"I was observing," continued the Doctor, "that it very frequently
happens that upon seeing or hearing something new for the first
time--that is, something entirely new to us--we feel a surprise, not
caused by the novelty of that which we see or hear, but by a very
curious echo in the mind. I say echo. I would do better to use the word
memory-echo. It seems to us, although we know positively we have never
seen or heard of this new thing in our mortal lives, that we heard or
saw it in some infinitely remote period. An old Latin writer considered
this phenomenon to be a proof of the theory of Preexistence. A Buddhist
would tell you that the soul, through all its wanderings of a million
years, retains faint memories of all it has seen or heard in each
transmigration and that each of us now living in the flesh possesses
dim and ghostly recollections of things heard and seen æons before our
birth. That the phenomenon exists there can be no doubt. I am not a
believer in Buddhism nor in the soul; but I attribute the existence of
these vague memories to hereditary brain impressions."
"How do you mean, Doctor?" asked one of the boarders.
"Why, sir, I mean that a memory may be inherited just like a mole,
a birthmark, a physical or a moral characteristic. Our brains, as a
clever writer has expressed it, are like the rocks of the Sinaitic
valley, all covered over with inscriptions written there by the long
caravans of Thought. Each impression received upon the brain through
the medium of the senses leaves there a hieroglyphic inscription,
which, although invisible under the microscope, is nevertheless
material and real. Why should not these hieroglyphs of the parent brain
reappear in the brain of the child?--fainter and less decipherable to
the eyes of the memory, yet not so faint as to be wholly lost."
There was a long silence. The moon rose higher; the bananas did not
wave their leaves; the air still glowed with the heat of the dead day;
and the stars in the blue above sparkled with that luminosity only
known to Southern nights. Everything seemed to dream except the lights
of heaven, and we dreamed also of the Infinite.
"Doctor," said a bearded stranger, who had remained silent all the
evening, "I want to ask you a question. I have lived in the West
Indies, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico; and I am something of a traveler.
I have a good memory, too. I seldom forget the sight of a city I have
visited. I remember every street and nook I have ever seen. How is it,
then, that I dream continually of places which I am positive I have
never seen, and hear in my sleep a tongue spoken that I have never
heard while awake in any part of the world?"
The Doctor smiled. "Can you describe," he asked, "the places you see in
your dreams?"
"I can, because I have dreamed of them more than a hundred times.
Sometimes I do not dream of them for a year at a time; and then again
I will dream of them every night for a week. And I always hear that
strange tongue spoken.
"I sail to these places from a vast port, surrounded by huge wharves of
cut stone--white and even-worn by the friction of a mighty traffic. It
is all sun there and light and air. There are tropical fruits heaped
up, and wines and oils and spices; and many people in brightly colored
dresses, blue and yellow. I have a queer idea that it might be some
port in the Mediterranean.
"Then I arrive after a long voyage in a strange country. I do not
remember the disembarking. I only remember a great city. It is not
built like any American or European city. Its houses are high; its
streets narrow and fantastic. I have seen in Spain a few buildings
which reminded me of those I dream about; but they were old Moorish
buildings.
"There is an immense edifice in one part of the city, with two graceful
domes, rising like white breasts against a sky most intensely blue.
There are tall and very slender white towers near the domes. There are
enormous stairways of white stone leading down into an expanse of still
water, reflecting the shadows of the palace, or whatever it may be. I
see birds there with immense beaks and flaming plumage, walking about
near the water. I have seen such birds stuffed, but never alive, except
in dreams. But I do not remember where the stuffed birds came from.
"I feel that the city is as large as one of our great Western cities
here. I do not see it, but I feel it. There is a mighty current of
human life flowing through its streets. The people are swarthy and
graceful. They look like statues of bronze. Their features are delicate
and their hair black and straight. Some of the women are naked to
the waist, and exceedingly beautiful. They wear immense earrings and
curious ornaments of bright metal. The men wear turbans and brightly
colored dresses. Some are very lightly clad. There are so many dressed
in white! All speak the same strange language I have told you of, and
there are camels and apes and elephants and cattle that are not like
our cattle; they have a hump between the head and shoulders."
"Is that all?" asked the Doctor.
"All I can remember."
"Were you ever in India?"
"No, sir."
"Have you never visited India even through the medium of art--books,
engravings, photographs?"
"I do not believe I have ever read a single illustrated book
upon India. I have seen articles brought from India, and some
pictures--drawings on rice paper; but this of very late years. I have
never seen anything in pictures like the place I have described to you."
"How long have you been dreaming of these places?"
"Well, since I was a boy."
"Was your father ever in India, or your mother?"
"My father was, sir; not my mother. But he died there when I was a
child. I was born in Europe."
"Hereditary impressions!" cried the Doctor. "That explains all your
stories of metempsychosis. The memories of the father descending to the
children, perhaps even to the third and fourth generation. You dream
of Indian cities you have never seen and probably never will see. Why?
Because the delicate and invisible impressions made upon the brain of
an English traveler in India, through the mediums of sight and sound,
are inherited by his children born in a colder climate who have never
seen the Orient, and will nevertheless be forever haunted by visions of
the Far East."