"About the end of March 1881, after recovering from severe illness, while I was yet confined to my bed, I had the following experience. I was staying at the time at 172 Benefit Street, Providence, R.I.
"I had been asleep and suddenly became, as it were, half awake, being conscious of some of the objects in the room. I then heard a voice as if from the room adjoining, and made an effort to see the speaker, but I found myself unable to move. Then appeared, as though in a mist, an ordinary sofa, and behind it the vague outline of a woman's figure. I did not recognise the figure, but I recognised the voice which I heard; it was the voice of my hostess, Mrs. B., who was at that time not in the house. She was saying, 'I am ill and all worn out. Mrs. Z. has been so nervous, and in such a peculiar mental state, that it has quite affected my health' (or words to that effect), 'but I wouldn't for the world have her know it.' I then made a stronger effort to distinguish the figure, and woke completely to find myself in my room with my nurse. I inquired of the nurse who was in the other room, which was used as a sleeping-room by my child and her nurse. She said that no one was there; but I was so convinced that the voice had come from there that I insisted upon her going and looking. She went, but found no one there, and the door into the hall was latched. I then looked at the clock, which was opposite my bed. It was about 5 P.M. In the evening, about 8 P.M., Mrs. B. came up to see me, and I asked her where she had been that afternoon at 5 o'clock. She said that she had been at Mrs. G.'s (about two miles off). I said, 'You were talking about me.' She said, 'Yes, I was,' looking very much surprised. I repeated to her what I had seemed to hear her say, word for word. She was much astonished, and was very curious as to what else I had heard or seen. I told her that it was all very vague, except the appearance of the sofa, which I described in detail as being covered with a peculiar striped linen cloth, green stripes about two inches wide, alternating with pale-drab stripes, somewhat wider, which appeared to be the natural colour of the unbleached linen. She said that she had spoken the words which I had heard, and that she was at the time reclining on a sofa, but she said that the sofa was covered with green velvet.
"Next day Mrs. G. paid me a visit, and after hearing my story she exclaimed, 'You're right. The sofa had at the time the covering which you describe; it had just been put on. There is green velvet under the covering. I suppose Mrs. B. didn't notice the cover.'"
Mrs. B. writes:—
"In the year 1881, while living in Providence, on Benefit Street, No. 272, Mrs. Z. was with me, and during the winter of 1880 and the spring of 1881 she was in a peculiar mental state, and on two occasions read my thoughts and heard my voice. I remember distinctly on one occasion, when I returned from a visit to a friend, Mrs. Z. repeated the conversation that had passed between my friend and myself, and spoke of my lying on a lounge that had a striped covering. I said, 'No, it was a green plush,' but found afterwards she was right, as the summer covering had been put on.
"ELIZABETH L. B.
"BROOKLYN, N.Y., June 1887."
Mrs. G. writes from Providence, July 12th, 1887:—
"When I received your note I could not at all recall the circumstances of the vision you referred to, but afterwards Mrs. B. refreshed my memory upon the subject, and I distinctly recalled it. It was as Mrs. Z. related it to you. At the time it occurred, I remember, I thought it quite marvellous.
"Sickness had prevented my writing you these few lines before.
"C. B. Y. G."
Even if the conversation was correctly reported, it is probably not beyond the range of conjecture by a morbidly sensitive invalid; but the details given of the appearance of the sofa cover seem to indicate a telepathic faculty, like Dr. Phinuit's, of drawing on the agent's unconscious perceptions. Mrs. L. Z. gives also an account of a voluntarily induced clairvoyant dream, in connection with the same friend, which occurred about this time, and this account also Mrs. B. is able to corroborate. The whole case is interesting as serving to indicate that some conditions of disease may be favourable to this form of telepathy, and as being the only case which I am able to quote of spontaneous clairvoyance in which the impressions transferred were of quite trivial incidents. Mrs. Z. appears to have been in a state between sleeping and waking.
The next case occurred in a dream at night. The dream, it will be noted, caused the percipient to awake.
No. 111.—From MRS. FREESE.
"GRANITE LODGE, CHISELHURST,
March 1884.