Mrs. M. writes (December 15, 1891) that before her vision she hadheard nothing about hauntings in the house occupied by herself and herhusband, and nothing about the family sorrows of her predecessorsthere."One night, on retiring to my bedroom about 11 o'clock, I thought Iheard a peculiar moaning sound, and some one sobbing as if in greatdistress of mind. I listened very attentively, and still itcontinued; so I raised the gas in my bedroom, and then went to thewindow on the landing, drew the blind aside, and there on the grasswas a very beautiful young girl in a kneeling posture, before asoldier in a general's uniform, sobbing and clasping her handstogether, entreating for pardon, but alas! he only waved her away fromhim. So much did I feel for the girl that I ran down the staircase tothe door opening upon the lawn, and begged her to come in and tell meher sorrow. The figures then disappeared gradually, as in adissolving view. Not in the least nervous did I feel then; went againto my bedroom, took a sheet of writing-paper, and wrote down what Ihad seen." {77}Mrs. M., whose husband was absent, began to feel nervous, and went toanother lady's room.She later heard of an old disgrace to the youngest daughter of theproud family, her predecessors in the house. The poor girl tried invain to win forgiveness, especially from a near relative, a soldier,Sir X. Y."So vivid was my remembrance of the features of the soldier, that somemonths after the occurrence [of the vision] when I called with myhusband at a house where there was a portrait of him, I stepped beforeit and said, 'Why, look! there is the General!' And sure enough it_was_."Mrs. M. had not heard that the portrait was in the room where she sawit. Mr. M. writes that he took her to the house where he knew it tobe without telling her of its existence. Mrs. M. turned pale when shesaw it. Mr. M. knew the sad old story, but had kept it to himself.The family in which the disgrace occurred, in 1847 or 1848, were hisrelations. {78}This vision was a veracious hallucination; it gave intelligence nototherwise known to Mrs. M., and capable of confirmation, therefore theappearances would be called "ghosts". The majority of people do notbelieve in the truth of any such stories of veracious hallucinations,just as they do not believe in veracious dreams. Mr. Galton, out ofall his packets of reports of hallucinations, does not even allude toa veracious example, whether he has records of such a thing or not.Such reports, however, are ghost stories, "which we now proceed," orcontinue, "to narrate". The reader will do well to remember thatwhile everything ghostly, and not to be explained by known physicalfacts, is in the view of science a hallucination, every hallucinationis not a ghost for the purposes of story-telling. The hallucinationmust, for story-telling purposes, be _veracious_.Following our usual method, we naturally begin with the anecdotesleast trying to the judicial faculties, and most capable of anordinary explanation. Perhaps of all the senses, the sense of touch,though in some ways the surest, is in others the most easily deceived.Some people who cannot call up a clear mental image of things seen,say a saltcellar, can readily call up a mental revival of the feelingof touching salt. Again, a slight accidental throb, or leap of asinew or vein, may feel so like a touch that we turn round to see whotouched us. These familiar facts go far to make the following talemore or less conceivable.
