“I was sitting in my library one evening, towards the close of summer, somewhat late. The shadow of evening had been deepening for some time, for the sun had long gone down; and the expansive valley beyond and below my sloping garden was white with mist. Within, beyond the heavy folds of the curtains which hung beside a single and rather small and open window, there was a grey darkness which almost enshrouded the corners of the room on either side. I had been musing and meditating on a variety of subjects, theological, metaphysical, and moral, for more than an hour; while I reposed in a low arm-chair on one side of the fire-place.
“All of a sudden I saw what seemed to be an elongated perpendicular cloud of foggy-looking grey smoke, collected in the right-hand corner of the room. I could not comprehend what it was. While looking steadily at it, and rubbing my eyes (doubting for a moment whether I was awake or asleep), it seemed to form itself, by a kind of circular rolling motion of the smoke or luminous mist, into a human shape. There, before me, came out slowly, as it were, face, head, body, arms, hands and feet—at first a little indistinct in detail, but eventually so self-evident and clear that it was impossible to doubt the fact—of a figure, which a moment or two afterwards was developed into the exact and unmistakeable form of an old fellow-student at Oxford, who had died soon after we left that university, and of whom I had heard nothing whatever since the day of his death about seven years previously,[21] to that moment. Appearing just as he had lived, though death-like and ashen, he looked at me with a fixed and strangely-vacant stare, which appeared to grow alternately vivid and piercing, and dull and nebulous. I seemed to feel the air all at once chill and unearthly; and an indescribable sensation came over me which I had never experienced either before or afterwards. I felt almost paralyzed, and yet not altogether terrified. The form of my old college companion (who had been a very upright, devout and religious man) in a moment smiled at me, and raising his hand, pointed for a few seconds upwards. At this action a very bright mist, not exactly a light, but a luminous mist, seemed to hover over him. I tried to speak, but could not. My tongue clave to the roof of my mouth. Then, protecting myself with the sign of the Cross, and a mental invocation of the Blessed Trinity, I sheltered my eyes with my right hand for a few seconds, and then looking up again saw the apparition become more and more indistinct and soon altogether fade away.
“This is my ghost story, and I have always connected the appearance with arguments and conversations which, against aggressive objectors, used to be held at Oxford in defence of the Christian doctrines of the Resurrection of the Body and the Immortality of the Soul, in which my dead friend took so intelligent and earnest a part.”
Not less interesting is the following account of a Spectral Appearance which occurred in the latter part of the afternoon of a bright autumnal day, well authenticated, and here set forth for the first time:—
“The widow of a well-known Bristol merchant was, in 1856, acting as lady housekeeper to a Berkshire clergyman. One of her sons was an officer in the Indian army, and serving in the Madras Presidency. It was his custom to write to his mother by every fortnightly mail. He had not missed doing so with punctual regularity.
“One evening, however, between six and seven, in the month of October of the above year, the lady in question was walking on the lawn before the house, in company with the curate of the parish, a well-known Oxford man, when all of a sudden both of them saw what appeared to be a dog-cart containing three men drive along the lane which skirted the lawn and flower-garden, and which was separated from it by a closely-cut box-hedge, so low as to admit of those who were walking in the garden seeing with ease and distinctness any person approaching the house in a vehicle. It was driven in the direction of the carriage entrance, and, from the sound, appeared to have entered the court-yard of the house. One of the persons in it, he who sat behind, half rose, and looking towards his mother and the clergyman, smiled, and waved his right hand as a greeting. He looked very pale and ashy; otherwise there was nothing remarkable in his appearance. Both most distinctly observed the action just mentioned. Immediately on seeing it, the lady exclaimed with marked feeling and excitement, ‘Good heavens! why, there’s Robert.’ She at once rushed through a passage of the house, which led directly to the court-yard, only to find to her amazement and perplexity that no carriage nor dog-cart had arrived, and that the large gates of the house were, as usual, locked and fastened, and moreover had not been opened.
“The impression this remarkable incident made was deep and great. No doubt whatever existed in the minds of those who had seen and heard the passing vehicle, that the form on the seat behind was the son of the lady in question. She consequently felt confident that some harm had happened to him, became miserable, and was inconsolable. No remarks or reasoning to the contrary, several of which were attempted, produced the slightest effect. A deep gloom settled over her. The sequel can soon be narrated. In the course of a few weeks the mail viâ Southampton, most anxiously looked for, brought two letters to the lady in question, one intimating that her son had been suddenly struck with a most severe fever, was delirious and in great danger; the other intimating his death. This latter occurred on the very day at which the appearance in question was seen, but at a slightly different time.”
With the following example, as strange in itself as it is painfully interesting, this part of the subject will be brought to a close. It is only right to add that a version of the incident which now follows has already appeared in one of Mr. Henry Spicer’s interesting volumes:—
“A young German lady of rank, still alive to tell the story, arriving with her friends at one of the most noted hotels in Paris, an apartment of unusual magnificence on the first floor was apportioned to her use. After retiring to rest, she lay awake a long while contemplating, by the dim light of a night lamp, the costly ornaments in the room, when suddenly the folding doors opposite the bed, which she had locked, were thrown open, and amid a flood of unearthly light there entered a young man in the dress of the French navy, having his hair dressed in the peculiar mode à la Titus. Taking a chair, and placing it in the middle of the room, he sat down, and took from his pocket a pistol of an uncommon make, which he deliberately put to his forehead, fired, and fell back dead. At the moment of the explosion, the room became dark and still, and a low voice said softly, ‘Say an Ave Maria for his soul.’
“The young lady fell back, not insensible, but paralyzed with horror, and remained in a kind of cataleptic trance, fully conscious, but unable to move or speak, until at nine o’clock, no answer having been given to repeated calls of her maid, the doors were forced open. At the same moment, the powers of speech returned, and the poor young lady shrieked out to her attendants that a man had shot himself in the night, and was lying dead on the floor. Nothing, however, was to be seen, and they concluded that she was suffering from the effects of a dream.