FOOTNOTES:
[1] But the loveliest lyrics of Tennyson do not suggest labor. I do not say that, like Beethoven’s music, or Heine’s songs, they may not be the result of it. But they, like all supreme artistic work, “conceal,” not obtrude Art; if they are not spontaneous, they produce the effect of spontaneity, not artifice. They impress the reader also with the power, for which no technical skill can be a substitute, of sincere feeling, and profound realization of their subject-matter.
[2] Mr. Alfred Austin, himself a true poet and critic, has long ago repented of his juvenile escapade in criticism, and made ample amends to the Poet-Laureate in a very able article published not long since in Macmillan’s Magazine.
[3] I have just read the Laureate’s new plays. They are, like all his best things, brief: “dramatic fragments,” one may even call them. “The Cup” was admirably interpreted, and scenically rendered under the auspices of Mr. Irving and Miss Ellen Terry; but it is itself a precious addition to the stores of English tragedy—all movement and action, intense, heroic, steadily rising to a most impressive climax, that makes a memorable picture on the stage. Camma, though painted only with a few telling strokes, is a splendid heroine of antique virtue, fortitude, and self-devotion. “The Falcon” is a truly graceful and charming acquisition to the repertory of lighter English drama.
[4] See Virgil, Ecl. viii.
[5] Napier’s Scotch Folk-lore, p. 95.
[6] The Folk-lore of the Northern Counties and the Border, by W. Henderson, pp. 106, 114. Ed. 1879.
[7] Napier, p. 89.
[8] Ibid. p. 130.
[9] Henderson, Border Folk-lore, p. 35.
[10] Henderson, Border Folk-lore, p. 35.
[11] Ibid. p. 35.
[12] Miscellanies, p. 131. Ed. 1857.
[13] Brand’s Pop. Antiqs. i. p. 21.
[14] Border Folk-lore, pp. 114, 172, 207.
[15] Kelly’s Indo-European Folk-lore, p. 132.
[16] Brand, vol. i. p. 210.
[17] Kelly, p. 301.
[18] Brand, i. 292.
[19] Henderson, p. 116.
[20] Lowell has written a good sonnet on this belief. See his Poems.
[21] Cockayne’s Saxon Leechdoms, &c. (Rolls series), vol. ii. p. 343.
[22] Anatomy of Melancholy, Part III. section 2.
[23] This church was originally the temple of Pythian Apollo, and stands much as it originally did.
[24] The peasants believe still that the Madonna opens gates, out of which her son issues on his daily course round the world—an obvious confusion between Christianity and the old Sun-worship.
[25] George Eliot’s Life. By J. W. Cross. Three volumes. Blackwood and Sons. 1885.
[26] The Empire of the Hittites. By William Wright, B.A., D.D. James Nisbet and Co.
[27] A distinguished French savant, writing in the Revue Philosophique for December 1884 has described some ingenious experiments for detecting the indications of telepathic influence—of the transference of thought from mind to mind which may be afforded by the movements communicated to a table by the unconscious pressure of the sitters. Dr. Richet’s investigations, though apparently suggested, in part at least, by those of the Society for Psychical Research, have followed a quite original line, with results of much interest.
[28] In a paper on “The Stages of Hypnotism” in Mind for October 1884, Mr. E. Gurney, describes an experiment where this persistent influence of an impressed idea could in a certain sense, be detected in the muscular system. “A boy’s arm being flexed” (and the boy having been told that he cannot extend it), “he is offered a sovereign to extend it. He struggles till he is red in the face; but all the while his triceps is remaining quite flaccid, or if some rigidity appears in it, the effect is at once counteracted by an equal rigidity in the biceps. The idea of the impossibility of extension—i.e., the idea of continued flexion—is thus acting itself out, even when wholly rejected from the mind.”
[29] M. Taine, in the preface to the later editions of his “De l’Intelligence,” narrates a case of this kind, and adds, “Certainement on constate ici un dédoublement du moi; la présence simultanée de deux séries d’idées parallèles et indépendantes, de deux centres d’action, ou si l’on veut, de deux personnes morales juxtaposées dans le même cerveau.”
[30] It is obvious that in an argument which has to thread its way amid so much of controversy and complexity, no terminology whatever can be safe from objection. In using the word self I do not mean to imply any theory as to the metaphysical nature of the self or ego.
[31] It is worth noticing in this connection that in one case of Brown-Séquard’s an aphasic patient talked in his sleep.
[32] “Mirror-writing” is not very rare with left-handed children and imbeciles, and has been observed, in association with aphasia, as a result of hemiplegia of the right side. If (as Dr. Ireland supposes, “Brain,” vol. iv. p. 367) this “Spiegel-schrift” is the expression of an inverse verbal image formed in the right hemisphere; we shall have another indication that the right hemisphere is concerned in some forms of automatic writing also.
[33] Records of carefully conducted experiments in automatic writing are earnestly requested, and may be addressed to the Secretary, Society for Psychical Research, 14 Dean’s Yard, Westminster.