The young Agnes, aged from five to six years, always uttered piercing cries every time that they caused her to traverse the great hall. She indicated, with an expression of terror, an enormous picture which was suspended above the door, and which represented the Sibyl of Cuma. They endeavoured for a length of time to vanquish this repugnance, which they attributed to infant obstinacy; but as serious accidents happened from this violence, they ended by permitting her no more to enter the hall; and the young girl loved better, during ten or twelve years, to traverse in rain, snow, or cold, the vast court or the gardens, rather than pass under this door, which made so disagreeable an impression upon her.
The young Countess being of age to marry, and already betrothed, there was a reception at the château. The company, in the evening, wished to have some noisy game; they went into the great hall, where, moreover, the nuptial ball would be held. Animated by the young people who surrounded her, Agnes did not hesitate to accompany the guests. But scarcely had she crossed the threshold of the door, than she wished to draw back, and she avowed her fear. They had caused her to pass first, according to custom, her betrothed, friends, and uncle, laughing at her childishness, closing the doors upon her. But the poor young girl wished to resist; and in shaking and beating the door, caused the picture to fall which was above it. This enormous mass bruised the head by one of its corners, and killed her immediately.
The scene of this story is an old castle in Gallicia, doubtless, like all similar places, having attached to it many strange and wonderful legends, and many servants fully imbued with these legends, and with all the folk-lore which a district like Gallicia contains. We have no information as to what amount of this lore the nurse indoctrinated into the child, or what use she may have made of the painting in order to terrify her little charge into submission from time to time. That an inquiry, special and distinct, upon this point was necessary ere the main point of the story could be substantiated, is evident; for the establishment of this influence would at once destroy the presentiment sought to be established; and to suppose that the child was brought up without its mind being so poisoned, is to suppose a phenomenon uniquely rare. Again, the painting was a representation of the Sibyl of Cuma. In her early days, says classic history, this Sibyl was lovely; but after her short-sighted bargain with Apollo for a life as long in years as the number of grains of sand she held in her hand, forgetting to add the request for perennial beauty also, she shortly became old and decrepid, her form decayed, her countenance melancholy and pale, and her looks haggard; and it is as thus described, that we are generally accustomed to see her pourtrayed. But we are left in the dark as to whether the painting in question represented the Sibyl in early youth, in her decrepid maturity, or at the moment of inspiration, when, according to the Æneis (Book vi),—
"Her colour changed; her face was not the same,
And hollow groans from her deep spirit came.
Her hair stood up, convulsive rage possess'd
Her trembling limbs, and heaved her labouring breast.
Greater than human kind she seem'd to look,
And with an accent more than mortal spoke,
Her staring eyes with sparkling fury roll;
When all the god came rushing on her soul."
That the painting must have depicted the Sibyl in one of the two latter characters is almost certain, for in any other it would have been meaningless; and leaving the question of the extent to which her mind might be poisoned by folk-lore, or by the servants making the painting a bugbear to her,—leaving this in abeyance, what must the effect of a frightful-looking and gigantic picture, staring the child in the face, have been upon a young mind? Little doubt need be entertained of the feeling of terror with which an infant eye would regard it, and we have already shown how such a feeling, being implanted there, would become a part and parcel of its nature, and be never subsequently eradicated.
We see this feeling manifested every day in the aversion which some individuals manifest to certain animals. From emotions taught during childhood and youth, and often lost sight of in mature years, a cat, a dog, a rat, a spider, a frog, &c., has become an object of such dread to some persons, that even in advanced life the presence of one has caused the utmost annoyance and terror.
The powerful and persistent influence of ideas thus associated has been clearly and pithily expressed by Locke,[78] and his first instance has an immediate bearing upon our subject:—
"The ideas of goblins and sprights have really no more to do with darkness than light, yet let but a foolish maid inculcate these often on the mind of a child, and raise them there together, probably he shall never be able to separate them again so long as he lives, but darkness shall ever afterwards bring with it those frightful ideas, and they shall be so joined that he can no more bear the one than the other."
That the fall of the painting was caused by the vibrations occasioned by shaking and beating upon the door beneath it, seems certain; but that there was any presentimental connection (if we may so word it) between the fall of the painting and the previous dread of it,—any foreshadowing in this dread of the subsequent fall and its fatal consequences,—there is no satisfactory evidence whatever.
Another example of presentiment, quoted by Boismont, is the following:—