritating him beyond endurance. In these cases there is, of course, nothing at work but a diseased imagination, and with the return of health the visions also disappear.

Perhaps the most important branch of this subject is the theory, cherished by all nations and in all ages, that the dying possess at the last moment and by a supreme effort, the mysterious power of making themselves perceptible to friends at a distance. We leave out, here also, the numerous instances told of saints, because they are generally claimed by the Catholic Church as miracles. One of the oldest well-authenticated cases of the kind, occurred at the court of Cosmo de' Medici, in 1499. In the brilliant circle of eminent men which the great merchant prince had gathered around him, two philosophers, Michael Mercatus, papal prothonotary, and Marsilius Ficinus were prominent by their vast erudition, their common devotion to Platonic philosophy, and the ardent friendship which bound them to each other. They had solemnly agreed that he who should die first, should convey to the other some information about the future state. Ficinus died first, and his friend, writing early in the morning near a window, suddenly heard a horseman dashing up to his house, checking his horse and crying out: "Michael! Michael! nothing is more true than what is said of the life to come!" Mercatus immediately opened the window and saw his bosom friend riding at full speed down the road, on his white horse, until he was out of sight. He returned, full of thought, to his studies; but wrote at once to inquire about his friend. In due time the answer came, that Ficinus had died in Florence at the very moment in which Mercatus had seen him in Rome. Our authority for this remarkable account is the Cardinal Baronius, who knew Mercatus and heard it from his own lips; but the dates which he mentions do not correspond with the annals of history. He places the event in the year 1491, but Michele de' Mercati was papal prothonotary under Sixtus V. (1585-90) and could, therefore, not have been the friend of Ficinus, the famous physician and theologian, who was one of Savonarola's most distinguished adherents.

Nor can we attach much weight to the old ballads of Roland, which recite in touching simplicity the anguish of Charlemagne, when he heard from afar the sound of his champion's horn imploring him to come to his assistance, although the two armies were at so great a distance from each other that when the Emperor at last reached the ill-fated valley of Ronceval, his heroic friend had been dead for some days. Calderon depicts in like manner, but with the peculiar coloring of the Spanish devotee, how the dying Eusebio calls his absent friend Alberto to his bedside, to hear his last confession, and how the latter, obeying the mysterious summons, hastens there to fulfil his solemn promise.

A well-known occurrence of this kind is reported by Cotton Mather as having taken place in New England. On May 2d, 1687, at 5 o'clock A. M., a young man, called Beacon, then living in Boston, suddenly saw his brother, whom he had left in London, standing before him in his usual costume, but with a bleeding wound in his forehead. He told him that he had been foully murdered by a reprobate, who would soon reach New England; at the same time he described minutely the appearance of his murderer, and implored his brother to avenge his death, promising him his assistance. Towards the end of June official information reached the colony that the young man had died on May 2d, at 5 o'clock A. M., from the effects of his wounds. But here, also, several inconsistencies diminish the value of the account. In the first place, the narrator has evidently forgotten the difference in time between London and Boston in America, or he has purposely falsified the report, in order to make it more impressive. Then the murderer never left his country; although he was tried for his crime, escaped the penalty of death by the aid of influential friends. It is, however, possible that he may have had the intention of seeking safety abroad at the time he committed the murder.

The apparition of the great Cardinal of Lorraine at the moment of death, is better authenticated. D'Aubigne tells us (Hist. Univer. 1574, p. 719) that the queen Catherine of Medici, was retiring one day, at an earlier hour than usual, in the presence of the King of Navarre, the Archbishop of Lyons, and a number of eminent persons, when she suddenly hid her eyes under her hands and cried piteously for help. She made great efforts to point out to the bystanders the form of the Cardinal, whom she saw standing at the foot of her bed and offering her his hand. She exclaimed repeatedly: "Monsieur le Cardinal, I have nothing to do with you!" and was in a state of most fearful excitement. At last one of the courtiers had the wit to go to the Cardinal's house, and soon returned with the appalling news that the great man had died in that very hour. To this class of cases belongs also the well-known vision of Lord Lyttleton, who had been warned that he would die on a certain day, at midnight, and who did die at the appointed hour, although his friends had purposely advanced every clock and watch in the house by half an hour, and he himself had gone to bed with his mind relieved of all anxiety. Jarvis, in his "Accreditated Ghost Stories," p. 13, relates the following remarkable case: "When General Stuart was Governor of San Domingo, in the early part of our war of independence, he was one day anxiously awaiting a certain Major von Blomberg, who had been expected for some time. At last he determined to dictate to his secretary a dispatch to the Home Government on this subject, when steps were heard outside, and the major himself entered, desiring to confer with the Governor in private. He said: 'When you return to England, pray go into Dorsetshire to such and such a farm, where you will find my son, the fruit of a secret union with Lady Laing. Take care of the poor orphan. The woman who has reared him has the papers that establish his legitimacy; they are in a red morocco pocket-book. Open it and make the best use you can of the papers you will find. You will never see me again.' Thereupon the major walked away, but nobody else had seen him come or go, and nobody had opened the house for him. A few days later, news reached the island that the vessel on which Blomberg had taken passage, had foundered, and all hands had perished, at the very hour when the former had appeared to his friend the Governor. It became also known that the two friends had pledged each other, not only that the survivor should take care of the children of him who died first, but also that he should make an effort to appear to him if permitted to do so. The Governor found everything as it had been told him; he took charge of his friend's son, who became a protege of Queen Charlotte, when she heard the remarkable story, and was educated as a companion of the future George IV."

Lord Byron tells the following story of Captain Kidd. He was lying one night in his cabin asleep, when he suddenly felt oppressed by a heavy weight apparently resting on him; he opened his eyes, and by the feeble light of a small lamp he fancied he saw his brother, dressed in full uniform, and leaning across the bed. Under the impression that the whole is a mere idle delusion of his senses, he turns over and falls asleep once more. But the sense of oppression returns, and upon opening his eyes he sees the same image as before. Now he tries to seize it, and to his amazement touches something wet. This terrifies him, and he calls a brother officer, but when the latter enters, nothing is to be seen. After the lapse of several months Captain Kidd received information that in that same night his brother had been drowned in the Indian Sea. He himself told the story to Lord Byron, and the latter endorsed its accuracy (Monthly Rev., 1830, p. 229).

One of the most remarkable interviews of this kind, which continued for some time, and led to a prolonged and interesting conversation during which the three senses of sight, hearing, and touch, were alike engaged, is that which a Mrs. Bargrave had on the 8th of September, 1805. According to an account given by Jarvis ("Accred. Ghost Stories," Lond., 1823), she was sitting in her house in Canterbury, in a state of great despondency, when a friend of hers, Miss Veal, who lived at Dover, and whom she had not seen for two years and a half, entered the room. The two ladies had formerly been very intimate, and found equal comfort, during a period of great sorrow, in reading together works treating of future life and similar subjects. Her friend wore a traveling suit, and the clocks were striking noon as she entered; Mrs. Bargrave wished to embrace her, but Miss Veal held a hand before her eyes, stating that she was unwell and drew back. She then added that she was on the point of making a long journey, and feeling an irresistible desire to see her friend once more, she had come to Canterbury. She sat down in an armchair and began a lengthened conversation, during which she begged her friend's pardon for having so long neglected her, and gradually turned to the subject which had been uppermost in Mrs. Bargrave's mind, the views entertained by various authors of the life after death. She attempted to console the latter, assuring her that "a moment of future bliss was ample compensation for all earthly sufferings," and that "if the eyes of our mind were as open as those of the body, we should see a number of higher beings ready for our protection." She declined, however, reading certain verses aloud at her friend's request, "because holding her head low gave her the headache." She frequently passed her hand over her face, but at last begged Mrs. Bargrave to write a letter to her brother, which surprised her friend very much, for in the letter she wished her brother to distribute certain rings and sums of money belonging to her among friends and kinsmen. At this time she appeared to be growing ill again, and Mrs. Bargrave moved close up to her in order to support her, in doing so she touched her dress and praised the materials, whereupon Miss Veal told her that it was recently made, but of a silk which had been cleaned. Then she inquired after Mrs. Bargrave's daughter, and the latter went to a neighboring house to fetch her; on her way back she saw Miss Veal at a distance in the street, which was full of people, as it happened to be market-day, but before she could overtake her, her friend had turned round a corner and disappeared.

Upon inquiry it appeared that Miss Veal, whom she had thus seen, whose dress she had touched, and with whom she had conversed for nearly two hours, had died the day before! When the question was discussed with the relatives of the deceased, it was found that she had communicated several secrets to her Canterbury friend. The fact that her dress was made of an old silk-stuff was known to but one person, who had done the cleaning and made the dress, which she recognized instantly from the description. She had also acknowledged to Mrs. Bargrave her indebtedness to a Mr. Breton for an annual pension of ten pounds, a fact which had been utterly unknown during her lifetime.

In Germany a number of such cases are reported, and often by men whose names alone would give authority to their statements. Thus the philosopher Schopenhauer (Parerga, etc., I. p. 277) mentions a sick servant girl in Frankfort on the Main, who died one night at the Jewish hospital of the former Free City. Early the next morning her sister and her niece, who lived several miles from town, appeared at the gate of the institution to make inquiries about their kinswoman. Both, though living far apart, had seen her distinctly during the preceding night, and hence their anxiety. The famous writer E. M. Arndt, also, quotes a number of striking revelations which were in this manner made to a lady of his acquaintance. Thus he was once, in 1811, visiting the Island of Ruegen, in the Baltic, and having been actively engaged all day, was sitting in an easy-chair, quietly nodding. Suddenly he sees his dear old aunt Sophie standing before him; on her face her well-known sweet smile, and in her arms her two little boys, whom he loved like his own. She was holding them out to him as if she wished to say by this gesture: "Take care of the little ones!" The next day his brother joined him and brought him the news that their aunt had died on the preceding evening at the hour when she had appeared to Arndt. Wieland, even, by no means given to credit easily accounts of supernatural occurrences, mentions in his "Euthanasia" a Protestant lady of his acquaintance, whose mind was frequently filled with extraordinary visions. She was a somnambulist, and subject to cataleptic attacks. A Benedictine monk, an old friend of the family, had been ordered to Bellinzona, in Switzerland, but his correspondence with his friends had never been interrupted for years. Years after his removal the above-mentioned lady was taken ill, and at once predicted the day and hour of her death. On the appointed day she was cheerful and perfectly composed; at a certain hour, however, she raised herself slightly on her couch, and said with a sweet smile, "Now it is time for me to go and say good-bye to Father C." She immediately fell asleep, then awoke again, spoke a few words, and died. At the same hour the monk was sitting in Bellinzona at his writing-table, a so-called pandora, a musical instrument, by his side. Suddenly he hears a noise like an explosion, and looking up startled, sees a white figure, in whom he at once recognizes his distant friend by her sweet smile. When he examined his instrument he found the sounding-board cracked, which, no doubt, had given rise to his hearing what he considered a "warning voice." The Rev. Mr. Oberlin, well-known and much revered in Germany, and by no means forgotten in our own country, where a prosperous college still bears his name, declares in his memoirs that he had for nine years constant intercourse with his deceased wife. He saw her for the first time after her death in broad daylight and when he was wide awake; afterwards the conversations were carried on partly in the day and partly at night. Other people in the village in which he lived saw her as well as himself. Nor was it by the eye only that the pious, excellent man judged of her presence; frequently, when he extended his hand, he would feel his fingers gently pressed, as his wife had been in the habit of doing when she passed by him and would not stop. But there was much bitterness and sorrow also mixed up with the sweetness of these mysterious relations. The passionate attachment of husband and wife could ill brook the terrible barrier that separated them from each other, and often the latter would look so wretched and express her grief in such heartrending words that the poor minister was deeply afflicted. The impression produced on his mind was that her soul, forced for unknown reasons to remain for some time in an intermediate state, remained warmly attached to earthly friends and lamented the inability to confer with them after the manner of men. After nine years the husband's visions suddenly ended and he was informed in a dream that his wife had been admitted into a higher heaven, where she enjoyed the promised peace with her Saviour, but could no longer commune with mortal beings.

It is well known that even the great reformer, Martin Luther, knew of several similar cases, and in his "Table Talk" mentions more than one remarkable instance.