Subjective Sensations and Illusions. 821 



luncheon had been laid. There he left me, and I waited for my hostess 

 to come, but no one appeared, so, after a few minutes, I called her by 

 name, thinking she might not be aware that I had come in. Receiving 

 no answer after once again repeating her name, I walked back into the 

 veranda, where on entering 1 had observed a durzee ( or tailor ) at 

 work, and asked him where the man was who came in with me. The 

 durzee replied, ' Your Excellency, no one came with you.' 'But,' I 

 said, ' the man lifted the chik ( the outside veranda blind ) for me. ' 

 * No, j^our Excellency, you lifted it yourself, ' the durzee answered. 

 Much puzzled I returned to my friends in the grounds, exclaiming, 

 ' Here's a good joke ! ' and then telling them what had happened, and 

 what the durzee had said, I asked them if the}^ had not seen the servant 

 who called for me shortly before. They both said they had seen no 

 one. 'Why, } T OU don't mean to say I have not been in the house?' I 

 said. ' Oh yes, you were in the midst of saying something about the 

 alterations when you suddenl} T stopped and walked back to the house ; 

 we could not tell why, ' they both said. I was in perfect health at the 

 time of the occurrence, and continued to be so after it." (Phantasms, 

 499, Vol. 1. ) 



Dr. Charles M. Smith, of Franklin, St. Mary's Parish, Louisana, re- 

 lates that a lady of his acquaintance, Mrs. P. , lost her life at Last 

 Island in the terrible hurricane of August 1856. " Nearly two months 

 afterwards, on my way to visit a patient in the country, I met Mr. 

 Weeks, a brother of Mrs. P., and in the buggy with him, a lady so 

 wonderf ully like Mrs. P. , that, but for my knowledge of her death, I 

 would have declared it to be herself. The carriage and horses used by 

 Mr. Weeks were easily distinguished by certain well-marked peculiari- 

 ties from any others in the parish, and I saw these as distinctly as the 

 occupants themselves. " Dr. Smith bowed, and called Mr. Weeks by 

 name, but no notice was taken, and the buggy passed on. 



Returning home an hour later, he made particular inquiry, and found 

 that no persons in the least resembling those he had seen had arrived 

 in the village, and he afterwards learned that Mr. Weeks had been at his 

 home, 30 miles awaj 7 , at the time. "The conclusion seemed inevitable," 

 he adds, "that the whole affair was an optical delusion." (Phantasms.) 



Illusions of hearing are not so common as those of sight, but they 

 sometimes occur. " A gentleman, recently recovered from an affection 

 of the head, in which he had been much reduced by bleeding, had occa- 

 sion to go into a large town a few miles from his residence. His atten- 

 tion was there attracted by the bugle of a regiment of horse sounding a 

 particular measure which is used at changing guard in the evening. He 

 assured me that this sound was from that time never out of his ears for 

 about nine months. During all this period he continued in a very pre- 



