The Book of Dreams and Ghosts by Andrew Lang (inspirational books TXT) 📖

“Mary, the wife of John Goffe of Rochester, being afflicted with a long illness, removed to her father’s house at West Mulling, about nine miles from her own.  There she died on 4th June, this present year, 1691.

“The day before her departure (death) she grew very impatiently desirous to see her two children, whom she had left at home to the care of a nurse.  She prayed her husband to ‘hire a horse, for she must go home and die with the children’.  She was too ill to be moved, but ‘a minister who lives in the town was with her at ten o’clock that night, to whom she expressed good hopes in the mercies of God and a willingness to die’.  ‘But’ said she, ‘it is my misery that I cannot see my children.’

“Between one and two o’clock in the morning, she fell into a trance.  One, widow Turner, who watched with her that night, says that her eyes were open and fixed and her jaw fallen.  Mrs. Turner put her hand upon her mouth and nostrils, but could perceive no breath.  She thought her to be in a fit; and doubted whether she were dead or alive.

“The next morning the dying woman told her mother that she had been at home with her children. . . . ‘I was with them last night when I was asleep.’

“The nurse at Rochester, widow Alexander by name, affirms, and says she will take her oath on’t before a Magistrate and receive the sacrament upon it, that a little before two o’clock that morning she saw the likeness of the said Mary Goffe come out of the next chamber (where the elder child lay in a bed by itself) the door being left open, and stood by her bedside for about a quarter of an hour; the younger child was there lying by her.  Her eyes moved and her mouth went, but she said nothing.  The nurse, moreover, says that she was perfectly awake; it was then daylight, being one of the longest days in the year.  She sat up in bed and looked steadfastly on the apparition.  In that time she heard the bridge clock strike two, and a while after said, ‘In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, what art thou?’  Thereupon the apparition removed and went away; she slipped on her clothes and followed, but what became on’t she cannot tell.

“Mrs. Alexander then walked out of doors till six, when she persuaded some neighbours to let her in.  She told her adventure; they failed to persuade her that she had dreamed it.  On the same day the neighbour’s wife, Mrs. Sweet, went to West Mulling, saw Mrs. Goffe before her death, and heard from Mrs. Goffe’s mother the story of the daughter’s dream of her children, Mrs. Sweet not having mentioned the nurse’s story of the apparition.”  That poor Mrs. Goffe walked to Rochester and returned undetected, a distance of eighteen miles is difficult to believe.

Goethe has an obiter dictum on the possibility of intercommunion without the aid of the ordinary senses, between the souls of lovers.  Something of the kind is indicated in anecdotes of dreams dreamed in common by husband and wife, but, in such cases, it may be urged that the same circumstance, or the same noise or other disturbing cause, may beget the same dream in both.  A better instance is

Colonel Meadows Taylor writes, in The Story of my Life (vol. ii., p. 32): “The determination (to live unmarried) was the result of a very curious and strange incident that befel me during one of my marches to Hyderabad.  I have never forgotten it, and it returns to this day to my memory with a strangely vivid effect that I can neither repel nor explain.  I purposely withhold the date of the year.  In my very early life I had been deeply and devotedly attached to one in England, and only relinquished the hope of one day winning her when the terrible order came out that no furlough to Europe would be granted.

“One evening I was at the village of Dewas Kudea, after a very long afternoon and evening march from Muktul, and I lay down very weary; but the barking of village dogs, the baying of jackals and over-fatigue and heat prevented sleep, and I was wide awake and restless.  Suddenly, for my tent door was wide open, I saw the face and figure so familiar to me, but looking older, and with a sad and troubled expression; the dress was white and seemed covered with a profusion of lace and glistened in the bright moonlight.  The arms were stretched out, and a low plaintive cry of ‘Do not let me go!  Do not let me go!’ reached me.  I sprang forward, but the figure receded, growing fainter and fainter till I could see it no more, but the low plaintive tones still sounded.  I had run barefooted across the open space where my tents were pitched, very much to the astonishment of the sentry on guard, but I returned to my tent without speaking to him.  I wrote to my father.  I wished to know whether there were any hope for me.  He wrote back to me these words: ‘Too late, my dear son—on the very day of the vision you describe to me, A. was married’.”

The colonel did not keep his determination not to marry, for his Life is edited by his daughter, who often heard her father mention the incident, “precisely in the same manner, and exactly as it is in the book”. {103}

If thinking of friends and lovers, lost or dead, could bring their forms and voices before the eye and ear of flesh, there would be a world of hallucinations around us.  “But it wants heaven-sent moments for this skill,” and few bridal nights send a vision and a voice to the bed of a wakeful lover far away.

Stories of this kind, appearances of the living or dying really at a distance, might be multiplied to any extent.  They are all capable of explanation, if we admit the theory of telepathy, of a message sent by an unknown process from one living man’s mind to another.  Where more than one person shares the vision, we may suppose that the influence comes directly from A to B, C and D, or comes from A to B, and is by him unconsciously “wired” on to B and C, or is “suggested” to them by B’s conduct or words.

In that case animals may be equally affected, thus, if B seems alarmed, that may frighten his dog, or the alarm of a dog, caused by some noise or smell, heard or smelt by him, may frighten B, C and D, and make one or all of them see a ghost.

Popular opinion is strongly in favour of beasts seeing ghosts.  The people of St. Kilda, according to Martin, held that cows shared the visions of second-sighted milk-maids.  Horses are said to shy on the scene of murders.  Scott’s horse ran away (home) when Sir Walter saw the bogle near Ashiestiel.  In a case given later the dog shut up in a room full of unexplained noises, yelled and whined.  The same dog (an intimate friend of my own) bristled up his hair and growled before his master saw the Grey Lady.  The Rev. J. G. Wood gives a case of a cat which nearly went mad when his mistress saw an apparition.  Jeremy Taylor tells of a dog which got quite used to a ghost that often appeared to his master, and used to follow it.  In “The Lady in Black,” a dog would jump up and fawn on the ghost and then run away in a fright.  Mr. Wesley’s mastiff was much alarmed by the family ghost.  Not to multiply cases, dogs and other animals are easily affected by whatever it is that makes people think a ghost is present, or by the conduct of the human beings on these occasions.

Absurd as the subject appears, there are stories of the ghosts of animals.  These may be discussed later; meanwhile we pass from appearances of the living or dying to stories of appearances of the dead.

Transition to Appearances of the Dead.  Obvious Scientific Difficulties.  Purposeless Character of Modern Ghosts.  Theory of Dead Men’s Dreams.  Illustrated by Sleep-walking House-maid.  Purposeful Character of the Old Ghost Stories.  Probable Causes of the Difference between Old and New Ghost Stories.  Only the most Dramatic were recorded.  Or the Tales were embellished or invented.  Practical Reasons for inventing them.  The Daemon of Spraiton.  Sources of Story of Sir George Villier’s Ghost.  Clarendon.  Lilly, Douch.  Wyndham.  Wyndham’s Letter.  Sir Henry Wotton.  Izaak Walton.  Anthony Wood.  A Wotton Dream proved Legendary.  The Ghost that appeared to Lord Lyttleton.  His Lordship’s Own Ghost.

We now pass beyond the utmost limits to which a “scientific” theory of things ghostly can be pushed.  Science admits, if asked, that it does not know everything.  It is not inconceivable that living minds may communicate by some other channel than that of the recognised senses.  Science now admits the fact of hypnotic influence, though, sixty years ago, Braid was not allowed to read a paper on it before the British Association.  Even now the topic is not welcome.  But perhaps only one eminent man of science declares that hypnotism is all imposture and malobservation.  Thus it is not wholly beyond the scope of fancy to imagine that some day official science may glance at the evidence for “telepathy”.

But the stories we have been telling deal with living men supposed to be influencing living men.  When the dead are alleged to exercise a similar power, we have to suppose that some consciousness survives the grave, and manifests itself by causing hallucinations among the living.  Instances of this have already been given in “The Ghost and the Portrait,” “The Bright Scar” and “Riding Home after Mess”.  These were adduced as examples of veracity in hallucinations.  Each appearance gave information to the seer which he did not previously possess.  In the first case, the lady who saw the soldier and the suppliant did not know of their previous existence and melancholy adventure.  In the second, the brother did not know that his dead sister’s face had been scratched.  In the third, the observer did not know that Lieutenant B. had grown a beard and acquired a bay pony with black mane and tail.  But though the appearances were veracious, they were purposeless, and again, as in each case the information existed in living minds, it may have been wired on from them.

Thus the doctrine of telepathy puts a ghost of the dead in a great quandary.  If he communicates no verifiable information, he may be explained as a mere empty illusion.  If he does yield fresh information, and if that is known to any living mind, he and his intelligence may have been wired on from that mind.  His only chance is to communicate facts which are proved to be true, facts which nobody living knew before.  Now it is next to impossible to demonstrate that the facts communicated were absolutely unknown to everybody.

Far, however, from conveying unknown intelligence, most ghosts convey none at all, and appear to have no purpose whatever.

It will be observed that there was no traceable reason why the girl with a scar should appear to Mr. G., or the soldier and suppliant to Mrs. M., or Lieutenant B. to General Barker.  The appearances came in a vague, casual, aimless way, just as the living and healthy clergyman appeared to the diplomatist.  On St. Augustine’s theory the dead persons who appeared may have known no more about the matter than did the living clergyman.  It is not even necessary to suppose that the dead man was dreaming