The Book of Dreams and Ghosts Part 7

A large number of these cases have been printed. {85b} In one case a gentleman and lady from their window saw his brother and sister-in-law drive past, with a horse which they knew had not been out for some weeks. The seers were presently joined by the visitors' daughter, who had met the party on the road, she having just left them at their house. Ten minutes later the real pair arrived, horse and all. {85c}

This last affair is one of several tales of "Phantom Coaches," not only heard but seen, the coach being a coach of the living. In 1893 the author was staying at a Highland castle, when one of the ladies observed to her nephew, "So you and Susan _did_ drive in the dogcart; I saw you pa.s.s my window". "No, we didn't; but we spoke of doing it."

The lady then mentioned minute details of the dress and att.i.tudes of her relations as they pa.s.sed her window, where the drive turned from the hall door through the park; but, in fact, no such journey had been made. Dr. Hack Tuke published the story of the "Arrival" of Dr. Boase at his house a quarter of an hour before he came, the people who saw him supposing him to be in Paris. {86}

When a person is seen in "Arrival" cases before he arrives, the affair is not so odd if he is expected. Undoubtedly, expectation does sometimes conjure up phantasms, and the author once saw (as he supposed) a serious accident occur which in fact did not take place, though it seemed unavoidable.

Curiously enough, this creation of phantasms by expectant attention seems to be rare where "ghosts" are expected. The author has slept in several haunted houses, but has never seen what he was led to expect.

In many instances, as in "The Lady in Black" (infra), a ghost who is a frequent visitor is never seen when people watch for her. Among the many persons who have had delusions as to the presence of the dead, very few have been hoping, praying for and expecting them.

"I look for ghosts, but none will force Their way to me: 'Tis falsely said That there was ever intercourse Between the living and the dead, For surely then I should have sight Of him I wait for day and night With love and longings infinite."

The Affliction of Margaret has been the affliction of most of us.

There are curious historical examples of these appearances of the living. Goethe declares that he once met himself at a certain place in a certain dress, and several years later found himself there in that costume. Sh.e.l.ley was seen by his friends at Lerici to pa.s.s along a balcony whence there was no exit. However, he could not be found there. The story of the wraith of Catherine the Great is variously narrated. We give it as told by an eye-witness, the Comte de Ribaupierre, about 1862 to Lady Napier and Ettrick. The Count, in 1862, was a very old man, and more than thirty years have pa.s.sed since he gave the tale to Lady Napier, whose memory retains it in the following form:--

THE WRAITH OF THE CZARINA

"In the exercise of his duties as one of the pages-in-waiting, Ribaupierre followed one day his august mistress into the throne-room of the palace. When the Empress, accompanied by the high officers of her court and the ladies of her household, came in sight of the chair of state which she was about to occupy, she suddenly stopped, and to the horror and astonished awe of her courtiers, she pointed to a visionary being seated on the imperial throne. The occupant of the chair was an exact counterpart of herself. All saw it and trembled, but none dared to move towards the mysterious presentment of their sovereign.

"After a moment of dead silence the great Catherine raised her voice and ordered her guard to advance and fire on the apparition. The order was obeyed, a mirror beside the throne was shattered, the vision had disappeared, and the Empress, with no sign of emotion, took the chair from which her semblance had pa.s.sed away." It is a striking barbaric scene!

"Spirits of the living" of this kind are common enough. In the Highlands "second sight" generally means a view of an event or accident some time before its occurrence. Thus an old man was sitting with a little boy on a felled tree beside a steep track in a quarry at Ballachulish. Suddenly he jerked the boy to one side, and threw himself down on the further side of the tree. While the boy stared, the old man slowly rose, saying, "The spirits of the living are strong to-day!" He had seen a ma.s.s of rock das.h.i.+ng along, killing some quarrymen and tearing down the path. The accident occurred next day.

It is needless to dwell on second sight, which is not peculiar to Celts, though the Highlanders talk more about it than other people.

These appearances of the living but absent, whether caused by some mental action of the person who appears or not, are, at least, _unconscious_ on his part. {88} But a few cases occur in which a living person is said, by a voluntary exertion of mind, to have made himself visible to a friend at a distance. One case is vouched for by Baron von Schrenck-Notzig, a German psychologist, who himself made the experiment with success. Others are narrated by Dr. Gibotteau. A curious tale is told by several persons as follows:--

AN "ASTRAL BODY"

Mr. Sparks and Mr. Cleave, young men of twenty and nineteen, were accustomed to "mesmerise" each other in their dormitory at Portsmouth, where they were students of naval engineering. Mr. Sparks simply stared into Mr. Cleave's eyes as he lay on his bed till he "went off".

The experiments seemed so curious that witnesses were called, Mr.

Darley and Mr. Thurgood. On Friday, 15th January, 1886, Mr. Cleave determined to try to see, when asleep, a young lady at Wandsworth to whom he was in the habit of writing every Sunday. He also intended, if possible, to make _her_ see _him_. On awaking, he said that he had seen her in the dining-room of her house, that she had seemed to grow restless, had looked at him, and then had covered her face with her hands. On Monday he tried again, and he thought he had frightened her, as after looking at him for a few minutes she fell back in her chair in a kind of faint. Her little brother was in the room with her at the time. On Tuesday next the young lady wrote, telling Mr. Cleave that she had been startled by seeing him on Friday evening (this is an error), and again on Monday evening, "much clearer," when she nearly fainted.

All this Mr. Sparks wrote to Mr. Gurney in the same week. He was inviting instructions on hypnotic experiments, and "launched a letter into s.p.a.ce," having read something vague about Mr. Gurney's studies in the newspapers. The letter, after some adventures, arrived, and on 15th March Mr. Cleave wrote his account, Mr. Darley and Mr. Thurgood corroborating as to their presence during the trance and as to Mr.

Cleave's statement when he awoke. Mr. Cleave added that he made experiments "for five nights running" before seeing the lady. The young lady's letter of 19th January, 1886, is also produced (postmark, Portsmouth, 20th January). But the lady mentions her _first_ vision of Mr. Cleave as on last _Tuesday_ (not Friday), and her second, while she was alone with her little brother, at supper on Monday. "I was so frightened that I nearly fainted."

These are all young people. It may be said that all five were concerned in a complicated hoax on Mr. Gurney. Nor would such a hoax argue any unusual moral obliquity. Surtees of Mainsforth, in other respects an honourable man, took in Sir Walter Scott with forged ballads, and never undeceived his friend. Southey played off a hoax with his book The Doctor. Hogg, Lockhart, and Wilson, with Allan Cunningham and many others, were constantly engaged in such mystifications, and a "ghost-hunter" might seem a fair b.u.t.t.

But the very discrepancy in Miss ---'s letter is a proof of fairness.

Her first vision of Mr. Cleave was on "Tuesday last". Mr. Cleave's first impression of success was on the Friday following.

But he had been making the experiment for five nights previous, including the Tuesday of Miss ---'s letter. Had the affair been a hoax, Miss --- would either have been requested by him to re-write her letter, putting Friday for Tuesday, or what is simpler, Mr. Sparks would have adopted her version and written "Tuesday" in place of "Friday" in his first letter to Mr. Gurney. The young lady, naturally, requested Mr. Cleave not to try his experiment on her again.

A similar case is that of Mrs. Russell, who tried successfully, when awake and in Scotland, to appear to one of her family in Germany. The sister corroborates and says, "Pray don't come appearing to me again".

{91a}

These spirits of the living lead to the subject of spirits of the dying. No kind of tale is so common as that of dying people appearing at a distance. Hundreds have been conscientiously published. {91b} The belief is prevalent among the Maoris of New Zealand, where the apparition is regarded as a proof of death. {91c} Now there is nothing in savage philosophy to account for this opinion of the Maoris. A man's "spirit" leaves his body in dreams, savages think, and as dreaming is infinitely more common than death, the Maoris should argue that the appearance is that of a man's spirit wandering in his sleep. However, they, like many Europeans, a.s.sociate a man's apparition with his death. Not being derived from their philosophy, this habit may be deduced from their experience.

As there are, undeniably, many examples of hallucinatory appearances of persons in perfect health and ordinary circ.u.mstances, the question has been asked whether there are _more_ cases of an apparition coinciding with death than, according to the doctrine of chances, there ought to be. Out of about 18,000 answers to questions on this subject, has been deduced the conclusion that the deaths do coincide with the apparitions to an extent beyond mere accident. Even if we had an empty hallucination for every case coinciding with death, we could not set the coincidences down to mere chance. As well might we say that if "at the end of an hour's rifle practice at long-distance range, the record shows that for every shot that has. .h.i.t the bull's eye, another has missed the target, therefore the shots that hit the target did so by accident." {92} But as empty hallucinations are more likely to be forgotten than those which coincide with a death; as exaggeration creeps in, as the collectors of evidence are naturally inclined to select and question people whom they know to have a good story to tell, the evidence connecting apparitions, voices, and so on with deaths is not likely to be received with favour.

One thing must be remembered as affecting the theory that the coincidence between the wraith and the death is purely an accident.

Everybody dreams and out of the innumerable dreams of mankind, a few must hit the mark by a fluke. But _hallucinations_ are not nearly so common as dreams. Perhaps, roughly speaking, one person in ten has had what he believes to be a waking hallucination. Therefore, so to speak, compared with dreams, but a small number of shots of this kind are fired. Therefore, bull's eyes (the coincidence between an appearance and a death) are infinitely less likely to be due to chance in the case of waking hallucinations than in the case of dreams, which all mankind are firing off every night of their lives. Stories of these coincidences between appearances and deaths are as common as they are dull. Most people come across them in the circle of their friends. They are all very much alike, and make tedious reading. We give a few which have some picturesque features.

IN TAVISTOCK PLACE {93}

"In the latter part of the autumn of 1878, between half-past three and four in the morning, I was leisurely walking home from the house of a sick friend. A middle-aged woman, apparently a nurse, was slowly following, going in the same direction. We crossed Tavistock Square together, and emerged simultaneously into Tavistock Place. The streets and squares were deserted, the morning bright and calm, my health excellent, nor did I suffer from anxiety or fatigue. A man suddenly appeared, striding up Tavistock Place, coming towards me, and going in a direction opposite to mine. When first seen he was standing exactly in front of my own door (5 Tavistock Place). Young and ghastly pale, he was dressed in evening clothes, evidently made by a foreign tailor. Tall and slim, he walked with long measured strides noiselessly. A tall white hat, covered thickly with black c.r.a.pe, and an eyegla.s.s, completed the costume of this strange form. The moonbeams falling on the corpse-like features revealed a face well known to me, that of a friend and relative. The sole and only person in the street beyond myself and this being was the woman already alluded to. She stopped abruptly, as if spell-bound, then rus.h.i.+ng towards the man, she gazed intently and with horror unmistakable on his face, which was now upturned to the heavens and smiling ghastly.

She indulged in her strange contemplation but during very few seconds, then with extraordinary and unexpected speed for her weight and age she ran away with a terrific shriek and yell. This woman never have I seen or heard of since, and but for her presence I could have explained the incident: called it, say, subjection of the mental powers to the domination of physical reflex action, and the man's presence could have been termed a false impression on the retina.

"A week after this event, news of this very friend's death reached me.

It occurred on the morning in question. From the family I learned that according to the rites of the Greek Church and the custom of the country he resided in, he was buried in his evening clothes made abroad by a foreign tailor, and strange to say, he wore goloshes over his boots, according also to the custom of the country he died in...

. When in England, he lived in Tavistock Place, and occupied my rooms during my absence." {95a}

THE WYNYARD WRAITH {95b}

"In the month of November (1785 or 1786), Sir John Sherbrooke and Colonel Wynyard were sitting before dinner in their barrack room at Sydney Cove, in America. It was duskish, and a candle was placed on a table at a little distance. A figure dressed in plain clothes and a good round hat, pa.s.sed gently between the above people and the fire.

While pa.s.sing, Sir J. Sherbrooke exclaimed, 'G.o.d bless my soul, who's that?'

"Almost at the same moment Colonel W. said, 'That's my brother John Wynyard, and I am sure he is dead'. Colonel W. was much agitated, and cried and sobbed a great deal. Sir John said, 'The fellow has a devilish good hat; I wish I had it'. (Hats were not to be got there and theirs were worn out.) They immediately got up (Sir John was on crutches, having broken his leg), took a candle and went into the bedroom, into which the figure had entered. They searched the bed and every corner of the room to no effect; the windows were fastened up with mortar... .

"They received no communication from England for about five months, when a letter from Mr. Rush, the surgeon (Coldstream Guards), announced the death of John Wynyard at the moment, as near as could be ascertained, when the figure appeared. In addition to this extraordinary circ.u.mstance, Sir John told me that two years and a half afterwards he was walking with Lilly Wynyard (a brother of Colonel W.) in London, and seeing somebody on the other side of the way, he recognised, he thought, the person who had appeared to him and Colonel Wynyard in America. Lilly Wynyard said that the person pointed out was a Mr. Eyre (Hay?), that he and John Wynyard were frequently mistaken for each other, and that money had actually been paid to this Mr. Eyre in mistake."

A famous tale of an appearance is Lord Brougham's. His Lords.h.i.+p was not reckoned precisely a veracious man; on the other hand, this was not the kind of fable he was likely to tell. He was brought up under the regime of common-sense. "On all such subjects my father was very sceptical," he says. To disbelieve Lord Brougham we must suppose either that he wilfully made a false entry in his diary in 1799, or that in preparing his Autobiography in 1862, he deliberately added a falsehood--and then explained his own marvel away!

LORD BROUGHAM'S STORY

"December 19, 1799.

" ... At one in the morning, arriving at a decent inn (in Sweden), we decided to stop for the night, and found a couple of comfortable rooms. Tired with the cold of yesterday, I was glad to take advantage of a hot bath before I turned in. And here a most remarkable thing happened to me--so remarkable that I must tell the story from the beginning.

"After I left the High School, I went with G---, my most intimate friend, to attend the cla.s.ses in the University... . We actually committed the folly of drawing up an agreement, written with our blood, to the effect that whichever of us died the first should appear to the other, and thus solve any doubts we had entertained of 'the life after death'. G--- went to India, years pa.s.sed, and," says Lord Brougham, "I had nearly forgotten his existence. I had taken, as I have said, a warm bath, and while lying in it and enjoying the comfort of the heat, I turned my head round, looking towards the chair on which I had deposited my clothes, as I was about to get out of the bath. On the chair sat G---, looking calmly at me. How I got out of the bath I know not, but on recovering my senses I found myself sprawling on the floor. The apparition, or whatever it was that had taken the likeness of G---, had disappeared... . So strongly was I affected by it that I have here written down the whole history, with the date, 19th December, and all the particulars as they are now fresh before me. No doubt I had fallen asleep" (he has just said that he was awake and on the point of leaving the bath), "and that the appearance presented so distinctly to my eyes was a dream I cannot for a moment doubt... ."

On 16th October, 1862, Lord Brougham copied this extract for his Autobiography, and says that on his arrival in Edinburgh he received a letter from India, announcing that G--- had died on 19th December. He remarks "singular coincidence!" and adds that, considering the vast number of dreams, the number of coincidences is perhaps fewer than a fair calculation of chances would warrant us to expect.

This is a concession to common-sense, and argues an ignorance of the fact that sane and (apparently) waking men may have hallucinations.

On the theory that we _may_ have inappreciable moments of sleep when we think ourselves awake, it is not an ordinary but an extraordinary coincidence that Brougham should have had that peculiar moment of the "dream" of G--- on the day or night of G---'s death, while the circ.u.mstance that he had made a compact with G--- multiplies the odds against accident in a ratio which mathematicians may calculate.

Brougham was used to dreams, like other people; he was not shocked by them. This "dream" "produced such a shock that I had no inclination to talk about it". Even on Brougham's showing, then, this dream was a thing unique in his experience, and not one of the swarm of visions of sleep. Thus his including it among these, while his whole language shows that he himself did not really reckon it among these, is an example of the fallacies of common-sense. He completes his fallacy by saying, "It is not much more wonderful than that a person whom we had no reason to expect should appear to us at the very moment we had been thinking or speaking of him". But Lord Brougham had _not_ been speaking or thinking of G---; "there had been nothing to call him to my recollection," he says. To give his logic any value, he should constantly when (as far as he knew) awake, have had dreams that "shocked" him. Then _one_ coincidence would have had no a.s.signable cause save ordinary accident.

If Lord Brougham fabled in 1799 or in 1862, he did so to make a "sensation". And then he tried to undo it by arguing that his experience was a thoroughly commonplace affair.

We now give a very old story, "The Dying Mother". If the reader will compare it with Mr. Cleave's case, "An Astral Body," in this chapter, he will be struck by the resemblance. Mr. Cleave and Mrs. Goffe were both in a trance. Both wished to see persons at a distance. Both saw, and each was seen, Mrs. Goffe by her children's nurse; Mr. Cleave by the person whom he wished to see, but _not_ by a small boy also present.

THE DYING MOTHER {101}

"Mary, the wife of John Goffe of Rochester, being afflicted with a long illness, removed to her father's house at West Mulling, about nine miles from her own. There she died on 4th June, this present year, 1691.

"The day before her departure (death) she grew very impatiently desirous to see her two children, whom she had left at home to the care of a nurse. She prayed her husband to 'hire a horse, for she must go home and die with the children'. She was too ill to be moved, but 'a minister who lives in the town was with her at ten o'clock that night, to whom she expressed good hopes in the mercies of G.o.d and a willingness to die'. 'But' said she, 'it is my misery that I cannot see my children.'

"Between one and two o'clock in the morning, she fell into a trance.

One, widow Turner, who watched with her that night, says that her eyes were open and fixed and her jaw fallen. Mrs. Turner put her hand upon her mouth and nostrils, but could perceive no breath. She thought her to be in a fit; and doubted whether she were dead or alive.

"The next morning the dying woman told her mother that she had been at home with her children... . 'I was with them last night when I was asleep.'