OPTICAL ILLUSIONS.
As I have alluded to what my family termed my "optical illusions," I
think it as well to describe a few of them, which appeared by the
context to be something more than a mere temporary disturbance of my
visual organs. I will pass over such as might be traced, truly or
otherwise, to physical causes, and confine myself to those which were
subsequently proved to be the reflection of something that, unknown to
me, had gone before. In 1875 I was much engaged in giving dramatic
readings in different parts of the country, and I visited Dublin for the
first time in my life, for that purpose, and put up at the largest and
best-frequented hotel there. Through the hospitality of the residents
and the duties of my professional business, I was engaged both day and
night, and when I _did_ get to bed, I had every disposition to sleep, as
the saying is, like a "top." But there was something in the hotel that
would not let me do so. I had a charming bedroom, cheerful, bright and
pretty, and replete with every comfort, and I would retire to rest "dead
beat," and fall off to sleep at once, to be waked perhaps half-a-dozen
times a night by that inexplicable something (or nothing) that rouses me
whenever I am about to enjoy an "optical illusion," and to see figures,
sometimes one, sometimes two or three, sometimes a whole group standing
by my bedside and gazing at me with looks of the greatest astonishment,
as much as to ask what right I had to be there. But the most remarkable
part of the matter to me was, that all the figures were those of men,
and military men, to whom I was too well accustomed to be able to
mistake. Some were officers and others soldiers, some were in uniform,
others in undress, but they all belonged to the army, and they all
seemed to labor under the same feeling of intense surprise at seeing
_me_ in the hotel. These apparitions were so life-like and appeared so
frequently, that I grew quite uncomfortable about them, for however
much one may be used to see "optical illusions," it is not pleasant to
fancy there are about twenty strangers gazing at one every night as one
lies asleep. Spiritualism is, or was, a tabooed subject in Dublin, and I
had been expressly cautioned not to mention it before my new
acquaintances. However, I could not keep entire silence on this subject,
and dining _en famille_ one day, with a hospitable family of the name of
Robinson, I related to them my nightly experiences at the hotel. Father,
mother, and son exclaimed simultaneously. "Good gracious," they said,
"don't you know that that hotel was built on the site of the old
barracks? The house immediately behind it, which formed part of the old
building, was vacated by its last tenants on account of its being
haunted. Every evening at the hour the soldiers used to be marched up to
bed, they heard the tramp, tramp, tramp of the feet ascending the
staircase."
"That may be," I replied, "but they _knew_ their house stood on the site
of the barracks, and _I didn't_."
My eldest daughter was spending a holiday with me once after my second
marriage, and during the month of August. She had been very much
overworked, and I made her lie in bed till noon. One morning I had been
to her room at that hour to wake her, and on turning to leave it (in the
broad daylight, remember), I encountered a man on the landing outside
her door. He was dressed in a white shirt with black studs down the
front, and a pair of black cloth trousers. He had dark hair and eyes,
and small features; altogether, he struck me as having rather a sinister
and unpleasant appearance. I stood still, with the open door in my hand,
and gazed at him. He looked at me also for a minute, and then turned and
walked upstairs to an upper storey where the nursery was situated,
beckoning me, with a jerk of his hand, to follow him. My daughter
(remarking a peculiar expression in my eyes, which I am told they assume
on such occasions) said, "Mother! what do you see?"
"Only a spirit," I answered, "and he has gone upstairs."
"Now, what _is_ the good of seeing them in that way," said Eva, rather
impatiently (for this dear child always disliked and avoided
Spiritualism), and I was fain to confess that I really did _not_ know
the especial good of encountering a sinister-looking gentleman in shirt
and trousers, on a blazing noon in August. After which the circumstance
passed from my mind, until recalled again.
A few months later I had occasion to change the children's nurse, and
the woman who took her place was an Icelandic girl named Margaret
Thommassen, who had only been in England for three weeks. I found that
she had been educated far above the average run of domestic servants,
and was well acquainted with the writings of Swedenborg and other
authors. One day as I walked up the nursery stairs to visit the children
in bed, I encountered the same man I had seen outside my daughter's
room, standing on the upper landing, as though waiting my approach. He
was dressed as before, but this time his arms were folded across his
breast and his face downcast, as though he were unhappy about something.
He disappeared as I reached the landing, and I mentioned the
circumstance to no one. A few days later, Margaret Thommassen asked me
timidly if I believed in the possibility of the spirits of the departed
returning to this earth. When I replied that I did, she appeared
overjoyed, and said she had never hoped to find anyone in England to
whom she could speak about it. She then gave me a mass of evidence on
the subject which forms a large part of the religion of the Icelanders.
She told me that she felt uneasy about her eldest brother, to whom she
was strongly attached. He had left Iceland a year before to become a
waiter in Germany, and had promised faithfully that so long as he lived
she should hear from him every month, and when he failed to write she
must conclude he was dead. Margaret told me she had heard nothing from
him now for three months, and each night when the nursery light was put
out, someone came and sat at the foot of her bed and sighed. She then
produced his photograph, and to my astonishment I recognized at once the
man who had appeared to me some months before I knew that such a woman
as Margaret Thommassen existed. He was taken in a shirt and trousers,
just as I had seen him, and wore the same repulsive (to me) and sinister
expression. I then told his sister that I had already seen him twice in
that house, and she grew very excited and anxious to learn the truth. In
consequence I sat with her in hopes of obtaining some news of her
brother, who immediately came to the table, and told her that he was
dead, with the circumstances under which he had died, and the address
where she was to write to obtain particulars. And on Margaret Thommassen
writing as she was directed, she obtained the practical proofs of her
brother's death, without which this story would be worthless.
My sister Cecil lives with her family in Somerset, and many years ago I
went down there to visit her for the first time since she had moved into
a new house which I had never seen before. She put me to sleep in the
guest chamber, a large, handsome room, just newly furnished by Oetzmann.
But I could not sleep in it. The very first night some one walked up and
down the room, groaning and sighing close to my ears, and he, she, or it
especially annoyed me by continually touching the new stiff counterpane
with a "scrooping" sound that set my teeth on edge, and sent my heart up
into my mouth. I kept on saying, "Go away! Don't come near me!" for its
proximity inspired me with a horror and repugnance which I have seldom
felt under similar circumstances. I did not say anything at first to my
sister, who is rather nervous on the subject of "bogies," but on the
third night I could stand it no longer, and told her plainly the room
was haunted, and I wished she would put me in her dressing-room, or with
her servants, sooner than let me remain there, as I could get no rest.
Then the truth came out, and she confessed that the last owner of the
house had committed suicide in that very room, and showed me the place
on the boards, underneath the carpet, where the stain of his blood still
remained. A lively sort of room to sleep all alone in.
Another sister of mine, Blanche, used to live in a haunted house in
Bruges, of which a description will be found in the chapter headed, "The
Story of the Monk." Long, however, before the monk was heard of, I could
not sleep in her house on account of the disturbances in my room, for
which my sister used to laugh at me. But even when my husband, Colonel
Lean, and I stayed there together, it was much the same. One night I
waked him to see the figure of a woman, who had often visited me,
standing at the foot of the bed. She was quaintly attired in a sort of
leathern boddice or jerkin, laced up the front over a woollen petticoat
of some dark color. She wore a cap of Mechlin lace, with the large flaps
at the side, adopted by Flemish women to this day; her hair was combed
tightly off her forehead, and she wore a profusion of gold ornaments.
My husband could describe her as vividly as I did, which proves how
plainly the apparition must have shown itself. I waked on several
occasions to see this woman busy (apparently) with the contents of an
old carved oak armoir which stood in a corner of the room, and which, I
suppose, must have had something to do with herself. My eldest son
joined me at Bruges on this occasion. He was a young fellow of twenty,
who had never practised, nor even enquired into Spiritualism--fresh from
sea, and about as free from fear or superstitious fancies as a mortal
could be. He was put to sleep in a room on the other side of the house,
and I saw from the first that he was grave about it, but I did not ask
him the reason, though I felt sure, from personal experience, that he
would hear or see something before long. In a few days he came to me and
said--
"Mother! I'm going to take my mattress into the colonel's dressing-room
to-night and sleep there." I asked him why. He replied, "It's impossible
to stay in that room any longer. I wouldn't mind if they'd let me sleep,
but they won't. There's something walks about half the night, whispering
and muttering, and touching the bed-clothes, and though I don't believe
in any of your rubbishy spirits, I'll be 'jiggered' if I sleep there any
longer." So he was not "jiggered" (whatever that may be), as he refused
to enter the room again.
I cannot end this chapter more appropriately than by relating a very
remarkable case of "optical illusion" which was seen by myself alone. It
was in the month of July, 1880, and I had gone down alone to Brighton
for a week's quiet. I had some important literary work to finish, and
the exigencies of the London season made too many demands upon my time.
So I packed up my writing materials, and took a lodging all to myself,
and set hard to work. I used to write all day and walk in the evening.
It was light then till eight or nine o'clock, and the Esplanade used to
be crowded till a late hour. I was pushing my way, on the evening of the
9th of July, through the crowd, thinking of my work more than anything
else, when I saw, as I fully thought, my step-son, Francis Lean, leaning
with his back against the palings at the edge of the cliff and smiling
at me. He was a handsome lad of eighteen who was supposed to have sailed
in his ship for the Brazils five months before. But he had been a wild
young fellow, causing his father much trouble and anxiety, and my first
impression was one of great annoyance, thinking naturally that, since I
saw him there, he had never sailed at all, but run away from his ship at
the last moment. I hastened up to him, therefore, but as I reached his
side, he turned round quite methodically, and walked quickly down a
flight of steps that led to the beach. I followed him, and found myself
amongst a group of ordinary seamen mending their nets, but I could see
Francis nowhere. I did not know what to make of the occurrence, but it
never struck me that it was not either the lad himself or some one
remarkably like him. The same night, however, after I had retired to bed
in a room that was unpleasantly brilliant with the moonlight streaming
in at the window, I was roused from my sleep by someone turning the
handle of my door, and there stood Francis in his naval uniform, with
the peaked cap on his head, smiling at me as he had done upon the cliff.
I started up in bed intending to speak to him, when he laid his finger
on his lips and faded away. This second vision made me think something
must have happened to the boy, but I determined not to say anything to
my husband about it until it was verified. Shortly after my return to
London, we were going, in company with my own son (also a sailor), to
see his ship which was lying in the docks, when, as we were driving
through Poplar, I again saw my stepson Francis standing on the pavement,
and smiling at me. That time I spoke. I said to Colonel Lean, "I am sure
I saw Francis standing there. Do you think it is possible he may not
have sailed after all?" But Colonel Lean laughed at the idea. He
believed it to be a chance likeness I had seen. Only the lad was too
good-looking to have many duplicates in this world. We visited the
seaside after that, and in September, whilst we were staying at
Folkestone, Colonel Lean received a letter to say that his son Francis
had been drowned by the upsetting of a boat in the surf of the Bay of
Callao, in the Brazils, _on the 9th of July_--the day I had seen him
twice in Brighton, two months before we heard that he was gone.