§ 3. I turn now to the telepathic cases. The most striking case of delayed recognition in our collection is perhaps that of Mr. Marchant (No. 26, p. 149). A case where the phantasmal figure was taken first for one person and then for another, the latter being the one who had died at the time, will be found in No. 249. In the two following examples, the face of the apparition seemed familiar, though the percipient could not at the time identify it. The first is from Mr. T. W. Goodyear, now of Avoca Villa, Park Road, Bevois Hill, Southampton.

"Highfield Villa, Winchester.

"February 9th, 1884.

(191) "I may remark first of all I am considered by my friends as possessing iron nerves, am passionately fond of athletics, and certainly not given to letting imagination or fear run off with my senses. But although I can without boasting say I hardly know what fear is, I am peculiarly susceptible to mental impressions; that is, I can often tell what is passing in the minds of others (especially my wife) when out walking with them - so much so that I have almost frightened one or two people by offering to tell them the subject on which they were thinking, and in some cases exactly what they were thinking about that subject. However, I daresay that is common enough, but what I am particularly writing you on is to tell you two facts, one of which occurred 10¼ years ago and the other 7 years ago nearly. [The second case is No. 280.] It seems a long time ago to be reproduced, but to me the scenes are fresh as if they only happened yesterday.

"The first was this. I was going from the house I lived at to a shop kept by my brother, and when about half-way, it came on to rain very fast. I called in at the house of a lady friend and waited some time, but it did not clear, and as I was afraid my brother would be leaving, I said I must go. I rose to do so, and went into the hall, and my friend rushed away upstairs to get an umbrella, leaving me in the dark. In the higher part of the door was a glass window, and I all at once, in the darkness, saw a face looking through that window. The face was very well known to me, though for the instant I did not associate it with the original, as she was 300 miles away. I instantly opened the door, found nobody there, and then searched the ivy with which the porch and house are covered. Finding nothing, and knowing it was impossible anyone could have got away, I then for the first time inquired of myself whose was the face I had seen. I at once knew that the face was that of a married sister-in-law of my wife's. I told all our family of the circumstance directly I got home, and judge of our dismay when we had a letter to say she died at the very hour I saw her.

Monday was the evening I saw the face, and on Wednesday, when we were at dinner, the letter came.

"T. W. Goodyear".

In answer to the usual question, Mr. Goodyear replies that he has had no other experience of a visual hallucination.

Miss Goodyear corrobrates as follows: -

"Hartley Wintney, Winchfield.

"March 12th, 1884.

"My brother (Mr. Goodyear, of Winchester) says you wish confirmation of a statement he made as to seeing the face of a friend - who lived some 300 miles off - the evening she died. We are none of us likely to forget the assertion he made as to seeing the face, one evening some 12 years or so ago; still less the great astonishment when two days after (midday of second day) we had a letter to say she had died on that particular evening. My other brother, who was away from home, was written to on the intervening day, and mention was made of the strange affair, so that he, too, could corroborate the statement, as his letter would reach him before the one announcing the death reached us.

"Mary Appleton Goodyear".

A brother of Mr. T. W. Goodyear writes: -

"March 19th, 1884.

"I recollect my brother mentioning the strange occurrence of seeing the face of a friend a day before her death, though he was in Hampshire and she in Yorkshire. I have not kept my letter, or would forward it to you, but can vouch for the accuracy of the account.

"G. A. Goodyear".

We find from the Register of Deaths that the death took place on November 3, 1872; consequently 12¼, not 10¼, years before Mr. Goodyear wrote to us. Mr. Goodyear seems also to have made an error as to the day of the week; for Nov. 3 was a Sunday. But it seems very unlikely that at the time both he and his sister should have been wrong in their identification of the evening of the vision as that of the death. Mr. G. A. Goodyear's words "a day before her death," if more than a slip of writing, can hardly weigh against the evidence of the other two witnesses; and so far as they had any weight, it would tell against the supposition that the vision was as late as Monday.

[Case 192 is omitted.] The next case [from the Additional Chapter] is from the Rev. R. Markham Hill, of St. Catherine's, Lincoln.

"June 17, 1886.

(696) "On the evening of Easter Sunday, about 8 or 9 years ago, I think, I was just beginning my supper, feeling very tired after the day's work, when I saw the door opening behind me.1 I was sitting with my back to the door, but could just see it over my shoulder. I may also have heard the opening, but cannot speak with certainty upon this point. I turned half round, and just had time to see the figure of a tall man rushing hastily into the room, as if to attack me. I sprang up at once, turned round, and threw the glass, which I held in my hand, at the spot where I had seen the figure, which had disappeared in the act of my rising. The disappearance had, however, been too sudden to arrest the act of throwing. I then realised that I had seen an apparition, and I immediately connected it with one of my uncles, whom I knew to be seriously ill. Moreover, the figure which I saw resembled my uncle in stature. Mr. Adcock came in, and found me quite unnerved by the occurrence, and to him I related the circumstances. I don't remember telling him that 1 connected the vision with my uncle.

The next day a telegram came announcing my uncle's death on the Sunday. My father was summoned to my uncle's death-bed unexpectedly on the Sunday evening as he was sitting at supper, and the death must have coincided in time with what I saw. "R. Markham Hill".

The Rev. H. Adcock, of Lincoln, writes: -

"June 16, 1886. "I called on my friend, the Rev. Markham Hill, one evening, and found him apparently in an exhausted condition in an arm-chair; he told me, before I could ask for any explanation, that he had just seen the figure of his uncle standing opposite to him against the wall, behind a piano; that he lifted up a glass from the table, and was about to throw it at him, when the figure vanished. He said he felt convinced that he should hear very shortly of his uncle's death. It was only the following day, or the day after, that he showed me a letter received that morning informing him that his uncle had died on the day when the appearance took place".

1 There is, of course, no reason to suppose the impression that the door opened have been anything but part of the hallucination.

In conversation, Mr. Podmore learnt from Mr. Hill that he was alone at the time. He has had no other visual hallucination in his life, unless it were an experience which impressed him in somewhat the same way as this one, but which may well have been merely a case of mistaken identity.

Mr. Adcock explained that the above incident must have occurred about 12 years ago. He cannot remember whether it was a Sunday evening.

We find from the Register of Deaths that Mr. Hill's uncle died on April 5, 1874, which was Easter Sunday.

[It would be difficult to account for the hallucination here as due to anxiety respecting the uncle's condition. If a person's mind, from brooding over the condition of a sick relative, is led to evolve a phantasm of that relative, we should certainly expect the appearance to be recognised; and we should not expect its character to be at once unfamiliar and formidable.

It will be seen that the two accounts differ as to whether the glass was actually thrown].

In the next two cases we have the feature of gradual formation, as well as delayed recognition. [193 is omitted.] The next account is from a lady known to the present writer, whose only reason for withholding her name and address is her fear that a near relative might object to their publication. The description seems to warrant us in regarding the visual experience, at any rate, as a waking and not a mere "borderland" specimen.

"December 17th, 1883.