128 LETTERS ON NATURAL MAGIC. 



Mrs. A. were sitting near each other in the drawing-room 

 occupied in reading, Mr. A. felt a pressure on his foot. 

 On looking up, he observed Mrs. A.'s eyes fixed with a 

 strong and unnatural stare on a chair about nine or ten 

 feet distant. Upon asking her what she saw, the expres- 

 sion of her countenance changed, and upon recovering 

 herself, she told Mr. A. that she had seen his brother, 

 who was alive and well at the moment in London, seated 

 in the opposite chair, but dressed in grave-clothes, and 

 with a ghastly countenance, as if scarcely alive. 



Such is a brief account of the various spectral illusions 

 observed by Mrs. A. In describing them I have used 

 the very words employed by her husband in his communi- 

 cations to me on the subject ; * and the reader may be 

 assured that the descriptions are neither heightened by 

 fancy nor amplified by invention. The high character 

 and intelligence of the lady, and the station of her hus- 

 band in society, and as a man of learning and science, 

 would authenticate the most marvellous narrative, and 

 satisfy the most scrupulous mind, that the case has been 

 philosophically as well as faithfully described. In nar- 

 rating events which we regard as of supernatural charac- 

 ter, the mind has a strong tendency to give more promi- 

 nence to what appears to itself the most wonderful ; but 

 from the very same cause, when we describe extraordinary 

 and inexplicable phenomena which we believe to be the 

 result of natural causes, the mind is prone to strip them 

 of their most marvellous points, and bring them down to 

 the level of ordinary events. From the very commence- 

 ment of the spectral illusions seen by Mrs. A. both she 

 and her husband were well aware of their nature and 

 origin, and both of them paid the most minute attention 

 to the circumstances which accompanied them, not only 



* Edinburgh Journal of Science, New Series, No. iv. p. 218, 219 ; 

 No. vi. p. 244 ; and No. viii. p. 261. 



