(205) " In March, 1869, while we were at Malvern Wells, an event occurred, which the reader will, of course, take for what he thinks it is worth but which I cannot see my way to explain as a coincidence.3 She (i.e., Lady Chatterton) had a great regard for Father Hewitt, O.S.B.; and he had always shown a very marked sympathy for her in her difficulties. One afternoon she said, ' I am sure that dear Father Hewitt is dead. I saw him just now, when I went upstairs, as clearly as possible, dressed in the Benedictine habit, only it was of dazzling whiteness. He seemed high above me in the air,3 and he looked at me. I knew then that he was dead.' It was about 2 o'clock in the afternoon. The next morning's post brought us the news that he died at the time when she saw him".

In reference to this incident, Lady Chatterton's niece, Mrs. Ferrers, of Baddesley Clinton, Knowle, writes to us as follows: -

"March 24th, 1885.

" I was with her at Malvern Wells at the time, in some lodgings that we hired for a few weeks; and Father Hewitt was then at Woolton, a village in Warwickshire, my aunt and Mr. Dering renting Woolton Hall that year. I cannot give you the exact date, but I remember that it was one day in Easter week of that year (1869). I was in the drawing-room of those lodgings after luncheon, about a quarter past 2 o'clock, when my aunt came downstairs from her bedroom and told me that she was quite sure Father Hewitt was dead, for she had seen him, etc. We all knew that he was ill of one of his usual severe attacks of gall-stones, but that complaint is not considered a fatal one, and so we were full of hopes that we should find him better on our return home. He was one of the best and dearest of our friends, and his death, corroborated the next morning by hearing his name given out at Mass,4 to be prayed for among the dead, was a heavy blow to us all. We afterwards heard that he had died at 2 o'clock on the day my aunt saw him. "Rebecca H. Ferrers".

1 See for instance, the narrative of the apparition of the Gwrach y Rhibyn, in Sikes's British Goblins, p. 217, which was related to the author at first-hand, in 1878. This extraordinary phantasm, a dreaded local celebrity, seems on the occasion described to have supplied the embodiment for a real telepathic impression. See also a case in W. Henderson's Folk-lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders, p. 29.

2 This word is often, but very unfortunately, used as equivalent to chance-coincidence.

3 Another example of a figure seen above the percipient is No. 352.

4 In this detail there is an apparent, though perhaps not a real, discrepancy from Mr. Dering's account.

[We learn from the Provincial of Canterbury, the Rev. H. E. Moore, that the date of the Rev. Peter Joseph Hewitt's death was March nth, 1869. Easter Sunday in that year fell on March 28th; Mrs. Ferrers is therefore mistaken in supposing the occurrence to have taken place in Easter week; but this is not material. The coincidence was probably exact to a quarter of an hour].

The luminous appearance of the figure here should be specially remarked. For luminosity is a sufficiently frequent feature both in purely subjective and in telepathic hallucinations, to be included as a fresh point of resemblance between the two classes. It is possibly to definite hallucinations of this character that we should trace the widely diffused superstition which finds in a mysterious light the sign of a supernatural presence;1 but considering how natural the symbolism of light is in connection with supernatural ideas, such a hypothesis is perhaps superfluous. It is at any rate not possible to reverse the process, and to trace the hallucinations to the superstition; for they go on occurring in the present day, as my collection alone would show, to persons who have no previous acquaintance with or belief in the superstition. The light occurs in various forms and degrees. One form is the impression of a dark room as illuminated, which is sometimes experienced on waking. In the group of non-human phantasms described above, we found a star, a firework, a firefly, a bright oval, a chandelier (pp. 324-5 and see also p. 481). Among the subjective human phantasms, seven appeared with a candle in the hand.

In a considerable number of the nocturnal cases, though no special radiance is mentioned, the aspect of the figure seems to have been far more distinct and detailed than that of a real person would have been2 - e.g., the grotesque appearance mentioned in p. 261, note, which was remarkable for brilliance of costume, "disappeared, leaving the room in darkness"; and in other cases the figure has disappeared as radiant.3

The position in which the phantasm was projected in the last case quoted may have been the result of some dim idea of departure or transition. In other cases there is the distinct symbolism of death. The following is an example. The percipient, Lieutenant-Colonel Jones, of 8, Sussex Place, N.W., is a man as free from superstition as can well be imagined, who has never experienced any other hallucination whatever. He has shown us a letter, written at the time, in which his father alludes to the apparition.

"[1883.