"When it was grown to dark midnight,And all were fast asleep,In came Margaret's grimly ghost,And stood at William's feet."
"When it was grown to dark midnight,And all were fast asleep,In came Margaret's grimly ghost,And stood at William's feet."
Or in the story of "Isabella," by Boccacio, so beautifully rendered by Keats:—
"It was a vision. In the drowsy gloom,The dull of midnight, at her couch's footLorenzo stood, and wept: the forest tombHad marr'd his glossy hair, which once could shootLustre into the sun, and put cold doomUpon his lips, and taken the soft luteFrom his lorn voice, and past his loamed earsHad made a miry channel for his tears.Strange sound it was, when the pale shadow spoke;For there was striving in its piteous tongue,To speak as when on earth it was awake,And Isabella on its music hung:Languor there was in it, and tremulous shake,As in a palsied Druid's harp unstrung;And through it moaned a ghostly under-song,Like hoarse night-gusts sepulchral briers among.Its eyes, though wild, were still all dewy brightWith love, and kept all phantom fear aloofFrom the poor girl by magic of their light,The while it did unthread the horrid woofOf the late darken'd time—the murd'rous spiteOf pride and avarice—the dark pine roofIn the forest—and the sodden turfed dell,When, without any word, from stabs it fell.Saying moreover, "Isabel, my sweet!Red whortle-berries droop above my head,And a large flint-stone weighs upon my feet;Around me beeches and high chesnuts shedTheir leaves and prickly nuts; a sheep-fold bleatComes from beyond the river to my bed:Go shed one tear upon my heather-bloom,And it shall comfort me within the tomb."I am a shadow now, alas! alas!Upon the skirts of human nature dwellingAlone: I chaunt alone the holy mass,While little sounds of life are round me knelling,And glossy bees at noon do fieldward pass,And many a chapel bell the hour is telling,Paining me through: those sounds grow strange to me,And thou art distant in humanity."
"It was a vision. In the drowsy gloom,The dull of midnight, at her couch's footLorenzo stood, and wept: the forest tombHad marr'd his glossy hair, which once could shootLustre into the sun, and put cold doomUpon his lips, and taken the soft luteFrom his lorn voice, and past his loamed earsHad made a miry channel for his tears.
Strange sound it was, when the pale shadow spoke;For there was striving in its piteous tongue,To speak as when on earth it was awake,And Isabella on its music hung:Languor there was in it, and tremulous shake,As in a palsied Druid's harp unstrung;And through it moaned a ghostly under-song,Like hoarse night-gusts sepulchral briers among.
Its eyes, though wild, were still all dewy brightWith love, and kept all phantom fear aloofFrom the poor girl by magic of their light,The while it did unthread the horrid woofOf the late darken'd time—the murd'rous spiteOf pride and avarice—the dark pine roofIn the forest—and the sodden turfed dell,When, without any word, from stabs it fell.
Saying moreover, "Isabel, my sweet!Red whortle-berries droop above my head,And a large flint-stone weighs upon my feet;Around me beeches and high chesnuts shedTheir leaves and prickly nuts; a sheep-fold bleatComes from beyond the river to my bed:Go shed one tear upon my heather-bloom,And it shall comfort me within the tomb.
"I am a shadow now, alas! alas!Upon the skirts of human nature dwellingAlone: I chaunt alone the holy mass,While little sounds of life are round me knelling,And glossy bees at noon do fieldward pass,And many a chapel bell the hour is telling,Paining me through: those sounds grow strange to me,And thou art distant in humanity."
Some of these apparitions have, in all probability, been illusions caused by an object indistinctly seen in the pale moonlight, or by an accidental arrangement of the furniture of the apartment, transformed by an imagination devoted to the subject of its own sorrows, or influenced by a vivid dream, into the idea at the moment most prominent in the mind.
The influence of remorse, or of those terrible emotions which accrue to the murderer on the perpetration of the foul deed, in causing hallucinations, is well known.
The ghost of Banquo (Macbeth, Act III, Scene 3) is a type of many wondrous histories:—
"Prythee, see there! Behold! Look! Lo!—How say you?Why what can I? If thou canst nod, speak too.If charnel-houses, and our graves, must sendThose that we bury, back, our monumentsShall be the maws of kites."
"Prythee, see there! Behold! Look! Lo!—How say you?Why what can I? If thou canst nod, speak too.If charnel-houses, and our graves, must sendThose that we bury, back, our monumentsShall be the maws of kites."
Vanderkiste[64]relates the story of a convict who had murdered an overseer, and taken to the bush:—
"He lived in the woods, and came armed to the huts to demand provisions for some time, but imagined he was continually haunted by the spirit of the man he had murdered. At last he delivered himself up to the authorities, declaring his life a burden. He was seen for days, dogged, as he conceived, by the spectre of his victim, and escaping from tree to tree."
Sir Walter Scott records the story, that the captain of a slaver, in a fit of anger, shot at, and mortally wounded, one of his sailors. As the man was dying, he fixed his eyes upon the captain, and said, "Sir, you have done for me, but I will never leave you." The captain became grave and moody, and some time after he invited the mate into the cabin, and addressing him, said, "I need not tell you, Jack, what sort of hand we have got on board with us. He told me he would never leave me, and he has kept his word. You only see him now and then, but he is always by my side, and never out of my sight. At this very moment I see him. I am determined to bear it no longer, and I haveresolved to leave you." Soon after this, the captain, watching an opportunity when he was unobserved, plunged into the sea: the mate rushed to the side of the ship, and the captain perceiving him, extended his hands upwards, exclaimed; "By ——, Bill is with me now!" and sunk.
One of the most remarkable examples of hallucination arising from the feelings excited by cold-blooded murder is recorded by Boismont:—
"A duellist, who had killed sixteen persons in single combat, was constantly accompanied by their phantoms; they never left him night or day."
The solitary hours of Charles IX were made frightful by the shrieks and cries which had reached him during the massacre of the Eve of St. Bartholomew, and he was haunted for many days subsequent to its occurrence by hideous and bloody faces. Taking Ambrose Paré aside, at one time, he remarked that he wished they had not comprised in the massacre the aged and children.
No cause is, however, so apt to engender hallucinations as religious enthusiasm, or an inordinate or rather fanatical occupation of the mind in the contemplation of religious subjects.
In the saint-visions which are so numerously scattered in the annals of Christian churches and which were so common under the self-denying and ascetic rules of some of the monastic orders, we have examples; and Spenser's "Hermit" furnishes the type of this species of hallucination:—
"Thence forward by that painfull way they pasForth to an hill, that was both steepe and hy;On top whereof a sacred chapel was,And eke a little hermitage thereby,Wherein an aged holy man did lie,That day and night said his devotion,Ne other worldly busines did apply:His name was Heavenly Contemplation;Of God and goodness, was his meditation.Great grace that old man to him given had;For God he often saw from heavens hight:All were his earthly eien both blunt and bad,And through great age had lost their kindly sight,Yet wondrous quick and persaunt was his spright,As eagles eie, that can behold the sunne."
"Thence forward by that painfull way they pasForth to an hill, that was both steepe and hy;On top whereof a sacred chapel was,And eke a little hermitage thereby,Wherein an aged holy man did lie,That day and night said his devotion,Ne other worldly busines did apply:His name was Heavenly Contemplation;Of God and goodness, was his meditation.
Great grace that old man to him given had;For God he often saw from heavens hight:All were his earthly eien both blunt and bad,And through great age had lost their kindly sight,Yet wondrous quick and persaunt was his spright,As eagles eie, that can behold the sunne."
The Virgin appeared to Ignatius Loyola, and confirming his designs, urged him to the enterprise he had in view for the establishment of the Roman Catholic church on a surer basis. Satan came visibly to Luther and contended with him, sometimes worsting him in argument. Swedenborg beheld in visions the heavenly scenes which his imagination had pourtrayed; while Pascal wrote he beheld an abyss of flames beside his writing-table; and Symeon Stylites conceived that Satan had appeared to him under the form of Jesus Christ, and invited him to ascend toheaven in a chariot drawn by cherubim. Symeon put out his foot to enter the chariot, when the whole vanished; and, as a punishment for his presumption, the offending thigh was affected with an ulcer, which obliged him to rest upon one leg for the remainder of his life.
It is important to comprehend fully the influence of the imagination in developing visions of this nature, particularly in a disordered state of the health, from the important effects which they have exercised and still exercise upon mankind.
The following example is an interesting illustration of the nature and source of these hallucinations:
Some years ago considerable attention was excited in Germany by the publication of a series of visions which a lady of considerable literary attainments and high character had beheld, and for which she believed that she was indebted to divine favour.
The hallucinations which she experienced had first been noted in the fourth year of her age, when one day, as she was dressing a doll, and for greater convenience had placed a large folio Bible beneath her feet, she heard a voice exclaim: "Put the book where you found it!" She did not immediately obey the order, as she saw no one, but in a few moments the mandate wasrepeated, and she thought some one took hold of her face. This hallucination, according to Dr. Hibbert, is to be regarded as a renovated feeling arising from some prior remonstrances regarding the holy volume; and, we would add, together with the altered sensation experienced in the face, was evidently due to the earlier stages of a disease which occasioned the more fully developed visions. After this period, she devoted herself to the study of the Scriptures; and her labours, in this respect, were incessant and protracted. In her seventh year she saw, when playing, a vision of a clear flame which entered the chamber door, in the centre of which was a strong bright light, described as about the size of a child six years old. This vision endured about half an hour. No other vision is mentioned until the period of her marriage, which proved unfortunate, embittering her life and causing her constantly to meditate on death. It was in this state of mind that the principal visions to which she was subjected occurred. On one occasion, after receiving some ill-treatment from her husband, broken down in spirits, and thinking the Lord had forsaken her, she made a resolution to desist from prayer. On retiring to bed, she repented the decision she had made, and prayed fervently. She awoke in the morning before daybreak, and was surprised to findthe room vividly illuminated, and that at the bedside was seated a heavenly figure, in the form of an old man. This phantom was dressed in a blueish robe, and had bright hair; and the countenance shone like the clearest red and white crystal. It regarded her benignantly, and said, "Proceed, proceed, proceed!" At first the words were unintelligible to her, but a young and beautiful angel, which appeared on the other side of the bed, exclaimed: "Proceed in prayer, proceed in faith, proceed in trials!" After this the devil appeared, pulled her by the hair, and tormented her in other ways, until the angel interfered, and drove him away. Satan in this case assumed his usual hideous garb. Subsequently one of the angels exclaimed, three times: "Lord, this is sufficient;" and while saying these words, the lady beheld large wings on his shoulders, and knew him to be an angel of God. The light and the angels then vanished, and the lady felt eased of her grief, and arose.
If the nature of the figures and the mode of action in these visions had not sufficed to show how completely they were dependent upon dominant ideas and a disordered state of the nervous system, the history of the case would demonstrate it. The early, protracted, and inordinate study of religious beliefs, similar to that which laid the basis ofSwedenborg's visions; the painful state of the mind induced by her unhappy marriage, and disease, were the source of the hallucinations to which she was subject; for it was ascertained that when the visions occurred she always suffered from slight attacks of epilepsy.
Intense and protracted mental exertion frequently gives rise to hallucinations.
A medical gentleman in Edinburgh, while seated one evening in his library, after a period of excessive study, on raising his head, was startled by perceiving at the opposite side of the table the spectre of a gentleman who had died under melancholy circumstances some days previously, and at whose post-mortem examination he had assisted.
That excessive action of the imagination, and consequent absorption of the mind in its own workings, to exclusion of external sensations, which is common in men of genius, has been a fertile source of hallucinations.
In some instances the hallucinations have been "counterfeit presentments" of the ideas which have been most prominent in the mind; in others they have had no relation to that condition.
Spinello, who had painted the Fall of the Angels, thought that he was haunted by the frightful devils which he had depicted. He was rendered so miserable by this hallucination that he destroyed himself. One of our own artists, who was much engaged in painting caricatures, became haunted by the distorted faces he drew; and the deep melancholy and terror which accompanied these apparitions caused him to commit suicide. Müller, who executed the copper-plate of the Sixtine Madonna, had more lovely visions. Towards the close of his life the Virgin appeared to him, and thanking him for the affection he had shown towards her, invited him to follow her to heaven. To achieve this, the artist starved himself to death. Beethoven, who became completely deaf in the decline of life, often heard his sublime compositions performed distinctly.
It is related of Ben Jonson, that he spent the whole of one night in regarding his great toe, around which he saw Tartars, Turks, Romans, and Catholics climbing up, and struggling and fighting. Goëthe, when out riding one day, was surprised to see an exact image of himself on horseback, dressed in a light-coloured coat, riding towards him.
A similar kind of hallucination to this of Goëthe's has been observed as a precursor of certain forms of insanity, and in the delirium of fever.
Boismont records the case of a gentleman who was troubled with a spectral image of himself, which he had the power of calling before himvoluntarily. This, for several years, was a source of amusement to him; but by degrees this phantom became more persistent, arose involuntarily, and addressed him. The hallucination then assumed a still graver character, for his double would dispute with him, and often foil him in argument; and coincidently with this phase of the disease the gentleman became melancholy, and he ultimately committed suicide.
The imagination rarely gives rise to hallucinations of the senses of touch, taste, or smell alone. The sweet-smelling odours which are stated to have been experienced during the visions of angels and saints; and the foul and sulphurous fumes which have accompanied apparitions of the infernals, are, however, to be attributed to this cause.
Thus far our illustrations and remarks have been confined to that class of hallucinations which are induced principally by the action of the imagination, mental emotion, or excessive exertion of the reasoning powers.
There is, however, another class of hallucinations dependent upon certain disordered states of the general health and nervous system, which have an important bearing upon the belief in the supernatural.
The simplest forms of hallucination of this class are those occasionally observed during the initiatory stages of some diseases, after the termination of exhausting affections, or during temporary morbid conditions of the brain.
The following examples will illustrate the nature of the hallucinations arising from these sources.
A lady, with whom we are acquainted, was walking early one morning in a lonely and unfrequented path, which was open to the eye for some distance. On approaching its termination, she was surprised to see a lady advancing towards her, dressed in deep mourning, and reading a book. Struck by the peculiar beauty of the lady's face, she turned round to gaze upon her as she passed; but, to her surprise, the figure vanished. Startled and alarmed, she hurried home, and almost immediately afterwards was seized with shiverings, and suffered from a violent attack of fever, characterised by severe cerebral disturbance. The hallucination in this case was caused by the changes induced in the nervous system by the initiatory stages of the disease.
A young lady recovering from a severe attack of fever, was left in charge of the house during a fine Sunday evening in autumn, the remainder of the family having gone to church. A thunder-storm came on, with heavy rain, and she becamevery anxious about her aged father. On going into the room generally occupied by the family, there, to her great astonishment, she beheld, as she thought, her father sitting in his usual position. Supposing that he must have returned from church unwell, she advanced, placed her hand upon the semblance, and found nothing. Although startled, she attributed the vision to its proper cause, anxiety and weakness; but though she went in and out of the room several times, the spectre persisted for a considerable period.
A merchant, while sitting in his counting-house, was annoyed by hearing voices outside the door conversing freely respecting his character, and speaking of him as a dishonoured man. Thinking it was some trick of his friends, he quietly opened the door, and was astonished to find no one. On closing it the voices again began in a similar strain; and on re-opening the door he still found no one. Alarmed, he left his office, and proceeded home, but the voices followed him, threatening punishment for imaginary crimes. This hallucination was accompanied by other signs of a disordered state of the brain, and it was not until after a period of entire relaxation from business, and a daily game at cricket, that the phantom-voices ceased.
There are certain formidable disorders of the nervous system in which hallucinations affect all the senses.
The following is an example of the diseases of this class, and it will show the influence which they are liable to exert in the development of certain forms of superstition.
A maiden lady, aged forty years, who from early youth had been of a very susceptible and restless disposition, suffered from hallucinations which persisted for many years.
At first the sight alone was affected, and she saw numerous persons of singular and fantastic form. Subsequently she heard voices, which professed to have taken up their abode in her stomach, and addressed her from thence. These voices tormented her; commanded all her actions; informed her of what took place within the body; gave her instructions upon diseases, and even prescribed for them. The voices gave her information respecting the characters of divers persons, and occasionally endowed her with the power of expressing herself in terms more florid and fluent than she was accustomed to. Often the voices conversed on geography, grammar, rhetoric, &c.; and they would reprove her when she had done amiss. They told her that she was possessed, and although she was not superstitious, and fully recognized the hallucinations she suffered from, she at this time sought a priest to exorcise her, thought much of eternity, and sometimes gave herself up to despair. At one time the voices told her she would become queen; often they conversed with her upon strange, and sometimes even abominable subjects; then they would say things extremely comical, and make her laugh. They would please, and then mock her, and then assail her more violently than ever, and spoil like harpies everything she touched or did. If she took a glass of water, the voices would call out that it was poisoned; and frequently they urged her to destroy herself. When she walked out, if she passed a female, the voices would cry out that she carried musk (the odour of which the lady abominated) and immediately she smelt this odour; if a man passed her, she was affected with the smell of tobacco. The voices often gave her no rest until she did what they liked, and they even ordered her to Paris, to place herself under the care of physicians there.
The visions she suffered from were very singular. Her apartment was filled with persons of all characters and descriptions; numerous processions defiled before her, and some of the figures had but one half the body, a profile, or one eye; they were large or small, and occasionally underwent singular and fantastic changes ofform.
The food she took did not possess its natural taste, and the voices often gave unpleasant savours, to prevent her eating.
When she journeyed, she felt as if soaked with water, and she would attempt to wring her clothes.
Addressing one of her physicians, when the malady was fully developed, she said, "I know that it is monomania, but the voices are stronger than my will. I wish you to prescribe for me, it is impossible for me to remain in one place."[65]
This case is an interesting illustration of a form of disease, which, when developed in persons who are subject to religious enthusiasm, has given rise to the belief of possession with devils (demonomania). Instances of this disease are frequently met with in the French asylums.
Many other forms of hallucination occur in insanity, monomania, fever, hysteria, and other diseases, in dreams, and from the influence of certain poisonous substances taken into the system. Some of these hallucinations are of considerable interest, since they have been the prime cause of many superstitions.
In addition to the hallucinations of the hearing already mentioned, in certain diseases, words spoken in the right ear have been heard in the left, andvice versâ;and under the influence of opium or haschish (prepared from the Indian hemp), the sense becomes, occasionally, so developed, that a word pronounced low, or a slight movement, sounds like a peal of thunder. Hallucinations of the sight have occasionally presented figures of colossal stature, or of extreme diminutiveness; or the patient has conceived the idea that he was so tall that he was unable to walk erect in a lofty apartment, or so diminutive that he dreaded the movements of any near to him, lest they should do him harm. Pleasant or fetid odours are sometimes constantly present to the smell. Feuchtersleben states the case of a lady who was long haunted with the effluvia as of a charnel-house. The taste is subjected to hallucinations of exquisitely flavoured viands and wines; or the reverse, no food being taken; or everything taken presents one undeviating flavour, which may be pleasant or unpleasant, or it has no taste at all. A sensation offlyingis not uncommon. Boismont has a friend who frequently experiences this sensation, and it often occurs in dreams. A friend of ours is in the habit of dreaming that he is suspended about a foot above the surface of the earth, and is carried along by simple volition, without movement of the limbs;and St. Jerome states, that often in dreams he flew from the earth over mountains and seas. Our ideas of depth and space are sometimes increased in dreams to an extent that is inexpressible and almost bewildering; and the sensation of falling into an abyss is common to the dreamer. The idea of time is often extended indefinitely; in the space of a single night, days, weeks, years, and even ages, have appeared to elapse. Transformation of the figure is occasionally met with among the hallucinations of insanity; and in the state induced by haschish, the singular and fantastic forms which those under its influence, and the parties surrounding them, have appeared to undergo, are of great interest. "The eyelashes," writes one gentleman, "lengthened themselves indefinitely, and rolled themselves as threads of gold on little ivory bobbins, which turned unassisted, with frightful rapidity.... I still saw my comrades at certain moments, butdeformed, half men, half plants, with the pensive airs of an ibis standing on one foot, of ostriches flapping their wings, &c."—"I imagined that I was the parroquet of the Queen of Sheba, and I imitated as well as I was able the cries of this praiseworthy bird."
In the state caused by haschish it occasionally also happens that the person under its influence may be caused to speak or act in any manner that is suggested to him. This phenomenon is also seen in dreams; in both conditions the half-awakened mind automatically pursues the train of thought which has been suggested to it either by the voice or by certain sensations.
Lastly, in certain disordered conditions of the system, the person has the power of looking, as it were, into himself, and ascertaining what is going on there, or of extending his sensual powers beyond the bounds of their ordinary sphere, and ascertaining what transpires in other places, or at a distance of many miles (clairvoyance). The gentleman from whose experience of the effects of haschish we have already quoted, thought he could look at will into his stomach, and that he saw there, in the form of an emerald, from which escaped millions of sparkles, the drug he had swallowed.
By a careful consideration of the illusions and hallucinations to which we are liable, we obtain a clue to unravel the wild fantasies which constitute the greater part of the most prominent superstitions.
If we reflect on the superstitious ideas which filled the minds of our forefathers, and follow them back, in their deepening intensity, into the middle ages, we can easily imagine how the irregular andfantastic figures which an indistinct and disordered vision gave rise to in the gloom of the night, were transformed into fiends and demons; how spectres, clothed in their horrid white and blue panoply, were seen stalking over the earth, and haunting the murder-stained castle, glade, and forest; how the dimly illuminated mists of the evening and morning shadowed forth the forms of the dead, and the spirits of the waters and the air; how in the mist of Killarney, an O'Donoghue, mounted on his milk-white steed, and attended by a host of fairy forms, swept over the beautiful lake; and a spectral array arose night after night from the bed of the rushing Moldau, and besieged the walls of Prague; how the moonbeams chequering the deep recesses of the woods, and the banks and meadows overhung with foliage, were metamorphised into fairies; how the wind howling among the rocks and mountains, sweeping through the valleys, or whispering amid the trees and about the nooks and corners of the turretted castle and ruinous mansion, bore on its bosom the sounds of spectre-horsemen, demon-hunters, and fiend-like hounds, or the wail and lamentations of wandering and lost spirits, and the shrieks of the infernals; and how the billows, rushing into the caverns and deep fissures in the cliffs of a rock-bound coast, filled the air with the mysterious and incomprehensible language of thespirits of the deep.
A clue also is obtained to other forms of superstition.
The power which the witch was supposed to possess of transporting herself from place to place, and which those self-deluded wretches themselves believed; and the orgies of the witch-sabbath, which were again and again deposed to, were hallucinations due to a form of insanity—for we may so call it—prevailing at the period, which was determined by the nature of the superstitious beliefs entertained. The real character of this superstition is well shown by an incident which is recorded by Jung-Stilling.
He writes:—"I am acquainted with a tale, for the truth of which I can vouch, because it is taken from the official documents of an old witch-process. An old woman was imprisoned, put to the torture, and confessed all that witches are generally charged with. Amongst others, she also denounced a neighbour of hers, who had been with her on the Blocksberg, the preceding Walpurgis night. This woman was called, and asked if it were true what the prisoner said of her? On which she stated that, on Walpurgis eve she had called upon this woman, because she had something to say to her. On entering her kitchen, she found the prisoner busy in preparing a decoction of herbs. On asking her what she was boiling, she said, with a smiling and mysterious mien, "Wilt thou go with me to the Brocken?" From curiosity, and in order to ascertain what there was in the matter, she answered, "Yes: I should like to go well enough." On which the prisoner chattered some time about the feast, and the dance, and the enormous goat. She then drank of the decoction, and offered it to her, saying: "There, take a hearty drink of it, that thou mayest be able to ride through the air:" she likewise put the pot to her mouth, and made as if she drank of it, but did not taste a drop. During this, the prisoner had put a pitchfork between her legs, and placed herself upon the hearth; that she soon sunk down, and began to sleep and snore: after having looked on for some time, she was at length tired of it, and went home.
The next morning, the prisoner came to her, and said, "Well, how dost thou like being at the Brocken? Sith, there were glorious doings." On which she had laughed heartily, and told her that she had not drunk of the potion, and that she, the prisoner, had not been at the Brocken, but had slept with her pitchfork upon the hearth. That the woman, on this, became angry, and said to her, that she ought not to deny having been at the Brocken, and having danced andkissed the goat."[66]
Gassendi relates an experiment to the same effect. He anointed some peasants with a pomade made of belladonna or opium, persuading them that the operation would convey them to the witch-sabbath. After a profound sleep, they awoke, and told how they had been present at the sabbath, and the pleasures they had enjoyed.
Stupifying and intoxicating drugs were, in all probability, freely used by sorcerers, and in the ancient mysteries, and to their use is to be attributed many of the illusions and hallucinations which are familiar in the details of the practice of the occult sciences.
Jung-Stilling quotes a singularly interesting example of a method of practising one of the most important processes of magic; and an examination of it satisfactory shows the manner in which some of the most striking of the deceptions of that art were brought about, and how it happened that the professor, as well as the student, was equally deluded.
In Eckhartshausen's "Key to Magic" there is an account of a young Scotsman "who, though he meddled not with the conjuration of spirits, andsuch like charlatanry, had learned, however, a remarkable piece of art from a Jew, which he communicated also to Eckhartshausen, and made the experiment with him,—which is surprising, and worthy of perusal. He that wishes to raise and see any particular spirit,must prepare himself for it, for some days together, both spiritually and physically. There are also particular and remarkable requisites and relations necessary betwixt such a spirit and the person who wishes to see it—relations which cannot otherwise be explained, than on the ground of the intervention of some secret influence from the invisible world. After all these precautions, a vapour is produced in a room, from certain materials which Eckhartshausen, with propriety, does not divulge, on account of the dangerous abuse which might be made of it, which visibly forms itself into a figure which bears a resemblance to that which the person wishes to see. In this there is no question of any magic-lantern or optical artifice; but the vapour really forms a human figure, similar to that which the individual desires to behold. I will now insert the conclusion of the story in Eckhartshausen's own words:—
"Some time after the departure of the stranger, that is, the Scotsman, I made the experiment for one of my friends. He saw as I did, and had the same sensations.
"The observations that we made were these. As soon as the ingredients were thrown into the chafing-dish, a whitish body forms itself, that seems to hover above the chafing-dish, as large as life.
"It possesses the likeness of the person whom we wished to see, only the visage is of an ashy paleness.
"On approaching the figure, one is conscious of a resistance, similar to that which is felt when going against a strong wind, which drives one back.
"If one speaks with it, one remembers no more distinctly what is spoken; and when the appearance vanishes, one feels as if awakening from a dream. The head is stupified, and a contraction is felt about the abdomen. It is also very singular that the same appearance presents itself when one is in the dark, or when looking upon dark objects.
"The unpleasantness of this sensation was the reason why I was unwilling to repeat the experiment, although often urged to do so by many individuals."[67]
It would be difficult to conceive any more powerful method of inducing hallucinations than that detailed in this instructive and interesting recital. The previous schooling of the imagination,in order thoroughly to imbue it with the train of ideas requisite for the full development of the phenomenon, and the subsequent intoxication induced by the inhalation of powerful narcotic vapours—an intoxication which, as we have already seen in the example of haschish, is peculiarly apt to the development of hallucinations—will sufficiently account for the illusion of the smoke of the chafing-dish presenting any figure which the mind desires to see. The difficulty which the experimenter experienced in approaching the phantom, and which he compares to the resistance which is felt when contending against a strong wind, was evidently due to the powerful emotion which he experienced depriving him of that control of the voluntary muscles, such as we find in a person paralyzed by fear or astonishment; or perhaps it was rather a feeling similar to that experienced in nightmare, when, whatever effort we may make, we feel almost incapable of motion.
The action of the narcotic vapour alone was sufficient to induce hallucinations; for, persuaded by a very experienced physician, who "maintained that the narcotic ingredients which formed the vapour must of necessity violently affect the imagination, and might be very injurious, according to circumstances," Eckhartshausen made the experiment on himself without previous preparation; "but," he writes, "scarcely had I cast the quantum of ingredients into the chafing-dish, when a figure presented itself. I was, however, seized with such a horror, that I was obliged to leave the room. I was very ill during three hours, and thought I saw the figure always before me. Towards evening, after inhaling the fumes of vinegar, and drinking it with water, I was better again; but for three weeks afterwards I felt a debility: and the strangest part of the matter is, that when I remember the circumstance, and look for some time upon any dark object, this ashy pale figure still presents itself very vividly to my sight. After this I no longer dared to make any experiments with it."
The use of intoxicating and stupifying drugs doubtless contributed also to the development of those ideas of strange and wonderful transformations and anomalies of form with which the legends and romances of Oriental and European nations teem. In the examples of hallucinations we have already given from this source, we find the key to the explanation of several of these transformations; and the elaborated supernatural framework of fairy tales, in which men are changed without compunction into inferior animals, trees, or vegetables, has probably had a similar origin.
The state of "clairvoyance," and that condition of the nervous system which is found in certain diseases, dreams, and under the influence of narcotic poisons, in which, by suggestions, in whatever manner given, certain actions and trains of thought may be excited at the will of the suggestor, is seen also, and may be induced at will in those conditions of the system which are summed up under the terms "mesmerism," "animal magnetism," "electro-biology," &c.; and the theories which have been invented to explain them, and which are expressed in the above names, are not only needless, but inconsistent with the facts observed. The so-called mesmeric and electro-biological trance is strictly allied to certain forms of dreaming; and the whole of the results witnessed may be explained by certain admitted physiological and physical laws of action, and are due to leading trains of thought which are excited by suggestions direct or indirect. As to the higher faculty of prevision claimed in this state, we are not aware that, as yet, a single trustworthy instance has been established.
There is a class of spectral apparitions which differ from those which we have already dwelt upon, inasmuch as they have appeared to foreshadow, or have occurred coincidently with, the death of an individual; or they have made known events occurring at a distance, orhave brought to light things else hidden by the grave.
In the deepening gloom of twilight the seer of Scotland often witnessed thewraithsof those who were about to die, wreathed in the ascending mists of the night, troop in ghostly silence before his horror-stricken vision; and theBodach Glascrossed the path of the death-laden Mac Ivor; theBodac au Dun, or Ghost of the Hill, warned the Rothmurchan of approaching calamity; the spectre of the Bloody Hand scared the Kincardines; theBodach Gartinglided in significant horror through the gloomy passages of Gartnibeg House; and the Girl with the Hairy Left Hand—Manch Monlach—pointed to the death-bolt about to carry weeping and wailing into the halls of Tulloch Gorus.
The spectralfetchshadowed forth in the sister isle the dark course of death; while the Banshee mourned with the frightful accents of the dead over the dying scions of the ancient families. Hovering near the sorrow-laden mansion, her robe flowing wide in the night air, and her tangled tresses borne upon the wind, she cried the keen of another world adown the vaulted passages, and sobbed in ghastly agony her bitter lamentations.
TheGwrâch y Rhibyn—Hag of the Dribble—when the night had covered the earth, spread out her leathern-like wings, and flitting before the house of the death-stricken Cambrians, shrieked in harsh, broken, and prolonged tones their names.
In our own land the spectres of all those who would die in the parish during the year might be seen walking in ghostly procession to the church, or entering its portals, by him who would watch, three years consecutively, during the last hour of the night and the first hour of the morning, in the porch, on the Eve of St. Mark, or would kneel and look through the keyhole of the door of the sanctuary at midnight on the Eve of St. John the Baptist.
TheWhite Lady, who haunts the ancient castle of the celebrated Bohemian family of Rosenberg-Neuhaus, and who also appears from time to time in the castles of the allied families of Brandenburg, Baden, and Darmstadt,—Trzebon, Islubocka, Bechin, and Tretzen, and even has been seen in Berlin, Bayreuth, and at Carlsrhue is of historical notoriety. Tall of stature, attired in white, and wearing a white widow's veil adorned with ribbons, through the folds of which, and from within her, a faint light has been seen to glimmer, she glides with a modest air through the corridors and apartments of those castles and palaces in which the death of one of her family is about to occur; and she has been seen at other times, and oft, with the aspect and air as though thespirit had a melancholy pleasure in visiting and hovering about her descendants. It is said to be the ghost of one Perchta Von Rosenberg, who was born betweenA.D.1420 and 1430, and subsequently married to John Von Lichtenstein, a rich and profligate baron, who so embittered her life that she was obliged to seek relief from her relatives, and she died borne down with the insults and indescribable distress she endured. Among the old paintings of the family of Rosenberg was found a portrait of this lady, attired after the fashion of the times, and bearing an exact resemblance to the "White Lady." In December, 1628, she appeared in Berlin, and was heard to exclaim, "Veni, judica vivos et mortuos: judicium mihi adhuc superest!"—"Come, judge the living and the dead; my fate is not yet decided."
TheKlage-weib(Mourning Woman) when the storm is driving the rift before it, and the moon shines fitfully and faintly on the earth, may be seen stalking along, her gigantic and shadowy form enveloped in dark flowing grave-clothes, her deathlike countenance and deep cavernous eyes freezing the unhappy spectator with horror, while, extending her vast arm, she sweeps it above the cottage marked out by death.
In the Tyrol also, the phantom of a white woman looks in at the window of a house where a person must die.
These are examples of spectral apparitions foreboding death and misfortune, which the lapse of ages and the influence of superstition have invested with a semblance of reality, approximating them in apparent truthfulness to historical facts.
It is a needless, and would be a thankless task, to show how these notions were the legitimate result of the ideas of the supernatural entertained at the period when they were developed; and how when the superstitions once assumed a definite form, the slightest illusion during the period of sickness or calamity, whether observed in the castellated mansion, pregnant generally with deeds of darkness or blood, or in the twilight or the storm of a moon-lit night, were converted into these phantoms;[68]or the imperfectly remembered dream, or its vivid depiction of the superstition, shadowed forth the same.
Scant of romance, and that wild and thrilling medium through which many of our old legends are seen, we have handed to us numerous business-like stories, some of very recent date, in which the same principles are involved as in thelegends we have detailed, and which demand grave attention, from the honest truthfulness with which they are evidently detailed, and the events which they appear to have foreshadowed.
Let us examine some of these instances, and endeavour to ascertain whether they come under the character of illusions or hallucinations; or whether they are to be placed in another category, and to be regarded as the results of supernatural agency, as is most frequently done.
In "Blackwood's Magazine" for 1840, there is a letter which contains the following statement:—
"The 'Hawk' being on her passage from the Cape of Good Hope towards the island of Java, and myself having the charge of the middle watch, between one and two in the morning I was taken suddenly ill, which obliged me to send for the officer next in turn; I then went down on the gun-deck, and sent my boy for a light. In the meanwhile, I sat down on a chest in the steerage, under the after-grating, when I felt a gentle squeeze by a very cold hand; I started, and saw a figure in white; stepping back, I said, 'God's my life! who is that?' It stood and gazed at me a short time, stooped its head to get a more perfect view, sighed aloud, repeated the exclamation 'Oh!' three times, and instantly vanished. The night was fine, though the moon afforded through the gratings but a weak light, so that little of feature could be seen, only a figure rather tall than otherwise, and white-clad. My boy returning now with a light, I sent him to the cabins of all the officers, when he brought me word that not one of them had been stirring. Coming afterwards to St. Helena, homeward-bound, hearing of my sister's death, and finding the time so nearly coinciding, it added much to my painful concern; and I have only to thank God, that when I saw what I now verily believe to have been her apparition (my sister Ann), I did not then know the melancholy occasion of it."
The superstitious feelings which we find pervading the mind of the gentleman relating this incident, and which is evinced by its termination; the circumstances under which the apparition took place, namely, a dim uncertain light, that most favourable to illusion; an attack of indisposition leading to alteration of the natural sensations; and lastly, and most important of all, the after-conclusion arrived at on hearing of the sister's death, and under the influence of which the account was written, and which, it is evident from the nature of the details, gave rise to that definite statement which has been recorded,—all tend to the conclusion that the spectre was an illusion, and that its significance was a phase imparted to it by superstitious feelings alone.
The influence of subsequent conclusions in warping the real history of an event, and giving a definite and precise character to what would otherwise have been vague and inconclusive, as is witnessed in the above story, is one of the most important fallacies pervading ghost-stories. There is no source of self-deception to which we are exposed, more insidious; and it is requisite to keep it constantly in view, not only in relations of this nature, but in the examination of events of any kind whatever. The colouring which facts receive from this source, too often hides their real character; and the reciter is perfectly unconscious of the erroneous light which he casts upon them. Hence the importance of ascertaining the peculiar bias and tendencies of thought which appertain to one who records occurrences upon which important conclusions or theories may be based.
The vicious habit which has been common among the advocates of supernatural visitations, of supporting their opinions upon the assertions of men of known probity and honour, to the complete exclusion of an examination of the sources of delusion and error to which these men were liable from the character of their previous education, habits of thought, associations, &c., and from their imperfect acquaintance with the fallacies to which they may have been exposed, has been a fertile source of error.
A so-called fact is not an abstract truth; it is simply a fact so far as it relates to the assertor, and the credence given to it by others depends upon the extent to which it agrees with their experience, or upon the knowledge that the assertor has by previous study or experience so far diminished the probability of error on the subject to which it relates, that the statement may be received without hesitation.
Another form of ghost-story is that in which the spirit of the dead has been compelled to wander in misery on the earth, for some crime or error, small or great, committed during life, and which, unless it be atoned for or rectified, prevents its eternal repose.
A story of this kind is given by Jung-Stilling, and however absurd it may be in some parts, it is interesting from the precision of its details enabling us to lay hold of a clue to the explanation of the majority of these tales.
In 1756, M. Doerien, one of the proctors of Caroline College, Brunswick, was taken ill and died, shortly after "St. John's Day" (June 24th). Immediately before his death, he requested to see another of the proctors, M. Hoefer, having some communication of importance to make to him;but before that gentleman arrived, death had taken place. After some time a report became prevalent in the college that the ghost of the deceased proctor had been seen; but as this proceeded merely from the young, little attention had been given to it. At length, in October, upwards of three months after the death of M. Doerien, as M. Hoefer was proceeding on his accustomed nightly round, between the hours of eleven and twelve, in one of the corridors he saw the spectre of that professor, clothed in a common night-gown and white night-cap. This unexpected sight terrified M. Hoefer somewhat, but recollecting that he was in the path of duty, he recovered himself, and advancing to the spectre, endeavoured to examine it by the light of the candle he held in his hand; but such a horror came over him, that he could scarcely withdraw the hand in which he extended the light, and from that moment it was so swollen, "that some months elapsed before it was healed." The following night he was accompanied in his rounds by a philosopher, Professor Oeder, who was rather sceptical on the subject of apparitions; but on approaching the spot in which the spectre had been seen on the previous evening, there they beheld it again in the same position.
Others attempted to gain a sight of the ghost, but it would not manifest itself, not even to MM. Oeder and Hoefer, until the former gentleman, wearied with his useless watching during a somewhat prolonged period, exclaimed, "I have gone after the spirit long enough to please him; if he now wants anything, let him come to me." But what followed? About fourteen days after, when he was thinking about anything else than of ghosts, he was suddenly and rudely awakened, between three and four o'clock in the morning, by some external motion. On opening his eyes, he saw an apparition opposite to the bed, standing by the clothes-press, which was only two paces from it, that presented itself in the same attire as the spirit. He raised himself up, and could then clearly discern the whole face. He fixed his eyes steadfastly upon the phantom, until, after a period of eight minutes, it became invisible.
The next morning he was again awakened about the same time, and saw the same apparition, only with this difference, that the door of the press made a cracking noise, just as if some one leaned upon it. This time the spirit remained longer, so that Professor Oeder spoke to it as follows: "Get thee hence, thou evil spirit; what hast thou to do here?" At these words the phantom made all kinds of dreadful motions, waved its head, its hands, and its feet in such a manner, that the terrified Professor began to pray, "Who trusts in God, &c.," and "God the Father dwell with us, &c.," on which the spirit vanished.
After eight days the spirit again appeared, "but with this difference, that it came from the press directly towards him, and inclined its head over him," whereupon the terrified Professor struck out at it, and the spirit retired; but no sooner had he laid down, than it again advanced, and he, noticing that its aspect was "more in sorrow than in anger," observed it attentively, and saw that the ghost had a short tobacco-pipe in its mouth. This circumstance and the spirit's mild mien induced him to address the ghost, and ask, "Are you still owing anything." He knew beforehand that the deceased had left some debts, and the amount of a few dollars,which occasioned the inquiry. The spirit looked attentively at this query; and at length, guided by the tobacco-pipe, when the Professor asked, "Are you perhaps owing something for tobacco?" the spirit retreated and suddenly disappeared. Measures were immediately taken to liquidate the debt which was found to be owing for tobacco.
The next night Professor Seidler remained with Oeder. The spirit again appeared, but not as formerly, at the press, but near it, close to the white wall. It was visible only to Oeder, his brother professor merely seeing "something white." From this night Oeder burnt a night-lamp, and he no longer saw the apparition; but for some nights, at the same time, from three to five, he was troubled with uneasy sensations, and frequently heard a noise at the clothes-press and knocking at the door. By degrees these sensations passed away, and he discontinued the night-lamp; but the second night after, the spectre again appeared "at the accustomed hour, but visibly darker." It had, moreover, a new sign in its hand—"It was like a picture, and had a hole in the centre, into which the spirit frequently put its hand. After long ruminating and inquiring what the deceased might mean by these signs, so much was at length elicited, that a short time before his illness he had taken some paintings in a magic lantern from a picture-dealer on trial, which had not been returned. The paintings were given to the rightful owner, and from that time Oeder continued undisturbed."
In this story we notice, first, that a report was prevalent in the college, that the ghost of M. Doerien had been seen by several persons; and it is but natural to suppose that such a statement would exercise a powerful effect upon the mind of M. Hoefer, who had been placed in the painful position of being summoned to the death-bed of his friend, to receive a communication "necessary to mention to him," but had arrived in time only to witness the death-struggle. Upwards of three months after the death of M. Doerien, and when M. Hoefer was evidently in a disordered state of health, as is indicated by the swelling of the hand, and subsequent persistence of this swelling for some time, as this gentleman was making his usual rounds by the light of a taper in the dead of night, he witnesses the first apparition in a situation pregnant with associations of the deceased. The apparition may have been an illusion, suggested at first by some outlines indistinctly seen; or it may have been, and it is more probable to have been, an hallucination excited by the association of ideas in a person whose system was in a disordered state.
That connection of ideas, similar or dissimilar, which is acquired by habit or otherwise, so that one of them, in whatever manner we may become conscious of it, will suggest and give rise to the others, without the intervention of a voluntary action of the mind, is familiar to most persons.
The association which the mind habitually forms between certain objects and scenes, and persons connected with them, is most evident when a separation has been effected by death or removal to a distance; and, as is well-known, and has probably been painfully experienced by most persons, when the mind has been rallying from a state of abstraction or reverie, the sight of some object, or an indistinct sound, which during the full activity of the faculties would not have been regarded, or would simply have sufficed to arouse an ordinary reminiscence, will cause to flash athwart the mind, a vivid and startling image of the deceased or far distant one.
We well remember some years ago, when a fellow-student, with whom we had been on very intimate terms, was cut off after a few days' illness. He had been in the habit of spending much time in our rooms. For some months after his death, particularly when wearied with study, a slight noise in the passage or at the door of the room has given rise to so vivid an impression that he was approaching, or at the door, that it has required an effort of the mind to quell the hallucination.
The apparition which M. Hoefer witnessed, was most probably an hallucination of this kind; the corridor, and position in which it occurred, recalling to memory, in all the vividness of reality, the form and lineaments of that deceased friend who had formerly frequented it along with him.
We have already seen an instance of a somewhat similar character, in the account given in aprevious paper of the apparition of a father, then alive, but absent at church, to his daughter at home. In that case the apparition was excited by the sight of the arm-chair generally occupied by the old gentleman, and connected with it alone, the association of the ideas being obvious; and the state of the brain forming, so to speak, the substratum of the hallucination, was induced by uneasiness caused by a heavy thunder-storm acting on a frame debilitated by fever.
The apparition of the following night, which was seen also by Professor Oeder, was, so far as M. Hoefer was concerned, a modification of the hallucination of the preceding night, prompted by the belief that the apparition he had witnessed was supernatural; and the precise similarity of the apparition professed to have been seen by M. Oeder, to that seen by M. Hoefer on that and the preceding night, would lead to the suspicion that in the former gentleman it was a trick of the imagination alone,—a suspicion confirmed by the subsequent progress of the tale.
Professor Oeder brooded upon the apparition he had witnessed, and, it is important to mark, made every endeavour for some time to obtain a second sight of it, but failed, until wearied out with his fruitless research, he ceased to hunt after it. Fourteen days afterwards, he states that he wassuddenly and rudely awakened "by some external motion" (which is evidently an after-conclusion derived from what followed), and saw the apparition of Doerien standing by the clothes-press.
In other words, he awoke suddenly out of a troubled sleep, and in the transition state between sleeping and waking, in which the mental images are as bright and defined as in dreams, the subject which had occupied his mind so much of late was presented before him in a visible form. As it not unfrequently happens when a dream has made a powerful impression on the mind, it is repeated again, so on the following night M. Oeder's hallucination occurred, but with the addition of a slight creaking noise of the clothes-press door.
Oeder was now fully convinced of the supernatural character of his visitant, and when the spectre again appeared to him, which was after a period of eight days, he having adopted the opinion at that period very prevalent, of troubled spirits, proceeded to inquire as to the cause of its visitations; and noticing a white tobacco-pipe in the spirit's mouth, andknowingthat the deceased Doerien had "left some debts to the amount of a few dollars," he asked, "Are you perhaps owing for tobacco?" whereupon the spirit disappeared. Here then we find an hallucination, either in the dreaming or waking state, presenting the precisesimilitude of the Professor's opinions and conceptions respecting the possible cause of the spectre.
The following night, when the spectre appeared again, a friend was with Oeder, but this friend saw "nothing further than something white,"—no very extraordinary sight in a room which had white walls, and was not perfectly dark.
From this time Oeder used a night-lamp, and the spectre no more appeared, but by certain sensations and noises he knew it was in the apartment.
The invisibility of the spectre, when the light was present, would indicate that a sensation of light excited in the eye by a disordered state of the head, such as we have fully dwelt upon in a previous part of the work, played an important part of the hallucination; and the disturbed sleep for so many nights, and uneasy sensations, point to a circumstance which we have not yet alluded to, that the Professor's health was not in good condition,—the probable cause of the whole series of hallucinations.
The uneasy sensations ceased, the light was dispensed with, the spectre again came, but it was darker, and contained a new sign in its hand, which, by following out a similar course of reasoning as upon the tobacco-pipe, and by long ruminatingand inquiring, the Professor puzzled out to signify some paintings belonging to a magic lantern which Doerien had received on trial before his death, and which had not been returned. They were sought up, sent to their rightful owner, and the apparition vanished to return no more.
It is to be remembered that this story, like most others of a similar nature, has been written under a full belief of the supernatural character of the apparitions, and it has received a colouring accordingly; and our comments suffice to show that no care, no attempt, has been made by the ghost-seer, to ascertain how much the apparitions might depend upon some illusion or hallucinations connected with his bodily health. The progress of the tale further shows that the apparitions occurred, in both M. Hoefer as well as Professor Oeder's case, in connection with symptoms of disordered health, and that they added nothing to what these gentlemen knew, or could work out, as M. Oeder did, by his own reason and judgment; in short, that they were simple images of ideas they already possessed or arrived at from the information they obtained.
Other sources of error in the judgment could be pointed out, and other causes of illusion and hallucination in the above tale, but we have written sufficient to show its worthlessness.
One of the most formidable objections to the majority of ghost-stories of this nature is the insufficiency of the authority upon which they are given. In many instances we cannot trace them satisfactorily to their origin; in others, we have received them after they have passed through the hands of several persons; and in still more (as in the tales we have just analysed) there is intrinsic evidence that no endeavour has been made to obviate or elicit the sources of fallacy to which the ghost-seer has been exposed, and diminish as much as possible the chances of error.
The story of the "Last Hours of Lord Lyttleton" is a singularly interesting example of a ghost-story, based upon insufficient authority, and probably also upon a trivial circumstance, receiving almost universal credence; and it shows, moreover, how readily the superstitious feelings of the listeners will lead them to receive without due examination, tales which in themselves may be utterly void of satisfactory foundation; and induce them to retail subsequently an account which has probably received its precision and colouring from their imaginations alone.
Oft as the story has been told, we are necessitated again to quote it in part, in order to show more fully the nature of the authority uponwhich it depends.
A gentleman, who was on a visit to Lord Lyttleton, writes:—
"I was at Pitt Place, Epsom, when Lord Lyttleton died; Lord Fortescue, Lady Flood, and the two Miss Amphletts, were also present. Lord Lyttleton had not long been returned from Ireland, and frequently had been seized with suffocating fits; he was attacked several times by them in the course of the preceding month, while he was at his house in Hill Street, Berkeley Square. It happened that he dreamt, three days before his death, that he saw a fluttering bird; and afterwards, that a woman appeared to him in white apparel, and said to him, 'Prepare to die, you will not exist three days.' His Lordship was much alarmed, and called to a servant from a closet adjoining, who found him much agitated, and in a profuse perspiration: the circumstance had a considerable effect all the next day on his Lordship's spirits. On the third day, while his Lordship was at breakfast with the above personages, he said, 'If I live over to-night, I shall have jockied the ghost, for this is the third day.' The whole party presently set off for Pitt Place, where they had not long arrived before his Lordship was visited by one of his accustomed fits; after a short interval, he recovered. He dined at five o'clockthat day, and went to bed at eleven, when his servant was about to give him rhubarb and mint-water; but his Lordship perceiving him stir it with a tooth-pick, called him a slovenly dog, and bade him go and fetch a tea-spoon; but on the man's return, he found his master in a fit, and the pillow being placed high, his chin bore hard upon his neck, when the servant, instead of relieving his Lordship on the instant from his perilous situation, ran in his fright and called out for help, but on his return he found his Lordship dead."
The circumstances attending the apparition, as related by Lord Lyttleton, according to the statement of a relative of Lady Lyttleton's, were as follows:
"Two nights before, on his retiring to bed, after his servant was dismissed and his light extinguished, he had heard a noise resembling the fluttering of a dove at his chamber window. This attracted his attention to the spot; when, looking in the direction of the sound, he saw the figure of an unhappy female whom he had seduced and deserted, and who, when deserted, had put a violent end to her own existence, standing in the aperture of the window from which the fluttering sound had proceeded. The form approached the foot of the bed, the room was preternaturally light, the objects of the chamber were distinctly visible; raising herhead and pointing to a dial which stood on the mantel-piece of the chimney, the figure, with a severe solemnity of voice and manner, announced to the appalled and conscience-stricken man that, at that very hour, on the third day after the visitation, his life and his sins would be concluded, and nothing but their punishment remain, if he availed himself not of the warning to repentance which he had received. The eye of Lord Lyttleton glanced upon the dial, the hand was upon the stroke of twelve; again the apartment was involved in total darkness, the warning spirit disappeared, and bore away at her departure all the lightness of heart and buoyancy of spirit, ready flow of wit, and vivacity of manner, which had formerly been the pride and ornament of the unhappy being to whom she had delivered her tremendous summons."
From a passage in the Memoirs of Sir Nathanial Wraxall, it would seem that the sole authority for the above story was his Lordship'svalet-de-chambre, for he writes:—
"Dining at Pitt Place, about four years after the death of Lord Lyttleton, in the year 1783, I had the curiosity to visit the bedchamber, where the casement-window, at which Lord Lyttleton asserted the dove appeared to flutter, was pointed out to me; and at his stepmother's, the DowagerLady Lyttleton's, in Portugal Street, Grosvenor Square, I have frequently seen a painting, which she herself executed, in 1780, expressly to commemorate the event; it hung in a conspicuous part of her drawing-room. There the dove appears at the window, while a female figure, habited in white, stands at the foot of the bed, announcing to Lord Lyttleton his dissolution. Every part of the picture was faithfully designed,after the description given to her by the valet-de-chambre who attended him, to whom his master related all the circumstances."
In addition it would appear, according to Lord Fortescue, that the only foundation upon which this story rests, is as follows:—
"I heard Lord Fortescue once say," writes a friend of Sir Walter Scott, "that he was in the house with him (Lord Lyttleton) at the time of the supposed visitation, and he mentioned the following circumstances as the only foundation for the extraordinary superstructure at which the world has wondered:—A woman of the party had one day lost a favourite bird, and all the men tried to recover it for her. Soon after, on assembling at breakfast, Lord Lyttleton complained of having passed a very bad night, and having been worried in his dreams by a repetition of the chase of the lady's bird. His death followed, as statedin the story."[69]
It would seem highly probable, therefore, that this story has been framed much after the same fashion as that of the "three black crows," and the singular differences which we find in the versions we have given, fully confirm this view.
Connected with the foregoing story is another of the apparition of Lord Lyttleton, on the night of his death, to Miles Peter Andrews, one of his most intimate friends. This apparition occurred at Dartford Mills, where Mr. Andrews was then staying, and doubtless, in its origin and mode of development, the story is in every respect similar to that of Lord Lyttleton's.
The March number of "Household Words,"[70]for 1853, contains a ghost-story which exhibits another form of the belief, differing from those which we have already dwelt upon, and it is interesting from its comparatively recent occurrence, and from its having to a certain extent received the confirmation of a law-court.
In the colony of New South Wales, at a place called Penrith, distant from Sydney about thirty-seven miles, lived a farmer named Fisher. Hewas unmarried, about forty-five years old, and his lands and stock were worth not less than £4000. Suddenly Fisher disappeared, and a neighbour, named Smith, gave out that he had gone to England for two or three years, and produced a written document authorizing him to act as his agent during his absence. As Fisher was an eccentric man, this sudden departure did not create much surprise, and it was declared to be "exactly like him."