Occasionally the telepathic impression manifests itself to consciousness as a monition or impulse to perform a certain action. There is no ground for thinking in such a case that the idea transferred from the agent has in itself any special impulsive quality. The impulse towards action is no doubt the result of the percipient's unconscious reasoning on the information supplied to him.
Sometimes the impulse to action, though strong, is vague and inarticulate. Thus Mrs. Hadselle, of Pittsfield, Mass., U.S.A., narrates (Journal S.P.R., May 1891) that some years ago she experienced, when spending the evening with some friends, "a sudden and unaccountable desire to go home, accompanied by a dread and fear of something, I knew not what." She eventually yielded to her impulse, and at some inconvenience returned home, just in time to rescue her son, who was insensible through the smoke from a fire of wet sticks in his room. Professor Venturi (Annales des Sci. Psy., vol. iii. pp. 331-333) relates that in July 1885, in obedience to an irresistible impulse, he made a sudden and quite unpremeditated journey from Pozzuoli to his home at Nocera, to find his child in serious danger from a sudden attack of croup. A case is recorded in the Proc. Am. S.P.R. (pp. 227, 228), in which a lady living in a Western State awoke in the night of January 30th-31st, 1886, with a strong feeling that her daughter in Washington was ill and needed her, and in the morning telegraphed to her son-in-law, offering to come at once. There had been no previous cause of anxiety on the mother's part, but as a matter of fact the daughter had been taken suddenly and seriously ill on that night. A letter and the telegram relating to the event have been preserved. In another case Lady de Vesci, in 1872, telegraphed on a sudden impulse from Ireland to a friend in Hong Kong. The telegram arrived less than twenty-four hours before the recipient's death, an event which Lady de Vesci had no reason to anticipate for some months (Journal S.P.R., October 1891).
In another case, also recorded by Mrs. Hadselle (loc. cit.), the impulse took the form of a voice bidding her go to a certain town, where, as it appeared, an intimate friend stood in urgent need of her. The effect produced in this case was so strong that the percipient actually bought a fresh railway ticket and changed her route. In the following case the impulse found a more unusual mode of expression—viz., utterance on the part of the percipient.
No. 51.—From ARCHDEACON BRUCE.
"ST. WOOLOS' VICARAGE, NEWPORT,
MONMOUTHSHIRE, July 6th, 1892.
"On April 19th, Easter Tuesday, I went to Ebbw Vale to preach at the opening of a new iron church in Beaufort parish.
"I had arranged that Mrs. Bruce and my daughter should drive in the afternoon.
"The morning service and public luncheon over, I walked up to the Vicarage at Ebbw Vale to call on the Vicar. As I went there I heard the bell of the new church at Beaufort ringing for afternoon service at three. It had stopped some little time before I reached the Vicarage (of Ebbw Vale). The Vicar was out, and it struck me that I might get back to the Beaufort new church in time to hear some of the sermon before my train left (at 4.35). On my way back through Ebbw Vale, and not far from the bottom of the hill on which the Ebbw Vale Vicarage is placed, I saw over a provision shop one of those huge, staring Bovril advertisements—the familiar large ox-head. I had seen fifty of them before, but something fascinated me in connection with this particular one. I turned to it, and was moved to address it in these, my ipsissima verba: 'You ugly brute, don't stare at me like that: has some accident happened to the wife?' Just the faintest tinge of uneasiness passed through me as I spoke, but it vanished at once. This must have been as nearly as possible 3.20. I reached home at six to find the vet. in my stable-yard tending my poor horse, and Mrs. Bruce and my daughter in a condition of collapse in the house. The accident had happened—so Mrs. Bruce thinks—precisely at 3.30, but she is not confident of the moment. My own times I can fix precisely.
"I had no reason to fear any accident, as my coachman had driven them with the same horse frequently, and save a little freshness at starting, the horse was always quiet on the road, even to sluggishness. A most unusual occurrence set it off. A telegraph operator, at the top of a telegraph post, hauled up a long flashing coil of wire under the horse's nose. Any horse in the world, except the Troy horse, would have bolted under the circumstances.
"My wife's estimate of the precise time can only be taken as approximate. She saw the time when she got home, and took that as her zero, but the confusion and excitement of the walk home from the scene of the accident leaves room for doubt as to her power of settling the time accurately. The accident happened about 2¼ miles from home, and she was home by 4.10; but she was some time on the ground waiting until the horse was disengaged, etc. "W. CONYBEARE BRUCE."
Archdeacon Bruce adds later:—
"May 20th, 1893.
"I think I stated the fact that the impression of danger to Mrs. Bruce was only momentary—it passed at once—and it was only when I heard of the accident that I recalled the impression. I did not therefore go home expecting to find that anything had happened. "W. CONYBEARE BRUCE."