OCR Text |
Show HALLUCINATIONS. Here are two stories which our readers can set side by side and draw their own moral from both. A gentleman of New York, a man of education and probity, whose veracity cannot be doubted, lately related to a reporter of the New York Tribune the following occurrence: A year ago he lost a son, a young man of great promise. Coming home one afternoon in January, and entering the parlor, he saw distinctly his dead son sitting in his usual place, dressed as when alive. "I stood," said the father, "gazing at him. Then he vanished. The perspiration stood on my forehead, and my hands were like ice. I can only explain the incident by believing that my son returned and assumed bodily shape to allow me to see him once more." The reporter adds that it is impossible to doubt the sincerity of the mourning father, or that he actually did see what seemed to him to be his son. <br><br> The second story is that of Nicolai, the famous academician, who, after a period of severe mental strain, suddenly saw a figure of a dead friend standing before him. It remained perfectly distinct for eighteen minutes, and fading was succeeded by others. After a day or two, these phantoms became permanent. He thought he saw the figures of both his dead and living friends. They followed him by day or night, sat by him at his meals. He could neither summon nor dismiss them at will. "They talked together," he says. "I heard them. Their discourse was agreeable, but short, and consisting of abrupt phrases. Finally I determined to rid myself of this forced companionship, and with the aid of a surgeon, applied leeches to my head. "The leeches were applied at eleven o'clock. The room seemed then to be full of spirits. They continued to move and talk until half-past four. Then they grew silent and began to look whitish, and presently to fade, as in fog. By eight o'clock they were gone, and they have never visited me since." <br><br> The cases are parallel, except that in one the spectre [specter] was accepted as fact, and treated sentimentally, and in the other, by common-sense and medical treatment, the phantoms were shown to be the fancies of an excited brain. |