Sir Walter Scott, in his Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, mentions a remarkable instance of the first order of spectres. A doctor of eminence was called in to attend a gentleman who occupied a high place in a particular department connected with the administration of justice. Until the time that the physician’s services became necessary, he had shown strong common sense and extraordinary firmness and integrity in every case in which he had been called upon to arbitrate. But after a certain epoch his temper became saddened, although his mind preserved its habitual strength and calmness. At the same time, the feebleness of his pulse, the loss of appetite, and impaired digestion seemed to point out to his medical adviser the existence of some serious source of disturbance. At first the sick man seemed inclined to keep the cause of the change in his health a profound secret; but his melancholy bearing, confused answers, and the badly disguised constraint with which he sharply replied to the interrogations of the doctor, caused the latter to seek for information as to the cause of the disorder in other directions. He made minute inquiries of the various members of his unhappy patient’s family, but he could obtain no explanation of the mystery. Every one was lost in conjecture as to the reason of the alarming condition of the patient, which did not appear to be justified by any loss of fortune or beloved friends. His age rendered the idea of an unsuccessful love affair improbable, and his known integrity precluded the possibility of remorse. The doctor accordingly was compelled to return once more to the straight road, and he used the most serious arguments with his patient to induce him to conquer his obstinacy. At last the doctor’s efforts took effect; the patient allowed himself to be convinced, and manifested his desire to open his mind frankly to the doctor. They were accordingly left alone, all the doors were securely fastened, and the patient made the following singular avowal.
“You cannot be more firmly convinced, my dear friend, than I am myself, that I am on the eve of death, crushed by the fatal malady which has dried up the sources of my life. You remember, without doubt, the disease of which the Duke of Olivarez died in Spain?”
“From the idea,” replied the doctor, “that he was pursued by an apparition in whose existence he did not believe, and he died from the continual presence of this imaginary vision weighing down his strength, and breaking his heart.”
“Well, my dear doctor,” the patient went on, “I am in the same condition, and the presence of the vision that persecutes me is so painful and frightful, that my reason is totally helpless in controlling the effects of my imagination, and I feel that I am dying from the effects of an imaginary illness. My visions began two or three years since. At first I found myself embarrassed from time to time by the presence of a great cat, which appeared and disappeared I knew not how. But at last the truth flashed across my mind, and I was compelled to look upon the creature, not as an ordinary domestic animal, but as a vision which had its origin in some derangement of the organs of sight or in my imagination. I have no antipathy to cats, in fact I am rather fond of them, so I endured the presence of my imaginary companion so well that at last I treated the whole affair with indifference. But at the end of several months the cat disappeared, and was replaced by a spectre of greater importance, and whose exterior was, to say the least of it, very imposing. It was neither more nor less than one of the high officials of the House of Lords, in the full dress belonging to his dignity.
“This personage, who was in court dress, with a bag-wig on his head, and a sword by his side, his coat splendidly embroidered and his chapeau bras under his arm, glided along by my side like a shadow. Whether I was in my own house or elsewhere, he mounted the stairs before me, as if to announce my coming. Sometimes he seemed to mix with the company, although it was evident that no one remarked his presence, and I was the sole witness of the chimerical honours that this imaginary individual seemed to render to me. This phantasy of my brain did not make a very strong impression on me, although it made me conceive doubts as to the state of my health, and the effects it would produce upon my reason.
“This second phase of my malady, like the first, also came to an end. Some months after, the usher of the Upper House ceased showing himself, and he was replaced by an apparition that was at once wearing to the mind and terrible to the sight. It was a skeleton. Whether I was alone or in company this frightful image of death never quitted me; it dogged my footsteps and followed me everywhere, and seemed to be a shadow inseparable from myself. It was in vain that I repeated to myself a hundred times over that the vision was not real, and was only an illusion of my senses. The reasoning of philosophy and my religious principles, strong though they are, are powerless to triumph over the influence that besets me, and I feel that I shall die a victim to this cruel evil.”
“It seems then,” interrupted the doctor, “that this skeleton is always before your eyes?”
“It is my evil fate to see it continually before me.”
“In which case it is at this moment visible to your eyes?”
“It is at present.”