I have always
noticed a prevalent want of courage, even among
persons of superior intelligence and culture, as to imparting
their
own psychological
experiences when those have been of a strange
sort. Almost all men are afraid that what they could relate in
such
wise would find no parallel or response in a listener''s internal
life, and might be suspected or laughed at. A truthful traveller,
who should have seen some extraordinary creature in the likeness
of
a sea-serpent, would have no fear of mentioning it; but the same
traveller, having had some singular presentiment, impulse, vagary
of
thought, vision (so-called), dream, or other remarkable mental
impression, would hesitate considerably before he would own to it.
To this reticence I attribute much of the obscurity in which such
subjects are involved. We do not habitually communicate our
experiences of these subjective things as we do our experiences
of
objective creation. The consequence is, that the general stock of
Experience in this regard appears exceptional, and really is so,
in
respect of being miserably imperfect.
In what I am going to relate, I have no intention of setting up,
opposing, or supporting, any theory whatever. I know the history
of
the Bookseller of Berlin, I have studied the case of the wife of
a
late Astronomer Royal as related by Sir David Brewster, and I
have
followed the minutest details of a much more remarkable case of
Spectral Illusion occurring within my private circle of friends.
It
may be necessary to state as to this last, that the sufferer (a
lady) was in no degree, however distant, related to me. A
mistaken
assumption on that head might suggest an explanation of a part of
my
own case,--but only a part,--which would be wholly without
foundation. It cannot be referred to my inheritance of any
developed peculiarity, nor had I ever before any at all similar
experience, nor have I ever had any at all similar experience
since.
It does not signify how many years ago, or how few, a certain
murder
was committed in England, which attracted great attention. We
hear
more than enough of murderers as they rise in succession to their
atrocious eminence, and I would bury the memory of this
particular
brute, if I could, as his body was buried, in Newgate Jail. I
purposely abstain from giving any direct clue to the criminal''s
individuality.
When the murder was first discovered, no suspicion fell--or I
ought
rather to say, for I cannot be too precise in my facts, it was
nowhere publicly hinted that any suspicion fell--on the man who
was
afterwards brought to
trial. As no reference was at that time
made
to him in the
newspapers, it is obviously impossible that any
description of him can at that time have been given in the
newspapers. It is essential that this fact be remembered.
Unfolding at breakfast my morning
paper, containing the account
of
that first discovery, I found it to be deeply interesting, and I
read it with close attention. I read it twice, if not three times.
The discovery had been made in a
bedroom, and, when I laid down
the
paper, I was aware of a flash--rush--flow--I do not know what to
call it,--no word I can find is satisfactorily descriptive,--in
which I seemed to see that bedroom
passing through my room, like
a
picture impossibly painted on a running river. Though almost
instantaneous in its passing, it was perfectly clear; so clear
that
I distinctly, and with a sense of relief, observed the absence of
the dead body from the bed.
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