Imprimis, then. Of the annoyances to which the family of Mr. Wesley were subjected, I have little further to add. The story must stand or fall on the degree of credibility attached to the witnesses, but, as Doctor Southey says, it is better authenticated than any similar story on record.
In reading the letters written from Egypt, by the sister of Mr. Lane, author of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, she details a series of annoyances to which she and her brother’s family were subjected, in a house at Cairo, supposed to be haunted by an ’Efreet, or evil spirit, in consequence of a murder having been committed in it.
Some of the events closely resemble those which befel the family at Epsworth parsonage, consisting of knockings, and other annoyances, at all hours of the night, which eluded investigation; none of the native maid servants would remain in the house over a week, and although it was in every respect a delightful and most desirable residence, Mr. Lane and his sister were reluctantly compelled to abandon it.
My own detection of the “dead candle” arose in this way. On the third night of its appearance, the beam of light was as clearly defined to my sight as it had been on the two preceding nights, but it was now passing across the bed clothes more quickly, and was accompanied by a faint rustle, and that sound flashed the truth upon my mind in a moment. It was my own sister crossing the hall, and the ray of light from her live candle shining through the key-hole of the door!
I had formed a boyish admiration for the young lady who was ill, and apprehension for her fate, and thoughts of her, kept me much longer awake than usual. On the two first nights my sister crossed the hall slowly and noiselessly, in order that she might not disturb the dying sufferer, but now that the sad catastrophe was over, she moved quicker, and I could hear her!
The ANGEL—whose radiant effulgence had excited such fearful emotion in the mind of Henry Fuseli, was neither more nor less than the white dress of an Italian lady, which his hostess, not expecting his return from Frascati before the following day, had hung up on a cord stretched across the room, to dry, and its slow floating movements were occasioned by the air from the window, which was left open to facilitate the drying.
Fatigued by his long walk, he undressed the moment he gained his own apartment, and retired to rest without observing the signora’s robe, or that the window was open. The moon had risen whilst he was asleep, and was faintly shining on the white drapery when he awoke, and the effect, to an imaginative mind like his, gave it the appearance of animation.
The whole story, as related by him, was glorious—but who could relate a ghost story, or any story, like Fuseli? His choice and powerful language, and his acting of the scene, were inimitable. He was equally successful in any comic story, although in a dryer way; even his description of the manner in which the present Lady Jersey catches a flea! was irresistible. What action, what emphasis, what a look. You could have almost sworn you saw the indignant flash of her ladyship’s bold, brazen eye, and her long nose, when she discovered the little blood-sucker upon her cream-colored skin. The recollection of it is so perfect at this moment that I cannot resist a laugh as I write; but the manner of the thing I must defer until I give my Reminiscences of Harry Fuseli, in which I shall try to detail some of his literary combats at the table of Joseph Johnson, where he vanquished the great Porson, with his, Porson’s, own chosen weapon, Greek.
But his angelic ghost story was absolutely terrific; after having worked one up to the highest pitch of excitement, the denouement came so entirely unexpected. With a low, sepulchral tone, he would say, “I was mad with apprehension; and in an agony which I could not repress, I sprung up like a maniac, clutched the apparition in my arms, and came down like a dog, and broke both my shins on a d—d chair!—instead of an angel, I grasped a white gown, perhaps smock, of some Italian trollop.”