It is usual to explain the common stories of phantoms by attributing them to ocular illusion, aided or not aided by the imagination or by particular conditions of the bodily or mental health. The eye, of course, is never quite proof against deception, but there needs some little material for it; and in my case there was absolutely none—no waving sheet or trees or clouds, nothing but the printed page; and that was visible, unchanged except by the utterly inharmonious and contrasted image before it. My imagination was not affected before, at the time, or after. My pulse may have been a little quickened for the moment, for I did not accept the appearance as a matter of course, as we do everything, however preposterous, in a dream, but, on the contrary, quite recognized its abnormal character. I know of no existing cause of especial or temporary liability to any delusion of the kind. In short, though I have not—and had not when I continued after the disappearance to contemplate, without moving a muscle, the book against which the head had been projected, and coolly reflect upon what I had seen—the slightest belief that it was supernatural, I should be compelled, if called on in court, to swear that I had seen what must be provisionally named a spectre. "If I stand here, I saw it!"
E. C. B.
THE BIRTHPLACE OF "GEORGE ELIOT."
As the traveller is whirled along over the great stretch of railway between Liverpool and London, he passes (about midway) through Nuneaton, a busy little manufacturing town, situated in a most delightful and fruitful part of the "Garden Land." About two miles from this town (which the gifted authoress has dubbed "Milby" in her Scenes of Clerical Life), on the broad smooth highway leading to the ancient and renowned city of Coventry, stands the house where Marian Evans was born. It is a large brick building, surrounded by a well-stocked and pleasant garden, devoid of ornament, but highly suggestive of comfort and convenience—such a house as our forefathers used to build fifty years ago, when comfort was not sacrificed to appearance, and when the owner had more to do with the design than the architect.
Robert Evans, the father of the renowned authoress, was bailiff to Lord Howe and to Sir Roger Newdigate—father of the present M. P. of that name, who is such an earnest champion of Protestantism as it is reflected in the Church of England, and who has made such earnest but as yet fruitless endeavors to have a bill passed for the periodical visitation and inspection of the monastic and conventual institutions of Great Britain. Her brother, Isaac P. Evans, still occupies that responsible position, and resides in the old homestead. The country around Mrs. Lewes's early home is rich in historic associations. Not far away is Bosworth Field, and in another direction are the ruins of Astley Castle, within whose strong walls Lady Jane Grey passed a portion of her brief, chequered life. Near the castle stands—or stood—a tree in which her father, the duke of Suffolk, took refuge when pursued by the emissaries of the sanguinary queen. A small table used by him while concealed in the huge hollow trunk is still preserved.
There are several very ancient churches in the vicinity of the residence where George Eliot passed her early days. The parish church of Nuneaton, to which she alludes in her Scenes of Clerical Life, is a grand structure, six hundred years old, with a massive embattled tower containing a chime of eight melodious bells; and Coton (Shepperton) Church, which in her girlhood she attended with her parents, is perhaps still more ancient, as it is certainly more weatherbeaten and venerable in appearance. The writer's parents have often seen the future authoress sitting in the antiquated, high-peaked family pew and taking part with grave attention in the service.
In Atteborough, a village in the same neighborhood, there resided an eccentric character named Joe Liggens. He had received a university education, but, lacking application and industry, had chosen no pursuit in life, and passed his time in lounging around his native village and frequenting the tap-room of its alehouse, where, surrounded by an admiring crowd, he puffed away at his long pipe, removing it from his lips only when he deigned to express an opinion upon some subject of debate and give his open-mouthed hearers the benefit of his wisdom and erudition. When Scenes of Clerical Life first appeared in Blackwood's Magazine, describing places and persons familiar to the villagers, they naturally wondered who the author could be, and decided at last that it could be no other than Joe Liggens. Had he not been to Oxford? Didn't he know Latin and all sorts of things? And wasn't he acquainted with the scenes and personages described in the new book? No one else could be thought of combining these various and essential qualifications. When Joe was questioned on the subject he merely smiled and said nothing—the strongest confirmatory proof, and an exhibition of the modesty inherent in genius. In recognition of the honor he had conferred upon his native place, a subscription was started for the impecunious Joe, and a goodly sum was on the point of being presented to him when the real name of "George Eliot" was revealed, and Joe Liggens found himself treated as an impostor by those who had thrust upon him undeserved honors.
W. B.
THE FATE OF SOUTH JERSEY.
The Camden and Atlantic, the Philadelphia and Atlantic City, the New Jersey Southern, and some minor railroads, pass through portions of New Jersey long known as the "Jersey Barrens." They are all new roads, comparatively speaking, but they have wonderfully stimulated the enterprise that has created so many flourishing villages that ten years ago had never been heard of. Vineland, the fairest and most flourishing village in the country, as well as the largest, is only about fifteen years old. Its population is six thousand. Forbidding-looking swamps, giving rise to swarming myriads of mosquitoes and to malaria through their dank, decaying vegetation, have been converted into flourishing cranberry-meadows, and the dry land into fine vineyards and fruit-orchards surrounding homes of every grade of elegance, from the simple vine-covered cottage to the costly villa with carefully-kept evergreen hedges enclosing exquisite lawns, statues, fountains and rare flowers. The extent of these hedges is estimated at seventy-five miles.