232 LETTERS ON NATURAL MAGIC. 



should appear to depend upon his own motions, or be 

 anyhow associated with himself, with his present feelings, 

 or with his past history, his personal courage will give 

 way, a superstitious dread, at which he himself perhaps 

 laughs, will seize his mind, and he will rather believe 

 that the sounds have a supernatural origin than that 

 they could continue to issue from a spot where he knows 

 there is no natural cause for their production. 



I have had occasion to have personal knowledge of a 

 case much stronger than that which has now been put. 

 A gentleman, devoid of all superstitious feelings, and living 

 in a house free from any gloomy associations, heard night 

 after night in his bedroom a singular noise unlike any 

 ordinary sound to which he was accustomed. He had 

 slept in the same room for years without hearing it, and 

 he attributed it at first to some change of circumstances 

 in the roof or in the walls of the room, but after the 

 strictest examination no cause could be found for it. It 

 occurred only once in the night ; it was heard almost 

 every night, with few interruptions. It was over in an 

 instant, and it never took place till after the gentleman 

 had gone to bed. It was always distinctly heard by his 

 companion, to whose time of going to bed it had no 

 relation. It depended on the gentleman alone, and it 

 followed him into another apartment with another bed, 

 on the opposite side of the house. Accustomed to such 

 investigations, he made the most diligent but fruitless 

 search into its cause. The consideration that the sound 

 had a special reference to him alone, operated upon his 

 imagination, and he did not scruple to acknowledge that 

 the recurrence of the mysterious sound produced a 

 superstitious feeling at the moment. Many months 

 afterwards it was found that the sound arose from the 

 partial opening of the door of a wardrobe which was 

 within a few feet of the gentleman's head, and > which 



