Dr. Kinsolving, of the Church of the Epiphany in Philadelphia, dreamed that he “came across a rattlesnake,” which “when killed had two black-looking rattles and a peculiar projection of bone from the tail, while the skin was unusually light in colour”. Next day, while walking with his brother, Dr. Kinsolving nearly trod on a rattlesnake, “the same snake in every particular with the one I had had in my mind’s eye”. This would be very well, but Dr. Kinsolving’s brother, who helped to kill the unlucky serpent, says “he had a single rattle”. The letters of these gentlemen were written without communication to each other. If Mr. Kinsolving is right, the real snake with one rattle was not the dream snake with two rattles. The brothers were in a snaky country, West Virginia. [{43}]
The following is trivial, but good. It is written by Mr. Alfred Cooper, and attested by the dreamer, the Duchess of Hamilton.
THE RED LAMP
Mr. Cooper says: “A fortnight before the death of the late Earl of L--- in 1882, I called upon the Duke of Hamilton, in Hill Street, to see him professionally. After I had finished seeing him, we went into the drawing-room, where the duchess was, and the duke said, ‘Oh, Cooper, how is the earl?’
“The duchess said, ‘What earl?’ and on my answering ‘Lord L---,’ she replied: ‘That is very odd. I have had a most extraordinary vision. I went to bed, but after being in bed a short time, I was not exactly asleep, but thought I saw a scene as if from a play before me. The actors in it were Lord L--- as if in a fit, with a man standing over him with a red beard. He was by the side of a bath, over which a red lamp was distinctly shown.
“I then said: ‘I am attending Lord L--- at present; there is very little the matter with him; he is not going to die; he will be all right very soon’.
“Well he got better for a week and was nearly well, but at the end of six or seven days after this I was called to see him suddenly. He had inflammation of both lungs.
“I called in Sir William Jenner, but in six days he was a dead man. There were two male nurses attending on him; one had been taken ill. But when I saw the other, the dream of the duchess was exactly represented. He was standing near a bath over the earl, and strange to say, his beard was red. There was the bath with the red lamp over it. It is rather rare to find a bath with a red lamp over it, and this brought the story to my mind. . . .”
This account, written in 1888, has been revised by the late Duke of Manchester, father of the Duchess of Hamilton, who heard the vision from his daughter on the morning after she had seen it.
The duchess only knew the earl by sight, and had not heard that he was ill. She knew she was not asleep, for she opened her eyes to get rid of the vision, and, shutting them, saw the same thing again. [{45a}]