The Book of Dreams and Ghosts. Lang Andrew

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СКАЧАТЬ metal buttons, take a pistol from under his coat and present it at the little man above-mentioned. The pistol was discharged, and the ball entered under the left breast of the person at whom it was directed. I saw the blood issue from the place where the ball had struck him, his countenance instantly altered, and he fell to the ground. Upon inquiry who the sufferer might be, I was informed that he was the chancellor. I understood him to be Mr. Perceval, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer. I further saw the murderer laid hold of by several of the gentlemen in the room. Upon waking I told the particulars above related to my wife; she treated the matter lightly, and desired me to go to sleep, saying it was only a dream. I soon fell asleep again, and again the dream presented itself with precisely the same circumstances. After waking a second time and stating the matter again to my wife, she only repeated her request that I would compose myself and dismiss the subject from my mind. Upon my falling asleep the third time, the same dream without any alteration was repeated, and I awoke, as on the former occasions, in great agitation. So much alarmed and impressed was I with the circumstances above related, that I felt much doubt whether it was not my duty to take a journey to London and communicate upon the subject with the party principally concerned. Upon this point I consulted with some friends whom I met on business at the Godolphin mine on the following day. After having stated to them the particulars of the dream itself and what were my own feelings in relation to it, they dissuaded me from my purpose, saying I might expose myself to contempt and vexation, or be taken up as a fanatic. Upon this I said no more, but anxiously watched the newspapers every evening as the post arrived.

      “On the evening of the 13th of May (as far as I recollect) no account of Mr. Perceval’s death was in the newspapers, but my second son, returning from Truro, came in a hurried manner into the room where I was sitting and exclaimed: ‘O father, your dream has come true! Mr. Perceval has been shot in the lobby of the House of Commons; there is an account come from London to Truro written after the newspapers were printed.’

      “The fact was Mr. Percival was assassinated on the evening of the 11th.

      “Some business soon after called me to London, and in one of the print-shops I saw a drawing for sale, representing the place and the circumstances which attended Mr. Perceval’s death. I purchased it, and upon a careful examination I found it to coincide in all respects with the scene which had passed through my imagination in the dream. The colours of the dresses, the buttons of the assassin’s coat, the white waistcoat of Mr. Perceval, the spot of blood upon it, the countenances and attitudes of the parties present were exactly what I had dreamed.

      “The singularity of the case, when mentioned among my friends and acquaintances, naturally made it the subject of conversation in London, and in consequence my friend, the late Mr. Rennie, was requested by some of the commissioners of the navy that they might be permitted to hear the circumstances from myself. Two of them accordingly met me at Mr. Rennie’s house, and to them I detailed at the time the particulars, then fresh in my memory, which form the subject of the above statement.

      “I forbear to make any comment on the above narrative, further than to declare solemnly that it is a faithful account of facts as they actually occurred.

      (Signed) “JOHN WILLIAMS.” 22

      When we come to dreams of the future, great historical examples are scarce indeed, that is, dreams respectably authenticated. We have to put up with curious trivialities. One has an odd feature.

      THE RATTLESNAKE

      Dr. Kinsolving, of the Church of the Epiphany in Philadelphia, dreamed that he “came across a rattlesnake,” which “when killed had two black-looking rattles and a peculiar projection of bone from the tail, while the skin was unusually light in colour”. Next day, while walking with his brother, Dr. Kinsolving nearly trod on a rattlesnake, “the same snake in every particular with the one I had had in my mind’s eye”. This would be very well, but Dr. Kinsolving’s brother, who helped to kill the unlucky serpent, says “he had a single rattle”. The letters of these gentlemen were written without communication to each other. If Mr. Kinsolving is right, the real snake with one rattle was not the dream snake with two rattles. The brothers were in a snaky country, West Virginia. 23

      The following is trivial, but good. It is written by Mr. Alfred Cooper, and attested by the dreamer, the Duchess of Hamilton.

      THE RED LAMP

      Mr. Cooper says: “A fortnight before the death of the late Earl of L- in 1882, I called upon the Duke of Hamilton, in Hill Street, to see him professionally. After I had finished seeing him, we went into the drawing-room, where the duchess was, and the duke said, ‘Oh, Cooper, how is the earl?’

      “The duchess said, ‘What earl?’ and on my answering ‘Lord L-,’ she replied: ‘That is very odd. I have had a most extraordinary vision. I went to bed, but after being in bed a short time, I was not exactly asleep, but thought I saw a scene as if from a play before me. The actors in it were Lord L- as if in a fit, with a man standing over him with a red beard. He was by the side of a bath, over which a red lamp was distinctly shown.

      “I then said: ‘I am attending Lord L- at present; there is very little the matter with him; he is not going to die; he will be all right very soon’.

      “Well he got better for a week and was nearly well, but at the end of six or seven days after this I was called to see him suddenly. He had inflammation of both lungs.

      “I called in Sir William Jenner, but in six days he was a dead man. There were two male nurses attending on him; one had been taken ill. But when I saw the other, the dream of the duchess was exactly represented. He was standing near a bath over the earl, and strange to say, his beard was red. There was the bath with the red lamp over it. It is rather rare to find a bath with a red lamp over it, and this brought the story to my mind..”

      This account, written in 1888, has been revised by the late Duke of Manchester, father of the Duchess of Hamilton, who heard the vision from his daughter on the morning after she had seen it.

      The duchess only knew the earl by sight, and had not heard that he was ill. She knew she was not asleep, for she opened her eyes to get rid of the vision, and, shutting them, saw the same thing again. 24

      In fact, the “vision” was an illusion hypnagogique. Probably most readers know the procession of visions which sometimes crowd on the closed eyes just before sleep. 25 They commonly represent with vivid clearness unknown faces or places, occasionally known faces. The writer has seen his own in this way and has occasionally “opened his eyes to get rid of” the appearances. In his opinion the pictures are unconsciously constructed by the half-sleeping mind out of blurs of light or dark seen with closed eyes. Mr. Cooper’s story would be more complete if he had said whether or not the earl, when visited by him, was in a chair as in the vision. But beds are not commonly found in bathrooms.

      THE SCAR IN THE MOUSTACHE

      This story was told to the writer by his old head-master, the Rev. Dr. Hodson, brother of Hodson, of Hodson’s Horse, a person whom I never heard make any other allusion to such topics. Dr. Hodson was staying with friends in Switzerland during the holidays. One morning, as he lay awake, he seemed to see into a room as if the wall of his bedroom had been cut out. In the room were a lady well known to him and a man whom he did not know. The man’s back was turned to the looker-on. The scene vanished, and grew again. Now the man faced Dr. Hodson; the face was unfamiliar, and had a deep white scar seaming the moustache. Dr. Hodson mentioned the circumstance to his friends, and thought little of it. He returned home, and, one day, in Perth station, met the lady at the book-stall. СКАЧАТЬ