Red Stapelia. _Stapelia rufa._
Dedicated to _St. Edmund, King_.
~November 21.~
_The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary._ _St. Columban_, Abbot,
A. D. 615. _St. Gelasius_, Pope, A. D. 496.
_Ghost of an Arm Chair._
A lady assured the editor of the “Perennial Calendar,” of the truth of
the following story. She had ordered an armed chair which stood in her
room to be sent to a sick friend, and thought it had been sent
conformably to her orders. Waking, however, in the night, and looking by
the light of the night-lamp at the furniture in her room, she cast her
eyes on the place where the said chair used to stand, and saw it, as she
thought, in its place. She at first expressed herself to her husband as
being vexed that the chair had not been sent; but, as he protested that
it was actually gone, she got out of bed to convince herself, and
distinctly saw the chair, even on a nearer approach to it. What now
became very remarkable was, that the spotted chair-cover which was over
it, assumed an unusual clearness, and the pattern assumed the appearance
of being studded with bright stars. She got close to it, and putting her
hand out to touch it, found her fingers go through the spectrum
unresisted. Astonished, she now viewed it as an illusion, and presently
saw it vanish, by becoming fainter till it disappeared. Dr. Forster
considers this apparition as affording a clue to one mode by which
spectra are introduced, namely, by local association. The lady had
anticipated seeing the chair in its place, from its always being
associated with the rest of the furniture; and this anticipation of an
image of perception was the basis of a corresponding image of spectral
illusion.
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