Account of a remm-hable case of Spectral Illusion. 219 



previously well aware of the existence and nature of this class 

 of facts, and, so far from regarding the present case as at all 

 supernatural, or even out of the ordinary course of things, 

 they watched it from its commencement as a case of spectral 

 illusion, and have therefore impressed upon the narrative a 

 character which does not belong to any previous case where 

 the patient and the narrator were the same person. 



" On the 26th of December 1829, about half-past four in 



the afternoon, Mrs was standing near the fire in the hall, 



and on the point of going upstairs to dress, when she heard, as she 



supposed, my voice calling her by name, * Come 



here, come to me.' She imagined that I was calling at the door to 

 have itopened, wentto it, and was surprised on opening it to find 

 no one. She returned towards the fire, and again heard the same 



voice calling very distinctly and loud ' ~ — Come, come here.' 



She then opened two other doors of the same room, but seeing no 

 one, she returned to th&fire place. After a few moments, she 



heard the same voice still calling, ' Come to me, 



come, come away ;' this time in a loud, plaintive, and some- 

 what impatient tone. She answered as loudly, ' Where are 

 you ? I don't know where you are,' — still imagining that I was 

 somewhere in search of her ; but receiving no answer, she 

 shortly went up stairs. On my return to the house about half 

 an hour afterwards, she inquired why I had called to her so 

 often, and where I was ; and was of course surprised to hear 

 I had not been near the house at the time. 



" On the SOth of the same month, at about 4 o'clock p. m. 



Mrs came down stairs into the drawing-room, which 



she had quitted a few minutes before, and on entering the 

 room, saw me, as she supposed, standing with my back to the 

 fire. She addressed me, asking how it was I had returned so 

 soon. (I had left the house for a walk half an hour before.) She 

 said I looked fixedly at her with a serious and thoughtful ex- 

 pression of countenance, but did not speak. She supposed I was 

 busied in thought, and sat down in an arm-chair near the fire, 

 and close within a couple of feet at most of the figure she still 

 saw standing before her. As, however, the eyes still continu- 

 ed to be fixed upon her, after a few minutes she said « Why 

 don't you speak ?' The figiire upon this moved off to- 

 wards the window at the further end of the room, the eyes still 



