"I enclose you photograph and an extract from my sister-in-law's letter, which I received this morning, as it will verify my statement. Mr. Husbands saw the figure either the 3rd or 4th of February 1885.
"The people who had occupied the rooms had never told us if they had seen anything, so we may conclude they had not.
"K. FALKNER."
The following is Miss Falkner's copy of the passage in the letter:—
"You will see at back of Mr. du F——'s photo the date of his decease [January 29th, 1884]; and if you recollect 'the Motta Marques' had his rooms from the February till the May or June of 1884, then Major Money at the commencement of 1885 season. Mr. Husbands had to take the room on February 2nd, 1885, as his was wanted.
"I am clear on all this, and remember his telling me the incident when he came to see my baby."
At a personal interview Mr. Gurney learnt that Mr. Husbands had never had any other hallucination of the senses. (Proc. S.P.R., vol. v. p. 416.)
It is, of course, conceivable that before his experience Mr. Husbands may have heard of the death of Mr. D. and have forgotten the circumstance. But this supposition will hardly account for the recognition of the photograph. In any case, however, there can be no justification for invoking other than terrestrial agencies to explain the vision. Until such agencies are proved inadequate to account for the facts a narrative of this kind can scarcely be held to raise a presumption, much less to afford a proof, of the action of the dead. Miss Falkner and her brother had known the dead man; no fact about him was communicated which was not within their knowledge; and there is nothing to negative the supposition that some echo of their thoughts or dreams may have given rise to the vision. A very similar case is quoted in the same volume (Proc., vol. v. p. 418). Mr. D. M. Tyre, of St. Andrews Road, Pollokshields, Glasgow, stayed for some time in a lonely house in Dumbartonshire. On several occasions during their occupancy of the house Miss L. Tyre saw the figure of an old woman lying on the bed in the kitchen. The figure lay with the face turned to the wall, and the legs drawn up as if from cold. On her head was a "sow-backed mutch," i.e., a white frilled cap of a peculiar shape common in the Highlands. The others who were present did not see the figure. It was subsequently ascertained from a neighbour that the description given correctly represented the dress and attitude of a former occupant of the house, who had died there some years before under painful circumstances. M. Richet (Proc., vol. v. p. 148) gives an account of some spiritualist séances at which the promise was given that his grandfather, M. Charles Renouard, would appear. A figure resembling M. Charles Renouard was actually seen some days later, not by any of those present at the séance, but by an English lady staying in the house, who was believed to know nothing of the expected apparition.
A similar explanation may perhaps apply to the following account, which was communicated verbally to Mr. Myers on the 12th October 1888 by the percipient, Mr. J., a gentleman well known in the scientific world. Mr. Myers explains that the account which follows was written out by him from his notes of the conversation, and was subsequently revised and corrected by Mr. J. himself.
No. 93.—From MR. J.
"In 1880 I succeeded a Mr. Q. as librarian of the X. Library. I had never seen Mr. Q., nor any photograph or likeness of him, when the following incidents occurred. I may, of course, have heard the library assistants describe his appearance, though I have no recollection of this. I was sitting alone in the library one evening late in March 1884, finishing some work after hours, when it suddenly occurred to me that I should miss the last train to H., where I was then living, if I did not make haste. It was then 10.55, and the last train left X. at 11.5. I gathered up some books in one hand, took the lamp in the other, and prepared to leave the librarian's room, which communicated by a passage with the main room of the library. As my lamp illumined this passage, I saw apparently at the further end of it a man's face. I instantly thought a thief had got into the library. This was by no means impossible, and the probability of it had occurred to me before. I turned back into my room, put down the books, and took a revolver from the safe, and, holding the lamp cautiously behind me, I made my way along the passage—which had a corner, behind which I thought my thief might be lying in wait—into the main room. Here I saw no one, but the room was large and encumbered with bookcases. I called out loudly to the intruder to show himself several times, more with the hope of attracting a passing policeman than of drawing the intruder. Then I saw a face looking round one of the bookcases. I say looking round, but it had an odd appearance as if the body were in the bookcase, as the face came so closely to the edge and I could see no body. The face was pallid and hairless, and the orbits of the eyes were very deep. I advanced towards it, and as I did so I saw an old man with high shoulders seem to rotate out of the end of the bookcase, and with his back towards me and with a shuffling gait walk rather quickly from the bookcase to the door of a small lavatory, which opened from the library and had no other access. I heard no noise. I followed the man at once into the lavatory; and to my extreme surprise found no one there. I examined the window (about 14 in. x 12 in.), and found it closed and fastened. I opened it and looked out. It opened into a well, the bottom of which, 10 feet below, was a sky-light, and the top open to the sky some 20 feet above. It was in the middle of the building, and no one could have dropped into it without smashing the glass nor climbed out of it without a ladder—but no one was there. Nor had there been anything like time for a man to get out of the window, as I followed the intruder instantly. Completely mystified, I even looked into the little cupboard under the fixed basin. There was nowhere hiding for a child, and I confess I began to experience for the first time what novelists describe as an 'eerie' feeling.
"I left the library, and found I had missed my train.
"Next morning I mentioned what I had seen to a local clergyman, who, on hearing my description, said, 'Why, that's old Q.!' Soon after I saw a photograph (from a drawing) of Q., and the resemblance was certainly striking. Q. had lost all his hair, eyebrows and all, from (I believe) a gunpowder accident. His walk was a peculiar, rapid, high-shouldered shuffle.
"Later inquiry proved he had died at about the time of year at which I saw the figure." (Proc. S.P.R., vol. vi. p. 57.)
Mr. J. states that he has seen but one other hallucination, a figure representing his mother, which appeared to him at the time of the birth of one of his sisters.
A hallucination of another kind was seen independently in the same library by Mr. R., the principal assistant, and a clerk, Mr. P. Mr. R. writes in 1889:—