HALLUCINATIONS OF THE SENSES. 705 



been before me in his own proper person I may almost say more viv- 

 idly. 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. . . .. Gradually I began to lose the distinction 

 between the imaginary figure and the real person, and sometimes dis- 

 puted 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." 



Or, if the person does not go out of his mind, he may be so dis- 

 tressed by the persistence of the apparition which he has created as to 

 fall into melancholy and despair, and even to commit suicide. 



" I knew," says the same author, " a very intelligent and amiable 

 man, who had the power of thus 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. 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." 



Were illustrations needed of the production of hallucination by the 

 intensity of the conception, I might take them from Shakespeare, who 

 has given many instances of these " coinages of the brain " which, he 

 says truly, ecstasy is very cunning in. Hamlet, perturbed by the ap- 

 parition of his father's ghost, whose commands he was. neglecting, 

 bends his eyes on vacancy and holds discourse with the incorporeal 

 air. A dagger, sensible to sight but not to feeling, points Macbeth 

 the way to the bed where lay Duncan whom he was about treacherously 

 to stab; he attempts to clutch it, exclaiming justly when he grasps 



nothing : 



" . . . . There^s no such thing: 

 It is the bloody business which informs 

 Thus to mine eyes. 1 ' 



In the well-known passage in which he compares the imaginations of 

 the lunatic, the lover, and the poet, Shakespeare sets forth the very 

 manner of the production of hallucinations, and illustrates the grada- 

 tions of the process : 

 vol. xni. 45 



