(168) "On November 18th, 1863, I was living near Adelaide, and not long recovered from a severe illness at the birth of an infant, who was then 5 months old. My husband had also suffered from neuralgia, and had gone to stay with friends at the seaside for the benefit of bathing. One night during his absence the child woke me about midnight; having hushed him off to sleep, I said, ' Now, sir, I hope you will let me rest!' I lay down, and instantly became conscious of two figures standing at the door of my room. One, M. N. [these are not the real initials], whom I recognised at once, was that of a former lover, whose misconduct and neglect had compelled me to renounce him. Of this I am sure, that if ever I saw him in my life, it was then. I was not in the least frightened; but said to myself, as it were, ' You never used to wear that kind of waistcoat.' The door close to where he stood was in a deep recess close to the fire-place, for there was no grate; we burnt logs only. In that recess stood a man in a tweed suit.

I saw the whole figure distinctly, but not the face, and for this reason: on the edge of the mantelshelf always stood a morocco leather medicine chest, which concealed the face from me. (On this being stated to our friends, the Singletons, they asked to go into the room and judge for themselves. They expressed themselves satisfied that would be the case to anyone on the bed where I was.) I had an impression that this other was a cousin of M. N.'s, who had been the means of leading him astray while in the North of England. I never saw him in my life; he died in India.

"M. N. was in deep mourning; he had a look of unutterable sorrow upon his face, and was deadly pale. He never opened his lips, but I read his heart as if it were an open book, and it said, ' My father is dead, and I have come into his property.' I answered, ' How much you have grown like your father!' Then in a moment, without appearing to walk, he stood at the foot of the child's cot, and I saw distinctly the blueness of his eyes as he gazed on my boy, and then raised them to Heaven as if in prayer.

"All vanished. I looked round and remarked a trivial circumstance, viz., that the brass handles of my chest of drawers had been rubbed very bright. Not till then was I conscious of having seen a spirit,1 but a feeling of awe (not fear) came over me, and I prayed to be kept from harm, although there was no reason to dread it. I slept tranquilly, and in the morning I went across to the parsonage and told the clergyman's wife what I had seen. She, of course, thought it was merely a dream. But no - if it were a dream, should I not have seen him as I had known him, a young man of 22, without beard or whiskers?1 But there was all the difference that 16 years would make in a man's aspect.

1 See p. 176. note 2.

"On Saturday my husband returned, and my brother having ridden out to see us on Sunday afternoon, I told them both my vision as we sat together on the verandah. They treated it so lightly that I determined to write it down in my diary and see if the news were verified. And from that diary I am now quoting. Also I mentioned it to at least 12 or 14 other people, and bid them wait the result.

"And surely enough, at the end of several weeks, my sister-in-law wrote that M. N.'s father died at C - Common on November 18th, 1863, which exactly tallied with the date of the vision. He left £45,000 to be divided between his son and daughter, but the son has never been found.

"Many people in Adelaide heard the story before the confirmation came, and I wrote and told M. N.'s mother. She was much distressed about it, fearing he was unhappy. She is now dead. My husband was profoundly struck when he saw my diary corresponding exactly to the news in the letter I had that moment received in his presence".

Mrs. T. states that she has never experienced a hallucination of vision on any other occasion.

Mr. T. has confirmed to us the accuracy of this narrative; and Mrs. T. has shown to one of us a memorandum of the appearance of two figures under date November 18th, in her diary of the year 1863; 2and a newspaper obituary confirms this as the date of the death. We learn from a gentleman who is a near relative of M. N.'s, that M. N., though long lost sight of, was afterwards heard of, and outlived his father.

If we regard this vision as telepathic, the agent can apparently only have been the dying man; and the case would then seem to be an extreme instance of the very rare type where the agent's personality does not appear, but some idea or picture in his mind is reproduced in the percipient's mind with a force that leads to an actual percept. For, as the narrator herself suggests, had she bodied forth the idea of M. N. from her own unaided resources, she would almost certainly have pictured him with the aspect that had been familiar to her. But though we have to draw on the father's mind for the unfamiliar features, we must not forget the possibilities of agency below the threshold of consciousness (p. 63, 170-1). And it is at least worth suggesting that the percipient's mind brought its own affinities to bear - exercised, so to speak, a selective influence; and that thus it was rather owing to her special interest in the son than to the conscious occupation of his father's mind with him, that the telepathic impulse which was able to affect her took this particular form.

As to the appearance of the second figure it may possibly have been also telepathically produced; but I prefer to lay stress on it simply as one of the numerous indications that these waking percepts are really dream-creations, not objective presences.

1 Cf. case 194.

2[The memorandum consisted of the words "two figures." See Gurney's reply to Taylor Innes in Nineteenth Century for Oct., 1887. - Ed].

The next example [from the additional chapter] is one of the cases where the agent's bond of connection has apparently been with someone who was in the percipient's company at the time of the experience, rather than with the actual percipient. (Cf. Nos. 242 and 355.) The narrator desires that his name may not appear, as the family of the agent, whom he has already assisted liberally, might base on the incident described a sentimental claim to further favours.

"June 12, 1886.