Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death Part 40

LOUISA BOURNE.

H. M. Bourne.

The second signature was added later, with the words: "This was written by my sister and me together."

Miss H. M. Bourne enclosed the above in the following letter to Mrs.

Dent, to whom we are indebted for the case:--

WESTON SUBEDGE, BROADWAY, WORCESTERSHIRE, _May 21st, 1891_.

MY DEAR MRS. DENT,--Louisa has asked me send you the enclosed account of the impression she, the coachman, and I had of seeing papa on Paddy in the hunting-field. It was on the 5th February 1887 it happened, and in March the same year, when I was out walking alone, I thought I saw papa and Paddy stop at a little plantation of his close to, and look at the wall, which had fallen in [in] one part. He then appeared to ride a few yards towards me, but afterwards turned round and went back past the plantation and out of sight. When I went in I asked him if he had not seen me, and why he turned back, when it transpired he had not been past that plantation all day, but had ridden home another way. He said it must have been some one else on a white horse, and asked where I was when I saw him, and then, not before, it dawned on me that it was utterly impossible to see either plantation or wall from where I was. Since then I have often been along the same road, and stood, and looked, and wondered how it was I so distinctly saw the broken wall and papa on the white horse; a turn in the road makes my having really done so quite impossible. I am sorry I cannot give you the exact date of this: I know it was in March 1887, but cannot remember the day, except that it was _not_ on the 5th. The other "experience" is, I always think, far more interesting, as having been seen by three, and also from the fact that Paddy was the only white or grey horse in the hunting-field that day; so that unbelievers could not say it was some one else on a white horse that we had mistaken....

NINA M. BOURNE.

Mrs. Sidgwick writes:--

_February 25th, 1892._

I saw Miss H. Bourne and her father this afternoon. Miss Bourne told me the stories of her seeing her father, first with her sister, and later by herself, and signed the account which she and her sister had, she says, made out together about it. The groom who saw the figure at the same time has since been dismissed, and cannot be asked for his evidence. Canon Bourne remembers hearing of the matter the day it happened. The groom rode up to the ladies as they were looking, and said: "The Canon is beckoning, Miss, and I think you had better go to him; his horse looks as if he had had a fall" (that is, muddy). The figure was beckoning to them with their father's usual (and peculiar) gesture. He is a heavy man, and his white horse, adapted to carry weight, was quite unlike any other horse in the neighbourhood. Every one agrees as to the impossibility of mistaking the horse. The horses of the neighbourhood were well known to the neighbourhood in general and to the Miss Bournes in particular, as they were at that time constantly out with the hounds. The incident seems quite unaccountable.

VI. C. From _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. p. 214. We received the first account of this case--the percipient's evidence--through the kindness of Mrs. Martin, of Ham Court, Upton-on-Severn, Worcester.

ANTONY, TORPOINT, _December 14th, 1882_.

Helen Alexander (maid to Lady Waldegrave) was lying here very ill with typhoid fever, and was attended by me. I was standing at the table by her bedside, pouring out her medicine, at about 4 o'clock in the morning of the 4th October 1880. I heard the call-bell ring (this had been heard twice before during the night in that same week), and was attracted by the door of the room opening, and by seeing a person entering the room whom I instantly felt to be the mother of the sick woman. She had a bra.s.s candlestick in her hand, a red shawl over her shoulders, and a flannel petticoat on which had a hole in the front. I looked at her as much as to say, "I am glad you have come," but the woman looked at me sternly, as much as to say, "Why wasn't I sent for before?" I gave the medicine to Helen Alexander, and then turned round to speak to the vision, but no one was there. She had gone. She was a short, dark person, and very stout. At about 6 o'clock that morning Helen Alexander died.

Two days after her parents and a sister came to Antony, and arrived between 1 and 2 o'clock in the morning; I and another maid let them in, and it gave me a great turn when I saw the living likeness of the vision I had seen two nights before. I told the sister about the vision, and she said that the description of the dress exactly answered to her mother's, and that they had bra.s.s candlesticks at home exactly like the one described. There was not the slightest resemblance between the mother and daughter.

FRANCES REDDELL.

This at first sight might be taken for a mere delusion of an excitable or over-tired servant, modified and exaggerated by the subsequent sight of the real mother. If such a case is to have evidential force, we must ascertain beyond doubt that the description of the experience was given in detail before any knowledge of the reality can have affected the percipient's memory or imagination. This necessary corroboration has been kindly supplied by Mrs. Pole-Carew, of Antony, Torpoint, Devonport.

_December 31st, 1883._

In October, 1880, Lord and Lady Waldegrave came with their Scotch maid, Helen Alexander, to stay with us. [The account then describes how Helen was discovered to have caught typhoid fever.] She did not seem to be very ill in spite of it, and as there seemed no fear of danger, and Lord and Lady Waldegrave had to go a long journey the following day (Thursday), they decided to leave her, as they were advised to do, under their friend's care.

The illness ran its usual course, and she seemed to be going on perfectly well till the Sunday week following, when the doctor told me that the fever had left her, but the state of weakness which had supervened was such as to make him extremely anxious. I immediately engaged a regular nurse, greatly against the wish of Reddell, my maid, who had been her chief nurse all through the illness, and who was quite devoted to her. However, as the nurse could not conveniently come till the following day, I allowed Reddell to sit up with Helen again that night, to give her the medicine and food, which were to be taken constantly.

At about 4.30 that night, or rather Monday morning, Reddell looked at her watch, poured out the medicine, and was bending over the bed to give it to Helen, when the call-bell in the pa.s.sage rang. She said to herself, "There's that tiresome bell with the wire caught again." (It seems it did occasionally ring of itself in this manner.) At that moment, however, she heard the door open and, looking round, saw a very stout old woman walk in. She was dressed in a night-gown and red flannel petticoat, and carried an old-fashioned bra.s.s candlestick in her hand. The petticoat had a hole rubbed in it. She walked into the room, and appeared to be going towards the dressing-table to put her candle down. She was a perfect stranger to Reddell, who, however, merely thought, "This is her mother come to see after her," and she felt quite glad it was so, accepting the idea without reasoning upon it, as one would in a dream. She thought the mother looked annoyed, possibly at not having been sent for before. She then gave Helen the medicine, and turning round, found that the apparition had disappeared, and that the door was shut. A great change, meanwhile, had taken place in Helen, and Reddell fetched me, who sent off for the doctor, and meanwhile applied hot poultices, etc., but Helen died a little before the doctor came. She was quite conscious up to about half an hour before she died, when she seemed to be going to sleep.

During the early days of her illness, Helen had written to a sister, mentioning her being unwell, but making nothing of it, and as she never mentioned any one but this sister, it was supposed by the household, to whom she was a perfect stranger, that she had no other relation alive. Reddell was always offering to write for her, but she always declined, saying there was no need, she would write herself in a day or two. No one at home, therefore, knew anything of her being so ill, and it is, therefore, remarkable, that her mother, a far from nervous person, should have said that evening going up to bed, "I am sure Helen is very ill."

Reddell told me and my daughter of the apparition, about an hour after Helen's death, prefacing with, "I am not superst.i.tious, or nervous, and I wasn't the least frightened, but her mother came last night," and she then told the story, giving a careful description of the figure she had seen. The relations were asked to come to the funeral, and the father, mother, and sister came, and in the mother Reddell recognised the apparition, as I did also, for Reddell's description had been most accurate, even to the expression, which she had ascribed to annoyance, but which was due to deafness. It was judged best not to speak about it to the mother, but Reddell told the sister, who said the description of the figure corresponded exactly with the probable appearance of her mother if roused in the night; that they had exactly such a candlestick at home, and that there was a hole in her mother's petticoat produced by the way she always wore it. It seems curious that neither Helen nor her mother appeared to be aware of the visit. Neither of them, at any rate, ever spoke of having seen the other, nor even of having dreamt of having done so.

F. A. POLE-CAREW.

[Frances Reddell states that she has never had any hallucination, or any odd experience of any kind, except on this one occasion. The Hon. Mrs. Lyttelton, formerly of Selwyn College, Cambridge, who knows her, tells us that "she appears to be a most matter-of-fact person, and was apparently most impressed by the fact that she saw a hole in the mother's flannel petticoat, made by the busk of her stays, reproduced in the apparition."]

Now what I imagine to have happened here is this. The mother, anxious about her daughter, paid her a psychical visit during the sleep of both.

In so doing she actually modified a certain portion of s.p.a.ce, not materially nor optically, but in such a manner that persons perceptive in a certain fashion would discern in that part of s.p.a.ce an image approximately corresponding to the conception of her own aspect latent in the invading mother's mind. A person thus susceptible happened to be in the room, and thus, as a bystander, witnessed a psychical invasion whose memory the invader apparently did not retain, while the invaded person--the due percipient--may or may not have perceived it in a dream, but died and left no sign of having done so.

VI. D. From the "Report on the Census of Hallucinations," _Proceedings_ S.P.R., vol. x. p. 332. The account is given by Mrs. McAlpine.

GARSCADDEN, BEARDSDEN, GLASGOW, _April 20th, 1892_.

I remember in the June of 1889, I drove to Castleblaney, a little town in the county Monaghan, to meet my sister, who was coming by train from Longford. I expected her at three o'clock, but as she did not come with that train, I got the horse put up, and went for a walk in the demesne. The day was very warm and bright, and I wandered on under the shade of the trees to the side of a lake, which is in the demesne. Being at length tired, I sat down to rest upon a rock, at the edge of the water. My attention was quite taken up with the extreme beauty of the scene before me. There was not a sound or movement, except the soft ripple of the water on the sand at my feet. Presently I felt a cold chill creep through me, and a curious stiffness of my limbs, as if I _could_ not move, though wishing to do so. I felt frightened, yet chained to the spot, and as if impelled to stare at the water straight in front of me.

Gradually a black cloud seemed to rise, and in the midst of it I saw a tall man, in a suit of tweed, jump into the water and sink.

In a moment the darkness was gone, and I again became sensible of the heat and sunshine, but I was awed and felt "eerie"--it was then about four o'clock or so--I cannot remember either the exact time or date. On my sister's arrival I told her of the occurrence; she was surprised, but inclined to laugh at it. When we got home I told my brother; he treated the subject much in the same manner.

However, about a week afterwards, Mr. Espie, a bank clerk (unknown to me), committed suicide by drowning in that very spot. He left a letter for his wife, indicating that he had for some time contemplated his death. My sister's memory of the event is the only evidence I can give. I did not see the account of the inquest at the time, and did not mention my strange experience to any one, saving my sister and brother.

F. C. MCALPINE.

Mrs. McAlpine's sister writes:--

ROXBORO', _February 15th, 1892_.

I remember perfectly you meeting me in Castleblaney, on my way home from Longford, and telling me of the strange thing which happened in the demesne. You know you were always hearing or seeing something and I paid little attention; but I remember it distinctly--your troubled expression more than the story. You said a tall gentleman, dressed in tweed, walked past you, and went into a little inlet or creek. I think, but am not sure, that you said he had a beard. You were troubled about it, or looked so; and I talked of other things. You told me while we were driving home. I think, but I am not sure, that it was about the 25th or 27th of June 1889 that I left Longford. I am sure of that being the day, but cannot remember the date. _It was in June_, and on the 3rd of July, 1889, a Mr. Espie, a bank clerk, drowned himself in the lake in the demesne in 'Blaney. I have no doubt that the day I came home you saw Mr. Espie's "fetch."

The following account is taken from a local paper, the _Northern Standard_, Sat.u.r.day, July 6th, 1889:--

_Sad Case of Suicide._--The town of Castleblaney was put into a fearful state of excitement when it became known on Wednesday last that Mr. Espy had committed suicide by drowning himself in the lake in the demesne. Latterly, he was noticed to be rather dull and low in spirits, but no serious notice was taken of his conduct, nor had any one the most remote idea that he contemplated suicide. On Wednesday morning he seemed in his usual health, and, as was customary with him, walked down to get his newspaper on the arrival of the 9.45 train from Dublin. He met Mr. Fox (in whose office he has been for years) at the station, and having procured his paper walked up to the office, wrote a note in which he stated what he was going to do, and indicating where his body would be found. This seemed to concern him a good deal, for he seemed very anxious that his body should be recovered without any delay. He had fishing-tackle in his pocket, and having tied one end of a pike-line to a tree, and the other end round one of his legs, he threw himself into about three feet deep of water, where he was found shortly afterwards quite dead, and before the note that he had left in the office had been opened.

It would be possible, no doubt, to explain this appearance as simply precognitive--as a picture from the future impressed in some unknown way upon the percipient's inner vision. There are certain cases which strongly suggest this extreme hypothesis. But it seems here simpler to a.s.sume that the unhappy man was already imagining his plunge into the lake when Mrs. McAlpine visited the sh.o.r.e, and that his intense thought effected a self-projection, conscious or unconscious, of some element of his being.

VI. E. From _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. ii. p. 239. Mrs. Elgee, of 18 Woburn Road, Bedford, gave the following account:--

_March 1st, 1885._

In the month of November 1864, being detained in Cairo, on my way out to India, the following curious circ.u.mstance occurred to me:--

Owing to an unusual influx of travellers, I, with the young lady under my charge (whom we will call D.) and some other pa.s.sengers of the outward-bound mail to India, had to take up our abode in a somewhat unfrequented hotel. The room shared by Miss D. and myself was large, lofty, and gloomy; the furniture of the scantiest, consisting of two small beds, placed nearly in the middle of the room and not touching the walls at all, two or three rush-bottomed chairs, a very small washing stand, and a large old-fashioned sofa of the settee sort, which was placed against one half of the large folding doors which gave entrance to the room. This settee was far too heavy to be removed, unless by two or three people. The other half of the door was used for entrance, and faced the two beds.

Feeling rather desolate and strange, and Miss D. being a nervous person, I locked the door, and, taking out the key, put it under my pillow; but on Miss D. remarking that there might be a duplicate which could open the door from outside, I put a chair against the door, with my travelling bag on it, so arranged that, on any pressure outside, one or both must fall on the bare floor, and make noise enough to rouse me. We then proceeded to retire to bed, the one I had chosen being near the only window in the room, which opened with two glazed doors, almost to the floor. These doors, on account of the heat, I left open, first a.s.suring myself that no communication from the outside could be obtained. The window led on to a small balcony, which was isolated, and was three stories above the ground.

I suddenly woke from a sound sleep with the impression that somebody had called me, and, sitting up in bed, to my unbounded astonishment, by the clear light of early dawn coming in through the large window before mentioned, I beheld the figure of an old and very valued friend whom I knew to be in England. He appeared as if most eager to speak to me, and I addressed him with, "Good gracious! how did you come here?" So clear was the figure, that I noted every detail of his dress, even to three onyx shirt-studs which he always wore. He seemed to come a step nearer to me, when he suddenly pointed across the room, and on my looking round, I saw Miss D. sitting up in her bed, gazing at the figure with every expression of terror. On looking back, my friend seemed to shake his head, and retreated step by step, slowly, till he seemed to sink through that portion of the door where the settee stood. I never knew what happened to me after this; but my next remembrance is of bright sunshine pouring through the window. Gradually the remembrance of what had happened came back to me, and the question arose in my mind, had I been dreaming, or had I seen a visitant from another world?--the bodily presence of my friend being utterly impossible. Remembering that Miss D. had seemed aware of the figure as well as myself, I determined to allow the test of my dream or vision to be whatever she said to me upon the subject, I intending to say nothing to her unless she spoke to me. As she seemed still asleep, I got out of bed, examined the door carefully, and found the chair and my bag untouched, and the key under my pillow; the settee had not been touched nor had that portion of the door against which it was placed any appearance of being opened for years.

Presently, on Miss D. waking up, she looked about the room, and, noticing the chair and bag, made some remark as to their not having been much use. I said, "What do you mean?" and then she said, "Why, that man who was in the room this morning must have got in somehow." She then proceeded to describe to me exactly what I myself had seen. Without giving any satisfactory answer as to what I had seen, I made her rather angry by affecting to treat the matter as a fancy on her part, and showed her the key still under my pillow, and the chair and bag untouched. I then asked her, if she was so sure that she had seen somebody in the room, did not she know who it was? "No," said she, "I have never seen him before, nor any one like him." I said, "Have you ever seen a photograph of him?" She said, "No." This lady never was told what I saw, and yet described exactly to a third person what we both had seen.

Of course, I was under the impression my friend was dead. Such, however, was not the case; and I met him some four years later, when, without telling him anything of my experience in Cairo, I asked him, in a joking way, could he remember what he was doing on a certain night in November 1864. "Well," he said, "you require me to have a good memory;" but after a little reflection he replied, "Why, that was the time I was so hara.s.sed with trying to decide for or against the appointment which was offered me, and I so much wished you could have been with me to talk the matter over. I sat over the fire quite late, trying to think what you would have advised me to do." A little cross-questioning and comparing of dates brought out the curious fact that, allowing for the difference of time between England and Cairo, his meditations over the fire and my experience were simultaneous. Having told him the circ.u.mstances above narrated, I asked him had he been aware of any peculiar or unusual sensation. He said none, only that he had wanted to see me very much.