Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death Part 41

E. H. ELGEE.

In answer to inquiries, Mrs. Elgee says:--

I fear it is quite impossible to get any information from Miss D.

She married soon after we reached India, and I never met her since, nor do I know where she is, if alive. I quite understand the value of her corroboration; and at the time she told the whole circ.u.mstance to a fellow-traveller, who repeated it to me, and her story and mine agreed in every particular, save that to her the visitant was a complete stranger; and her tale was quite unbia.s.sed by mine, as I always treated hers as a fancy, and _never_ acknowledged I had been aware of anything unusual having taken place in our room at Cairo. I never have seen, or fancied I saw, any one before or since.

My visitant, also, is dead, or he would, I know, have added his testimony, small as it was, to mine. He was a very calm, quiet, clever, scientific man, not given to vain fancies on any subject, and certainly was not aware of any desire of appearing to me.

The publication of _Phantasms of the Living_ led fortunately to our obtaining the testimony of the second percipient, now Mrs. Ramsay, of Clevelands, Ba.s.sett, Southampton, whose account follows:--

_July 1891._

I have been asked by a leading member of the Psychical Society to write down what I can remember of a strange experience that occurred no less than twenty-seven years ago. I now do so as simply as I can, and to the best of my recollection.

In October 1864, I was travelling to India, going to rejoin my parents, from whom I had been separated twelve years, a kind friend--a Mrs. E.--having undertaken to chaperon me as far as Calcutta. She was going out to join her husband, Major E., of the 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers. We started by a P. & O steamer--the _Ceylon_--from Southampton, and travelled by the overland route, _via_ Alexandria and Cairo, to Suez.

We landed at Alexandria, and went by rail across the desert to Cairo. There all pa.s.sengers had to sleep the night before proceeding on to Suez. Shepherd's Hotel was the best hotel then, and there was consequently a great rush to try and get rooms in it; but Mrs. E. and I, finding we could get no corner, decided, with two or three other pa.s.sengers, to get accommodation in the Hotel de l'Europe. We felt somewhat nervous at the swarthy visages of the Arabs all round us, and for this reason selected our quarters on the very highest storey, thinking we should be more out of reach of robbers and thieves than if we were on the ground floor. This is an important point to remember, as no one could have effected an entrance into our room from outside. It was a bright moonlight night when we went to bed, and I can recollect as if it were yesterday this fact, that the shadow of a "pepul" tree was reflected on the wall opposite our beds--the leaves of the tree were trembling and shaking, as the leaves of a "pepul" always do, making the shadows dance about the wall.

Before we finally retired to rest we made the grandest arrangements for personal security! The window looking out on to the street below was much too high up to be at all unsafe. So we left that open (I think) but we closed our door very firmly indeed! It was a large folding door, and opened _inwards_. We locked it carefully, leaving the key in the lock; pushed an arm-chair against the middle of the door; and, to crown all, we balanced a hand-bag on one of the arms, with a bunch of keys in the lock thereof! so that if any intruder should venture to open that door, we should _know_ of it at any rate!! (But no one did venture, and we found everything in the morning exactly as we had left it.) I remember that Mrs. E. was very careful about tucking her mosquito curtains all round, but I disliked the feeling of suffocation they gave, and put mine up; not realising, of course, in my inexperience, what the consequences would be for myself; for these small plagues of Egypt (!) soon descended upon me, nearly eating me up, and absolutely prevented sleep. This is another important fact to remember, for had I slept I might have dreamed, but, as it happened, I was wide awake. I was looking at the shadows of the tree shaking on the wall when gradually they seemed to merge into a form, which form took the shape of a man, not of an Arab, but of an English gentleman. Then this form glided into the room, advancing towards my chaperon, stretching out his hands as if in blessing, turned round, looked at me, sadly and sorrowfully (so I thought), and then vanished again into the shadows as it came. I do not remember feeling terrified, only awed--the face was so kind and human, only the moonlight made it look very white. I did not wake Mrs. E., as she appeared to me to be asleep. I felt sure I had seen a vision, and something that had to do with her.

The next morning, while we were dressing, she remarked how odd I looked, and quite apart from the mosquito bites, I know I did. We had a good laugh over my comical appearance, for I had not scrupled to scratch the bites, until my forehead and face resembled a plum bun! I believe I then told her it was not strange that I should look odd, for I "had seen a ghost." She started violently, and asked me to tell her what I saw. I described it as best I could, and _she said she had seen "it" too_, and that she knew it to be the form and face of a valued friend. She was much disturbed about it--as, indeed, so was I, for I had never indulged in "hallucinations" and was not given to seeing visions.

We proceeded next day to join our ship at Suez, and when on board, it was a great relief to us to be able to tell it to a kind fellow-pa.s.senger. He was an absolute sceptic in all matters relating to the invisible world, but he was obliged to admit that it was the most extraordinary thing he had ever heard.... I should like to add that I have never, before or since, had any kind of vision.

Our experience at Cairo had this sequel, that Mrs. E.'s spirit-friend happened to be, at that very time, in great perplexity of mind--most anxious about some very important event in his life. He was sitting in his room one night in the month of October 1864, and a most intense yearning came over him for her advice and a.s.sistance--so great was it, that he felt as if an invisible power had drawn him into some spirit-state, in which he could and did see her.[224]

For a somewhat similar case, that of the apparition of General Fremont (too lengthy to quote here), I may refer the reader to the _Journal_ S.P.R., vol. v. p. 54. The crisis there is the removal of long and wearing anxiety; the self-projection into the home-scene which now at last the General felt a.s.sured of being able to reach alive.

VI. F. From _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. pp. 104-109. The following case was especially remarkable in that there were two percipients. The narrative was copied by Gurney from a MS. book of Mr.

S. H. B.'s, to which he transferred it from an almanac diary, since lost.

On a certain Sunday evening in November 1881, having been reading of the great power which the human will is capable of exercising, I determined with the whole force of my being, that I would be present in spirit in the front bed-room on the second floor of a house situated at 22 Hogarth Road, Kensington, in which room slept two ladies of my acquaintance, viz., Miss L. S. V. and Miss E. C.

V., aged respectively 25 and 11 years. I was living at this time at 23 Kildare Gardens, a distance of about three miles from Hogarth Road, and I had not mentioned in any way my intention of trying this experiment to either of the above ladies, for the simple reason that it was only on retiring to rest upon this Sunday night that I made up my mind to do so. The time at which I determined I would be there was 1 o'clock in the morning, and I also had a strong intention of making my presence perceptible.

On the following Thursday I went to see the ladies in question, and in the course of conversation (without any allusion to the subject on my part) the elder one told me, that on the previous Sunday night she had been much terrified by perceiving me standing by her bedside, and that she screamed when the apparition advanced towards her, and awoke her little sister, who saw me also.

I asked her if she was awake at the time, and she replied most decidedly in the affirmative, and upon my inquiring the time of the occurrence, she replied, about 1 o'clock in the morning.

This lady, at my request, wrote down a statement of the event and signed it.

This was the first occasion upon which I tried an experiment of this kind, and its complete success startled me very much.

Besides exercising my power of volition very strongly, I put forth an effort which I cannot find words to describe. I was conscious of a mysterious influence of some sort permeating in my body, and had a distinct impression that I was exercising some force with which I had been hitherto unacquainted, but which I can now at certain times set in motion at will.

S. H. B.

Of the original entry in the almanac diary, Mr. B. says: "I recollect having made it within a week or so of the occurrence of the experiment, and whilst it was perfectly fresh in my memory."

Miss Verity's account is as follows:--

_January 18th, 1883._

On a certain Sunday evening, about twelve months since, at our house in Hogarth Road, Kensington, I distinctly saw Mr. B. in my room, about 1 o'clock. I was perfectly awake and was much terrified. I awoke my sister by screaming, and she saw the apparition herself. Three days after, when I saw Mr. B., I told him what had happened, but it was some time before I could recover from the shock I had received; and the remembrance is too vivid to be ever erased from my memory.

L. S. VERITY.

In answer to inquiries, Miss Verity adds: "I had never had any hallucination of the senses of any sort whatever."

Miss E. C. Verity says:--

I remember the occurrence of the event described by my sister in the annexed paragraph, and her description is quite correct. I saw the apparition which she saw, at the same time and under the same circ.u.mstances.

E. C. VERITY.

Miss A. S. Verity says:--

I remember quite clearly the evening my eldest sister awoke me by calling to me from an adjoining room; and upon my going to her bedside, where she slept with my youngest sister, they both told me they had seen S. H. B. standing in the room. The time was about 1 o'clock. S. H. B. was in evening dress, they told me.

A. S. VERITY.

Mr. B. does not remember how he was dressed on the night of the occurrence.

Miss E. C. Verity was asleep when her sister caught sight of the figure, and was awoke by her sister's exclaiming, "There is S." The name had therefore met her ear before she herself saw the figure; and the hallucination on her part might thus be attributed to suggestion. But it is against this view that she has never had any other hallucination, and cannot therefore be considered as predisposed to such experiences. The sisters are both equally certain that the figure was in evening dress, and that it stood in one particular spot in the room. The gas was burning low, and the phantasmal figure was seen with far more clearness than a real figure would have been.

"The witnesses" (says Gurney) "have been very carefully cross-examined by the present writer. There is not the slightest doubt that their mention of the occurrence to S. H. B. was spontaneous. They had not at first intended to mention it; but when they saw him, their sense of its oddness overcame their resolution. Miss Verity is a perfectly sober-minded and sensible witness, with no love of marvels, and with a considerable dread and dislike of this particular form of marvel."

[I omit here for want of s.p.a.ce the next case, in which Mr. S. H. B.

attempted to appear in Miss Verity's house at two different hours on the same evening, and was seen there, at both the times fixed, by a married sister who was visiting in the house.]

Gurney requested Mr. B. to send him a note on the night that he intended to make his next experiment of the kind, and received the following note by the first post on Monday, March 24th, 1884.

_March 22nd, 1884._

DEAR MR. GURNEY,--I am going to try the experiment to-night of making my presence perceptible at 44 Norland Square, at 12 P.M. I will let you know the result in a few days.--Yours very sincerely,

S. H. B.

The next letter was received in the course of the following week:--

_April 3rd, 1884._