The following examples are also cases of singular optical deception, some of them being so extraordinary as to trench upon the supernatural, and in the days of ignorance would have given those who were their victims the character of unearthly personages.
A certain English painter, who in some sort inherited the palette of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and believed himself superior in many respects to the great master, used to boast that in one year he painted over three hundred portraits, large and small. This fact seemed to Wigan a physical impossibility, and he questioned him closely as to the secret of his astonishing rapidity of execution, for he never required more than one sitting from his patrons. Wigan states that he saw him paint a miniature of a well-known personage in eight hours, which was incomparable in its fidelity to nature and finished execution. Wigan asked him to give him some details of the method he adopted, and he gave him the following answer: “When a sitter presents himself, I look at him attentively for half an hour, sketching the outlines of his features on my canvass during the time. I have no occasion for a longer sitting, and I pass on to some one else. When I wish to continue the first portrait, I take the sitter in my imagination, and I seat him in the chair, where I see him as distinctly as if he were really there, and I can even heighten a tint, or soften down a clumsy form at will, without altering the likeness. I look from time to time at the imaginary figure, and I go on painting. I stop now and then to examine his position, absolutely as if the original were before me; for every time I look towards the chair I see the sitter. This method of proceeding has rendered me very popular; and as I have always succeeded in catching the likeness of my patrons, they have been simply enchanted at my sparing them the tedious sittings exacted by other painters. Little by little I have begun to lose the distinction between the real and imaginary sitter, and I have often maintained stoutly that my patrons had already sat to me on the previous day. At last I became convinced that it was the real sitters that I saw, and thenceforth all became confusion. I suppose my friends took alarm at my hallucinations, for I remember nothing of what happened during the thirty years that I remained in the madhouse. This long period has left no trace on my memory, except indeed the last six months of my confinement. It seems to me, however, that when my friends talk of having visited me I have some vague recollection of the fact; but it is a subject that I do not care to pursue.”
The most remarkable feature of the case is, that this artist after a lapse of thirty years resumed his pencil, and painted almost as well as when he was forced by madness to abandon his art.
This faculty of being able to evoke shadows, with which to people one’s solitude, may be carried so far as to transform real persons into phantoms. Hyacinth Langlois, a distinguished artist, living at Rouen, tells us that Talma, with whom he was extremely intimate, confided to him that, whenever he went upon the stage, he had the power, by mere force of will, to cause the clothes and flesh of his numerous auditory to disappear, and become transformed from living beings into so many skeletons. When his imagination had peopled the house with these singular phantoms, the emotion he felt was so great that it gave his dramatic powers still greater force, and enabled him to produce the wonderful effects that have made his name so famous.
Wigan says, that he once knew a most intelligent and amiable man, who could at will evoke his own image. He often laughed at seeing his second self standing before him, the phantom appearing to laugh as heartily as himself. This illusion was for a long time a matter of amusement to him, but at last he became persuaded that he was haunted by his own double. His second self appeared to hold arguments with him continually, and beat him frequently on various points of dispute, a matter which mortified him excessively, as he was rather proud of his powers of reasoning. This gentleman, although always considered as being somewhat eccentric, was never put under the slightest restraint, and at last the creature of his imagination so tormented him, that he resolved not to live through another year. He consequently paid all his debts, arranged his affairs, and waited pistol in hand until the clock struck twelve on the 31st of December, and then deliberately blew out his brains.
In Abercromby on the Mind we read an account of the observations made by a gentleman who was the victim of illusions during the whole of a pretty long life. If he met a friend in the street, he was unable to tell at first whether he saw a real human being or only a phantom. By close examination he could detect a difference between the real person and the creature of his imagination, the features of the former being sharper and more defined than those of the phantom; but in general he was obliged to test the reality of the figure he saw by the senses of touch and hearing. He was able, by concentrating his thoughts upon the appearance of any friend, to call up his image; a power which extended even to scenes that he had witnessed. Although he could produce these hallucinations at will, he was powerless in making them disappear; and when once he succeeded in calling forth these creatures of his imagination, he never could tell how long the delusion would last. This gentleman was in the prime of life, a good man of business, and otherwise in a perfect state of mental and bodily health. A member of his family possessed the same faculty, but in a minor degree.
In 1806, General Rapp, when returning from the siege of Dantzic, having occasion to speak to the Emperor Napoleon, walked into his private room without being announced, and found him in such a profound state of abstraction, that he remained for some time unperceived by his imperial master. The General, seeing him thus perfectly motionless, fancied he must be ill, and purposely made a slight noise. Napoleon instantly turned his head, seized the General by the arm, and pointing upwards, exclaimed, “Do you see it up there?” The General, hardly knowing what to say, remained silent; but the Emperor repeated his question, and he was obliged to reply, that he saw nothing. “What,” said the Emperor, “you don’t see anything? You don’t see my star shining before your eyes?” And becoming more and more animated, he went on to say, that the mysterious visitor had never abandoned him, that he saw it throughout all his great battles, that it always led him onward, and that he was never happy but when he was gazing at it.
That such hallucinations have no real existence as far as the eye goes, is proved by the fact of many people who have lost their sight, being subject to them. It is hardly to be wondered at that those who by accident have been deprived of their sight, should wish so ardently to see once more the persons and sights they have taken pleasure in, that they should at last create for themselves illusions of this character. The same thing has frequently occurred with those whose sight is more or less weak. An old man of eighty, who was purblind, never sat down to a table during the last years of his life, without seeing around him a number of his friends who had long been dead, dressed in the costume of fifty years before. This old man had but one eye, which was extremely weak, and wore a pair of green preservers, in the glass of which he continually saw his own face reflected.
Doctor Dewar, of Stirling, mentioned to Abercromby a very remarkable instance of this species of hallucination. The patient, who was quite blind, never walked in the street without seeing a little old woman hobbling on before him and leaning on a stick. This apparition always disappeared when he entered his house.
Similar illusions frequently happen to every one, even the most healthy amongst us, but a little consideration soon puts them to flight. It would be useless to mention the numberless cases in which a square tower has appeared round, or where the landscape has suddenly seemed to recede from the sight. Such illusions as these have been long well known, and appreciated at their proper value; but there are others whose true cause has remained a mystery, until explained by the progress of science, such as the Spectre of the Brocken, the Fata Morgana, and the mirage.