"He lived respected as a pious and mirthful man, and died on his way to church to assist at a wedding on the 31st day of March, 1811; aged seventy years.
"The inhabitants of Crayford have raised this stone to his cheerful memory and as a tribute to his long and faithful services.
"The Life of this Clerk was just threescore and ten,
Nearly half of which time he had sung out Amen;
In his Youth, he was married, like other young men,
But his wife died one day, so he chanted Amen.
A second he took, she departed, what then?
He married and buried a third with Amen.
Thus his joys and his sorrows were Trebled, but then
His voice was deep Bass as he sung out Amen.
On the horn he could blow as well as most men,
So his horn was exalted in blowing Amen;
But he lost all his Wind after threescore and ten,
And here with three Wives he waits till again
The trumpet shall rouse him to sing out Amen."
[Strangely Eccentric, yet Sane.]
The study of psychology proves that hallucinations, or illusions, may exist in man without the intellect being disordered. In some instances, they can be produced, by effort of the will. Dr. Wigan, in his able work, Duality of the Mind, relates:—"A painter who succeeded to a large portion of the practice, and (as he thought) to more than all the talent of Sir Joshua Reynolds, was so extensively employed, that he informed me he had once painted (large and small) three hundred portraits in one year. This would seem physically impossible, but the secret of his rapidity and of his astonishing success was this: He required but one sitting, and painted with miraculous facility. I myself saw him execute a Kit-Kat portrait of a gentleman well known to me in little more than eight hours; it was minutely finished, and a most striking likeness. On asking him to explain it, he said, 'When a sitter came, I looked at him attentively for half-an-hour, sketching from time to time on the canvas. I wanted no more—I put away my canvas, and took another sitter. When I wished to resume my first portrait, I took the man and sat him in the chair, where I saw him as distinctly as if he had been before me in his own proper person—I may almost say more vividly. I looked from time to time at the imaginary figure, then worked with my pencil, then referred to the countenance, and so on, just as I should have done had the sitter been there. When I looked at the chair, I saw the man! This made me very popular; and, as I always succeeded in the likeness, people were very glad to be spared the tedious sittings of other painters. I gained a great deal of money, and was very careful of it. Well for me and my children that it was so. Gradually I began to lose the distinction between the imaginary figure and the real person, and sometimes disputed with sitters that they had been with me the day before. At last I was sure of it, and then—and then—all is confusion. I suppose they took the alarm. I recollect nothing more—I lost my senses—was thirty years in an asylum. The whole period, except the last six months of my confinement, is a dead blank in my memory, though sometimes, when people describe their visits, I have a sort of imperfect remembrance of them; but I must not dwell on these subjects.'"
It is an extraordinary fact that, when this gentleman resumed his pencil, after a lapse of thirty years, he painted nearly as well as when insanity compelled him to discontinue it. His imagination was still exceedingly vivid, as was proved by a portrait, for he had only two sittings of half-an-hour each; the latter solely for the dress and for the eyebrows, which he could not fix in his memory.
It was found that the excitement threatened danger, and he was persuaded to discontinue the exercise of his art. He lived but a short time afterwards.
A hallucination, although recognized and appreciated as such by the person who is the subject of it, may, by its vividness and long continuance, produce so depressing an influence on the mind as to be the cause of suicide. "I knew," says Wigan, "a very intelligent and amiable man, who had the power of this placing before his own eyes himself, and often laughed heartily at his double, who always seemed to laugh in turn. This was long a subject of amusement and joke; but the ultimate result was lamentable. He became gradually convinced that he was haunted by himself, or (to violate grammar for the sake of clearly expressing his idea) by his self. This other self would argue with him pertinaciously, and, to his great mortification, sometimes refute him, which, as he was very proud of his logical powers, humiliated him exceedingly. He was eccentric, but was never placed in confinement or subjected to the slightest restraint. At length, worn out by the annoyance, he deliberately resolved not to enter on another year of existence—paid all his debts—wrapped up in separate papers the amount of the weekly demands—waited pistol in hand, the night of the 31st of December, and as the clock struck twelve, fired it into his mouth."
We read in Dr. de Boismont's very able treatise on Hallucinations (translated by Hulme):—"All mental labour, by over-exciting the brain, is liable to give rise to hallucinations. We have known many persons, and amongst others a medical man, who, when it was night, distinctly heard voices calling to them; some would stop to reply, or would go to the door, believing they heard the bell ring. This disposition seems to us not uncommon in persons who are in the habit of talking aloud to themselves."