665 A. From the Journal S.P.R., vol. vii. p. 25. The following case is interesting on account of the different stages through which the impression passed. It will be noticed that it began with a vivid sense of presence, then took the form of an externalised visual hallucination, but transparent, - thus being what was called in the Report on the Census of Hallucinations (as just mentioned) an incompletely developed hallucination, - and finally assumed a "pseudo-hallucinatory" form. The account was received by me from Mr. Kearne, of 37 Avonmore Gardens, West Kensington, on December 24th, 1894, and the signatures of the two other witnesses were added later.

On the evening of February 10th, 1894, I was sitting in my room expecting the return of two friends from a concert in the provinces where they had been performing. The friends in question had lived with me for some years, and we were more than usually attached to one another. I had no knowledge by what particular train they intended returning to town, but knew when the last train they could catch was due to arrive in London (9.5 p.m.) and how long to a few minutes they would take from the terminus to get home (about ro p.m.). Our profession entails a great deal of travelling; my friends have had plenty of experience in this direction, and there was no question of their being well able to look after themselves. I may just add that one of these friends has made this same journey weekly for the last eight or nine years, so that I knew quite well his usual time of arrival at Liverpool Street.

On the day mentioned they were performing at an afternoon concert, and I had every reason to believe they would be tired and get home as soon as possible. I allowed half-an-hour beyond the usual time (10.30 p.m.) of arrival to elapse before I got at all uneasy, speculating as people will under such circumstances as to what was keeping them, although arguing to myself all the time that there was not the slightest occasion for alarm. I then took up a book in which I was much interested, sitting in an easy chair before the fire with a reading-lamp close to my right side, and in such a position that only by deliberately turning round could I see the window on my left, before which heavy chenille curtains were drawn. I had read some twenty minutes or so, was thoroughly absorbed in the book, my mind was perfectly quiet, and for the time being my friends were quite forgotten, when suddenly without a moment's warning my whole being seemed roused to the highest state of tension or alive-ness, and I was aware, with an intenseness not easily imagined by those who have never experienced it, that another being or presence was not only in the room but close to me. I put my book down, and although my excitement was great, I felt quite collected and not conscious of any sense of fear.

Without changing my position, and looking straight at the fire, I knew somehow that my friend A. H. was standing at my left elbow, but so far behind me as to be hidden by the arm-chair in which I was leaning back. Moving my eyes round slightly without otherwise changing my position, the lower portion of one leg became visible, and I instantly recognised the grey-blue material of trousers he often wore, but the stuff appeared semi-transparent, reminding me of tobacco smoke in consistency.1 I could have touched it with my hand without moving more than my left arm. With that curious instinctive wish not to see more of such a "figure," I did no more than glance once or twice at the apparition and then directed my gaze steadily at the fire in front of me. An appreciable space of time passed, - probably several seconds in all, but seeming in reality much longer, - when the most curious thing happened. Standing upright between me and the window on my left, and at a distance of about four feet from me and almost immediately behind my chair, I saw perfectly distinctly the figure of my friend, - the face very pale, the head slightly thrown back, the eyes shut, and on one side of the throat, just under the jaw, a wound with blood on it-The figure remained motionless with the arms close to the sides, and for some time, how long I can't say, I looked steadily at it; then all at once roused myself, turned deliberately round, the figure vanished, and I realised instantly that I had seen the figure behind me without moving from my first position, n impossible feat physically.

I am perfectly certain I never moved my position from the first appearance of the figure as seen physically, until it disappeared on my turning round.

1 The trousers of grey-blue stuff proved to be what A. H. wore the evening the vision was seen.

I should like to state that for the last fifteen years I have been the witness of psychic phenomena of almost every kind, that in consequence I am not flurried or afraid at their appearance as one strange to them would be; but in all that time never once has anything of a psychical nature happened to me alone and unsought for; it was in fact a unique experience to me. I was now of course thoroughly alarmed, and as rapidly as possible considered what was to be done. My first thought was to go to the railway terminus and see if anything had happened. I, however, carefully noted the time (10.50 p.m.) by the clock in front of me, and reflected that if the apparition meant an accident to my friend at anything like the time of its appearance, the last train had been due in London at least 1½ hours, so that it could not have happened on the journey home. How I got through the next 40 minutes, with our housekeeper worrying about our missing friends, I don't know. At the end of this time I heard a hansom stop before the door (11.35 p-m.). My friends came in and apparently [did] not hurry themselves to come up and see me, from which fact I felt reassured that nothing very serious could have happened, or I should have been informed of it at once.